Interview by Camille Germain
After their fourth studio album, Zora, debuted at number one on the ARIA Australian Album Charts, sibling trio Sheppard opens up about their creative journey and the deeply personal inspiration behind their music. Lead vocalist George Sheppard, whose early passion for film scores and cinematic storytelling shapes the band's vivid musical palette, describes their songwriting process as "being an antenna" – always ready to capture elusive moments of inspiration.
The album artwork reflects the band's evolution, tracking a visual journey from the darkness of space in "Bombs Away" to the sunrise yellows of Zora. This latest album, named after their resilient Croatian grandmother, emerged from a particularly challenging period during COVID-19 lockdowns. "It was the first time we've ever started an album through a cathartic process," George explains. "It was like therapy. We were just making ourselves feel better."
The three siblings – George, Amy, and Emma – bring distinctly different personalities to their creative process. The eldest but most playful, George dreams up experimental directions, while Amy provides the practical balance, and Emma, though youngest, grounds the group with her natural leadership. Now based in Nashville and celebrating the ten-year anniversary of their global hit "Geronimo" (which has crossed 1 billion streams), Sheppard aims to rebuild their American fanbase with the same warmth and authenticity that have earned them 36x Platinum certifications across 19 countries and over 2 billion streams worldwide.
CAMILLE: With how colorful your sound and aesthetic are, how would you describe your connection to color throughout your lives and musical journey?
GEORGE: I feel like for me personally, music and color are very closely intertwined. I mean, we always make music with a visual in mind. It's kind of like you're writing a score for some visual thing.
I've always been a big fan of movies and cinema. I've been quite passionate about it my whole life. I initially wanted to be like an actor, filmmaker - someone in that cinema world. So, I listened to a lot of movie scores growing up. A really big part of my formative years was listening to Hans Zimmer and Thomas Newman. Just letting the music speak.
It didn't always have to have lyrics, you know. Just listening to these beautiful instrumental songs. I could just feel color in the music. I could see visuals with the music. And so we try and write music that feels like it's exploding with color. I want to see the confetti. I want to see the pyrotechnics. I want to see the lasers. I want to feel that with the music.
When we’re writing, there are more than a few moments of over-excitement. We’ll find the right post-chorus hook and [the song] just starts to take off. You can just feel a whole arena of people jumping - even though we’re not playing arenas.
It's something that's always been closely aligned with our music. What's the visual to it? A lot of the time the visual is super vivid, bright, euphoric colors. I'm glad that comes across in our music.
I think the albums have gone from dark to light as well. Bombs Away was sort of in space and it was really kind of dark and just a little sliver of color. And then Watching the Sky was like navy and it was sort of like those blue kind of tones. Then Kaleidoscope Eyes was really, really pink. And then Zora's yellow. So it's almost like a sunrise.
Over the course of our career, it has become more and more clear as to what we're doing and who we are as a band. I think you can see that pretty clearly just in the album covers.
CAMILLE: And you've been a band since 2010 or 2009?
GEORGE: Somewhere around there, yeah. I mean, Amy and I started writing songs together in 2009. I guess Shepard started officially as a band in 2011.
CAMILLE: What does your creative process look like and where does your inspiration come from?
GEORGE: Well, I am constantly looking for that pesky inspiration. It's very elusive. It sort of shows up when you least expect it. That's why you hear stories about people waking up in the middle of the night and opening their voice memos and just hum a tune. It's like, you wake up from a dream with an idea and you don't know where it comes from.
I kind of liken it to being an antenna. Like, you know, songwriters and artists are just creative antennas and like there's some other source and we're just, you know, a bit better at tuning those antennas - but everybody's got one. The process is different with every song, you know? I might start with a guitar line or a chorus line - an idea for a hook. Or it might come out as a concept or something specific you want to write about. And then you sort of start to jam out on that idea. No two songs come about the same way, but it's all about being in tune with that antenna. Just kind of like listening and trusting your inner voice creatively. With a lot of this album, we'd go in and have these sort of shotgun songwriting sessions. Pretty much like speed dating where we'd go and write with a whole bunch of people on a writing trip in LA.
