Sheprador’s Hot ‘Take’

Garrett North wasn’t sure what took him so long, but in January 2024 at the age of 32, after two decades of playing music, he booked his first studio session to flesh out a demo he’d made of a single song. Six months later, that demo turned into him fronting a full band with a whole set’s worth of material which debuted in the headlining spot at The Cicada in late June. Tiny Giants and Vacation Dad handled the opening slots, and the club was full. Sheprador played like they’d been at it for years rather than a few studio sessions that grew into regular rehearsals over a few months, and I felt like I’d seen Fort Worth’s next don’t-sleep-on-them band.

North said that when he booked time with Mark Randall and Nick Tittle at Blackstone Recording Studio on the East Side in January, “I had this new tune that I’d recently written, kind of a bare-bones, three-chord cowboy song called ‘Take.’ And from there, that’s where the whole thing kind of took off.”

For nearly a decade, North, a drummer and guitarist, had the concept of the band and its name (shared with his dog Waylon, a shepherd/Labrador mix, or a Sheprador), but he’d never released any music. “Part of that was never really having the people around to rehearse and write with in a live setting.”

He did have experience playing with others. Like many local musicians — a good chunk of the Texas Gentlemen comes to mind — North honed his chops playing drums at church.

“I’ve been playing drums since I was 10,” he said, “and I did that for most of my life into my early 20s, playing church gigs for money … but I’d never really played in bands. None of my friends were musicians, at the time. Nobody I really hung out with played music. But I’ve always been a songwriter, playing guitar and writing stuff by myself. … It’s always just been a thing I’ve done for me, and that’s how [Sheprador] started. I always wanted to make a legit record, just for myself. I enjoy playing music. I enjoy recording.”

North said he’s spent a ton of time watching music documentaries heavy on in-studio footage, and he wanted to turn his vicarious experience into the real thing.

“I’ve always wanted to do that, kind of get in [the studio] and see what happens,” he said, “and that’s what occurred in January. I came into [Blackstone] with a song that was pretty rough and didn’t really have a sound or a direction for it, and then [Sheprador’s Jordan Dyer] laid down this keyboard part with a Rhodes sound, and I thought, ‘Oh, this kind of sounds like an ’80s thing.’ ”

After finishing that song, North said, “I noticed it sounded an awful lot like the stuff I was writing eight years ago, when I was doing a lot of home recordings after work and on weekends. So, I kind of unearthed those demos that I had on my computer, and those ideas have now turned into songs that we’ve recorded.”

North said that about a month before he went into the studio, Dyer, whom he knew from various Near Southside live music/drinking establishments, coincidentally reached out to him looking to collaborate, “to do some keyboard work or drum work, just looking to record with people,” North said.

He hadn’t yet booked the Blackstone session, but once it was scheduled, North called Dyer, who “came in, and we ran through the song. I showed him the chord changes. We spent some time getting a keyboard sound, let that marinate, and then when we got locked into that Rhodes sound. It opened a lot of possibilities.”

North’s only direction: “I didn’t want it to sound country at all.”

Though the track might have started out with “cowboy chords,” “Take” sounds far closer to R.E.M. than Townes Van Zandt. Its mid-tempo velocity comes from studio-drummer Nick Tittle (Arenda Light) and bassist Aaron Haskin (Dead Vinyl), with guitarist/keyboardist Eric Webb (Cut Throat Finches) complementing Dyer’s keys and North’s guitar.

On “Take,” North and his band package a lot of soul-searching and a big singalong hook in the kind of chorus-and-reverb-guitar texture that carried Bruce Springsteen to the heights of his late-’80s power, boosted to maximum wattage in the choruses by Katie Robertson’s and Claire Hinkle’s backing harmonies. The combo of Blackstone engineer Mark Randall’s production and Jordan Richardson’s mastering at Electric Barryland in Justin gives the song major Big Single energy. If you tuned into KTCU or KXT and heard “Take” — or “Exit/In,” the other Sheprador song North released recently — you might wonder if it was a deep cut from Tunnel of Love.

Like the Boss’ voice, North’s is comfortable in a lower register. On “Take,” he contemplates the difficulties inherent in a relationship, and his low notes make the melancholy in his melody stand out like the grain and whorls in a piece of polished oak.

“It takes a little heart,” he sings, his voice sounding like a warm blanket offered as a prelude to bad news. “It takes a little effort on your part / And it might take a while / Take some of the shine out of your smile.”

North said his songwriting is rooted in sadness. “I think I write about painful things, coming from feelings of hopelessness, but I try to write in a way that helps me come to terms with all that.”

North, a father, is present to life’s rampant dangers and despair, but having a child has softened his viewpoint a little.

“I think the way I look at the world has changed,” he said. “I do feel more hopeful about life. I have to. I have to show [my daughter] that there are good things in the world, and I try to write to show that there’s a lot worth living for. Even …,” he chuckled in the way one might after escaping some ominous scenario, “even when that thing that’s worth living for doesn’t go the way you were expecting.”

For now, one of those positive motivations is finishing a full-length.

“We’re not that far into the recording for the album,” North said, “but we’ve got most of the songs written. … Before, all the songs were demos I’d done myself, and I thought it would be a solo project with me playing all the instruments, but now we’ve been writing as a band, and that’s been interesting. … It just happened in such a way that it got better with every session, adding that other ear, that other skill set.”

Sheprador hopes to release the album early next year.

“Honestly,” North said, “I didn’t have any intentions of playing shows, let alone go on the road … but … we have several [concerts] lined up. Part of being in a band around here is that you see the same bands at the same places every five weeks or so. I want to get out to Denton and Dallas, Austin, wherever we can go.”

With songs as good as “Take” in their set and a live debut that left the crowd amped and excited for Show No. 2 (which, as it happens, is at the Double Wide in Dallas on Saturday, Aug. 17), Sheprador’s road looks wide open.