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Saying goodbye to her marriage and the Mendoza Line, the songstress comes alive.

BY LAVINIA JONES WRIGHT

 

 

For her solo debut, former Mendoza Line chanteuse Shannon McArdle had only one objective: to avoid being labeled Alt-country. And if fans and critics can listen to Summer of the Whore without expecting it to resemble Mendoza line, then they will definitely find that it doesn't and McArdle will have succeeded. With a miscellany of styles being explored throughout - "Poison My Cup" toys at ‘60s girl group riffs and drums, "That Night in June" slides into a haunting and groggy waltz meter, and the steely guitar hits and fizzy organ riffs on "Leave Me For Dead" hark to "70s movie soundtracks - Summer is an affecting and complex album by a woman who found herself suddenly unaccompanied in life and in music after divorcing bandmate Timothy Bracy. Between classes - McArdle is a teacher in New York - BLURT spoke to the affable singer about her unexpected solo turn.

 

 

BLURT: Why did you call the record Summer of the Whore?

 

I wrote the song "Summer of Whore" about the summer of 2007, which was just awful for me. It's just about the feelings of desperation and the worthlessness you feel when you're desperate for any type of company. Not to say I was a whore in the summer of 2007, that's a character of course, but it's about going through extreme sadness and desperation and confusion, and anger and then realizing that I'm not married anymore. I had all these questions about how my life is going to be as far as men are concerned.

 

 

BLURT: You weren't really a trained musician when you joined Mendoza Line. Is becoming a solo artist something you ever expected?

 

No and I still don't. I still know my ten chords on the guitar. I play the guitar to write songs and I play on the record, and I'm going to play guitar live, but I'm the world's worst guitar player because I don't have any interest in getting better at it! Writing came very easy to me because no one discouraged me, I didn't realize that you were supposed to know how to play guitar. It certainly was not what I expected to do.

 

 

BLURT: What were the feelings between the band members about disbanding the Mendoza Line?

 

There was never really a disbanding, there was never really any talk about it. It was just obvious that the band couldn't go on because Tim and I weren't together anymore. It was something we had both worked on together and developed together, so we decided that neither of us would use the name anymore. I think everyone else was just so uncomfortable about what had happened between Tim and me that I don't think they thought so much about it.

 

 

BLURT: Do you feel like maybe it was a good thing for you because you got to make a solo record?

 

For years I had been thinking about doing a solo record and there never seemed to be time because if there was time for writing songs or touring or recording, it had to be dedicated to the band. Doing a solo record was a wonderful experience, and it's been almost a year and half, so I'm beginning to think that the marriage breaking up is somehow a good thing. It'll become clear to me why in the future.

 

 

BLURT: There are a lot of different styles being mixed together on the record, but it seems that all the songs are coming from the same place emotionally. It's kind of like this string that ties all the songs together.

 

Yeah, I decided pretty early on that I wanted a narrative, starting out with these extremely raw, angry, pathetic feelings and trying to end on some sort of either hope or a strong note with the second to last song "Come Out and Breathe," which sort of contemplates finding love again.

 

 

BLURT: Did writing the songs help you deal with the things you were feeling at the time?

 

I'm sure writing them helped, and the thing that helped most was finishing a project. Just having it done, I feel a tremendous feeling of relief and pride.

 

 

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