And there might be two or three songs where you're like "cool, let's keep working on those ones." Then we'd get the stems and add them back in Australia where we'd keep experimenting with them. It's kind of like pottery, building an album. You can just keep on adding to it and like keep on sculpting bits away. Every song starts like a blob of clay. Something's formed- like a certain particular shape to - but it doesn't have any detail. It doesn't have any finesse to it. And I think the process is just, you know, slowly bringing that sculpture into focus. Figuring out what details need to be added and what needs to be stripped away.
CAMILLE: What would you say your main tools are, that like the physical tools beyond the refining that you do?
GEORGE: Hmm, I think…I mean the most important tool that I have is an acoustic guitar. You can just like get so many ideas out with that. And then like probably the MIDI keyboard. I mean, the MIDI keyboard is like the most versatile tool that any producer owns. It's kind of like you can play any instrument with this machine. Between that and an acoustic guitar, you can get a lot of ideas onto the computer or onto the session.
You’d think I’d have a lot of, like, new plugins that I use - but I always just go back to the ones that I trust. There are certain ones that just work in every situation.
CAMILLE: How has the experience of creating Zora differed from previous albums?
GEORGE: It's probably the first album that we've had to write, as opposed to being like, oh, let's write music for fun. It was a really tough time for the band and our family. We were right in the middle of COVID, and I know everybody was going through it. We spent that 2020 writing and releasing a song every month, and it was like: "all right, the world's locking down. That's cool. We're going to get to work. This is what we're going to do for the year."
The hope was that by February 2021 we'd be able to release all of these songs as an album and that would be the whole concept behind our third album: even though you're in lockdown, you can still be in a dream world.
We released the album in 2021, but it was still locked down so we couldn't tour, we couldn't go anywhere, we couldn't do anything. It was starting to feel like nothing was working. Nothing was changing. The world was locked down and we couldn't connect with other humans. The best part of an album release is getting out there and meeting fans. Getting to hear your own songs sung back to you. Music is really about that connection and we didn't get any of that.
So we essentially got straight back to work writing for ourselves, to make ourselves feel better. A lot of the songs that came out of us were about holding on through the dark times. Being resilient. Waiting for the new dawn to come, trusting that the sun's going to rise again. That was the first time we've ever started an album through a cathartic process, you know? It was like therapy. We were just making ourselves feel better.
That's kind of what this album has that the other albums don't have: it came from that authentic place of needing to be written.
CAMILLE: How would you describe each of your personalities, and how do they all balance each other?
GEORGE: We're all very different people at the end of the day. Like we are siblings, but we're very much our own humans. And funnily enough, it feels like the maturity order is the opposite of the age order. I'm the eldest, but I'm also the most playful. I've got my head in the clouds. You know, very extroverted, social person. I love adventure, I love traveling, I love exploring. I don't really enjoy being bogged down in adult life. And you know, the younger you go down the family tree the more mature it gets. Amy's sort of somewhere in the middle. Where she's like a little bit airy-fairy up in the clouds, dreamy, but is also fairly good at that adulting stuff.
Emma feels like the oldest sibling. She's just got her life together. She's very organized, she's the one that cooks dinners. She's essentially like our manager. I don't know how that happened. I really don't know what point Emma decided to be the older sibling.
But, you know, we’re all the kind of people that would give you the shirt off our back. Building human connection and wanting to feel that with our fans is definitely something that we’re all very passionate about.
CAMILLE: How would you say that contributes to how you write music and collaborate with each other?
GEORGE: I think it balances itself out. I'm like, "let's try something completely different and go really crazy. Let's do psychedelic pop!"
Amy's like, "Well, let's think about it properly. What are our fans going to like?" and "I don't like psychedelic pop, so let's figure out what we're all going to like." So there's a nice balance of crazy dreams and down-to-earth-ness, like an anchor and a kite situation. We can still go wild and crazy and experiment with our ideas, but it's never gonna stray too far from what feels authentically Sheppard.
That's always the challenge for us. How do we reinvent ourselves without straying too far from what makes us who we are?
CAMILLE: I know Amy does country music as well and she has more of like roots in that and interest. So what would your personal music taste be and what would Emma's be as well? Like away from Sheppard?
