Some real high-profile concerts have recently been organized in Bangkok, with a wide range of K-Pop bands drawing huge crowds to Rajamangala Stadium while at Impact Arena, such international stars as Placebo, Pitbull, Justin Bieber, and Pet Shop Boys, to name just a few, have secured Bangkok’s name as the next great destination for mega-concerts. Then we even have huge names such as Snoop Dogg and Rihanna who had chosen Phuket as the location to shoot their next music videos, creating massive (both positive and negative) worldwide exposure for Thailand on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Shane Wooding in his home studio in Bangkok
While this is all nice and beneficial for the already rich corporations and international artists, the truth is that the genuine local music scene is not that vibrant at all. If you enter any drinking or eating establishment which has a stage then all you’ll hear are those tedious cover songs of the very same bands, with the Eagles’ Hotel California, The Cranberries’ Zombies, and the Scorpions’ You and I being repeated over and over again.
The truth is that, new bands and musicians, both Thai and foreigners, have little choice when it comes to the songs they can play at a gig. When the first thing that the bar manager asks you is: “can you play any of the favourites?” as mentioned above, you’ve got very little room left for any creativity and a small chance to ever be able to expose the audience to your own, original work.
Luckily, due to the advancement of technology and the possibility of selling music via online stores these days, musicians in Thailand can now continue with their own passion and produce the music that their hearts and talents demand them to. Such a person is Shane Wooding, a Bangkok-based musician who was born in South Wales in the UK, but who has been living in Thailand for the last fifteen years.
Shane went to university in London and, upon graduating with a degree in geology and chemistry had left the UK, never really returning to Wales. He started to work as a geochemist in the field of petroleum, oil and gas exploration, a job that has taken him all around the world, and eventually led him to Asia. He settled in Thailand where he married, started a family and, in-between the time he had to dedicate to work and his two children, he continued his passion for writing and playing music which, years later, has translated into two albums, ‘Pure Delight’ (2010) and ‘Sacrifice’ (2012).
A soft-spoken musician who now has his own home-based recording studio, Shane started playing the acoustic guitar when he was twelve years old, without actually initially learning the notes. Like most people who are into music, he’s been to different guitar teachers and institutes, as he wanted to develop his skills in several areas. However, not until he joined a music institute in Malaysia did he learn the basic things that people in music school learn, such as theory, technique and repertoire.
Referring to the time when he started playing in bands, where he learned to play the electric guitar and follow the moves along with a rock band, Shane admitted that “it is much more challenging to perform on your own because you’ve only got yourself to play with and you’ve got to do more things. In a band, if you play rhythm guitar for example, you’re spreading the responsibility to the other members of the band too, while when you’re playing on your own, it’s a much more individual effort.”
From Malaysia, his work took him to Indonesia and some years later to Thailand where, for a long time, being caught up with work and starting a family, it didn’t allow him much time for music. “These days I just play by ear and although I think being able to read notes is important, being able to pick up the guitar and, by just listening, to be able to define the key a song is played in, is a far more important musical skill than reading notes,” Shane declared. “Being able to play by ear is the skill that gives you flexibility in playing with other people.”
In 2007, Shane took the conscious decision to try and go out there and play, just as he had for many years in Malaysia and Indonesia, where he had been a member of different bands who performed music in bars, concert halls and folk clubs. “I put an ad on a forum and a number of people answered, one of them being Michael Embley, a rock-metal drummer and principal at an international school in Bangkok, who was keen on performing our own music, rather than regurgitating cover songs.”
“It’s just very hard to maintain and stay in a band here in Thailand, especially if you want to play original music. If you try to do something different from the expected cover songs, there’s very little opportunity for such a band to find a venue around town,” said Shane.
The two put together a band, which had many different names, but eventually Crystalyne was agreed upon to be the official band name. When the band had developed enough original songs, Shane put together ‘Pure Delight,’ Crystalyne’s first album, which comprises of nine songs reflecting the development and evolution of the band. “The problem with Crystalyne was that the band members wandered off and got involved in other activities that took them away from music. Most of them, with the exception of Michael, were in the band just for the enjoyment of playing and were not into song writing and so they could not grow any roots with the band,” said Shane, somewhat disappointed.
‘Pure Delight’ was recorded at Paradise Production in Bangkok with the help of Nicolai Kehlet, a professional producer, recording engineer and musician from Denmark. The intention was to capture the essence of the songs Crystalyne had written over the three years they were together between 2007 and 2010. “The songs represent a crystallisation of perceptions and emotions that have been in my head for more than two decades,” explained Shane Wooding, who wrote the lyrics and played the guitar while also being the vocals.
Apart from Shane, the band through its evolution included Nipat Supaporn playing the guitar, Michael Embley on drums and bass, Akapol Dilokwattanakul and Kip Oxman on bass, and Yarat Chantaros on drums. Together with Shane, Nicolai Kehlet played guitar, bass and the keyboards on the album. Unfortunately, the band wrapped up its activity for good in 2011: “They were people like me, with a profession and a family, so the band was always the second, or third, or even the fourth thing that they concentrated on, rather than the first,” confessed Shane. The album they left behind has a 70s and 80s rock feel to it, as most members of the band were and still remained fans of rock music.
‘Blue Butterfly’
As a young musician, Shane played almost exclusively the acoustic guitar, which you can hear a lot on his second, solo album called ‘Sacrifice.’ Released in 2012, the nine songs on this album have a distinctive country feeling and were written by Shane, again recorded at Paradise Production. Together with Shane, Nicolai Kehlet played guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and performed backing vocal duties on the album. There’s a lot of acoustic guitar work in all the songs, which is what Shane Wooding had favoured in his youth and in his 20s. “They are songs about skeletons in the cupboard, relationships that went to waste, social injustice, getting lost and trying to understand the important things in life that really matter,” wrote Shane on the back cover of the album.
Although his long time music partner Michael Embley had moved to China and later on to Dubai in the UAE, they’ve managed to keep in touch and are now recording a new album called ‘Sand and Water.’ Describing the concept of this new project, which they expect to finish sometime next year, Shane explained that “the album is about how pointless life is and how, one day, all will turn to sand and water.”
Apart from working on his own music, Shane Wooding is using his home studio to gear up, encourage and motivate young musicians. Blue Butterfly is a band made up of eleven and twelve year old Thai and foreign school children that gather at Shane’s house every Saturday to tune their music skills and work on their own recordings.
The songs from ‘Pure Delight’ and ‘Sacrifice’ are available via the indie online music store CD Baby and the iTunes Store at only $0.99 US each. You can download them from his store page or contact Shane via email for the CD versions (shanewooding[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk).
Initially published in Mango Metro (November 2013, Vol. 7, No.12)