GEORGE: I can't really speak for Emma, but she loves more folky music, like Gregory Alan Isakov and Ray LaMontagne.
I really love, I think I mentioned it earlier, but instrumental scores - movie scores. I listen to a lot of classical music.
In terms of modern artists, I'm into chill electronica. I really love bands like RÜFÜS DU SOL. One of my favorite bands is Tame Impala. I was born in Perth and those guys are from Perth, so I've been following them for a very long time.
I love bands like Air. They were a very big one for me growing up. Or Moby. Coldplay's a big one for me. They've always been my favorite bands since I was a teenager. So I think they've had quite an influence on what we do.
CAMILLE: What is your pre-show routine like? How does it differ from your preparation for recording a track?
GEORGE: Well, I think I actually do warm-ups for the show.
When you're in the recording studio, it's like you're in a room talking to people and writing. So, it would feel weird to say, "Sorry guys, can you give me 10 minutes? I'm just going to go outside and blow into a straw and a glass of water," in the middle of that. There's actually like a proper professionalism to a live show.
Once we've done the sound checks and we do the VIP meet and greets, we go backstage, have a bite to eat and then we'll just play a YouTube video. Amy's got one that she really likes to use and it's like a little 10 minutes and then I've got some tricks from my acting school.
I really like to listen to music and just conserve energy. I'll just be, like, sitting in the corner with my headphones in and my eyes closed, waiting for the first moment of the show. It's kind of like charging up a battery and then it's all on once that curtain comes up.
CAMILLE: Is there anything that you kind of avoid?
GEORGE: I stay away from milk or milk in the coffees. I mean, anything that's going to dehydrate you is a no-go. Your vocal cords really need to be hydrated. So like anything like alcohol or coffee that's going to dry out your voice is your mortal enemy on a show day.
You want things like hot tea with honey, like a throat coat tea. There's a lozenge I have called Bicalso, which I get from the UK. It's like an explosion of herbs and peppermints and lemongrass and all the stuff that just makes your sinuses feel like it's on fire in a good way.
I will afford myself one small Red Bull before I go on. Usually, fizzy drinks are a no-go too, but the energy that it gives me is outweighed.
CAMILLE: What has been the most noticeable growth you’ve seen with your music since you started as a band?
GEORGE: I think the jump between the second and third albums, just in terms of quality. I feel like we really clicked with Kaleidoscope Eyes.
I was so proud of it. We had these instrumental sections and transitions, and it was like the first album that we'd been able to craft a complete listening experience.
I was just very, very happy and proud of that album. It made it all the more disappointing and disheartening when we had to release it through COVID.
We took what we've learned on Kaleidoscope Eyes and we're just trying to do it even better with Zora.
Zora as a whole album has an aesthetic. The art around it, and the colors and the track lists and having the grandma as, you know, the central character in it-
I think it's probably been the album that we've put the most of ourselves into as people. It's the most real and raw that we've been, and I feel like that's probably the biggest leap in terms of us being artists. Just in who we are as songwriters and as a band has probably been the biggest leap.
CAMILLE: What are three of your top goals as a band for the next year?
GEORGE: Really, really reconnecting with our fans. I mean, that's kind of what we're trying to do with this tour. Reminding everybody in the States who wants to see Sheppard or who loves Sheppard, that we're here! We're still a band. We're still making new music. It's a strange thing being away from the spotlight for seven years. Even though we were doing everything in Australia, it's like if you're not in America, it's out of sight, out of mind.
It's essentially like we just arrived again, we're starting all over.
So we really just want to connect with our fans over here and then step two is to build that fan base into something really beautiful and special.
We really want that community around our music. We want people to feel like even if they come to a show on their own, they’re going to leave with a bunch of new friends.
Like when we go to a Coldplay concert, for example, everybody shares this feeling of love and respect for one another. We want to emulate that in our own shows as well. It's like we want everybody in the crowd to know that they're in a safe place, and that the show is for everybody. I feel like that's the big second step - growing our fan base into something that is like a living being of its own.
And then step three is to play stadiums. Very big steps from two to three.
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