Magazine
Shawn Brown
“Sometimes all that’s left to do is turn the guitars up, sing your heart out, and go down swinging.”
Shawn Brown doesn’t chase comfort. Across a decade-plus of stops and starts, the Portland songwriter has kept circling back to the same question: what does it cost to hold onto someone when everything else is coming apart? On “What a Way to Go,” produced by Grecco Buratto (Shakira, Lionel Richie, Tegan and Sara), that question finally gets the arrangement it deserves — pounding rhythms, a chorus built for a full room, guitars turned up past the point of politeness. We caught up with Brown ahead of the single’s release to talk about the song, the room it was made in, and what’s next.
On the song’s origin
Divine Magazine: “What a Way to Go” feels like it was written in a specific emotional moment. What was that moment for you?
Shawn Brown: I don’t know that there was one specific personal moment behind it. It’s more of a feeling, I think. It was more about trying to capture that feeling when you’re young and in a relationship that feels undeniable, even when everything around you is unstable. There’s this belief that if you just hold on hard enough, you can somehow outrun whatever is coming. I love the naïveté in that, there’s something really beautiful about it. That was the emotional space I was interested in.
Divine Magazine: The track leans harder into guitar-driven rock than some of your earlier work. Was that a conscious shift?
Shawn Brown: Not really in the sense of deciding, “Now I’m going to make a rock record.” The song just wrote itself that way. Once we started working on it in the studio, the guitars got bigger, the drums got more aggressive. I’ve always loved loud guitar music, so it felt pretty natural.
On working with Grecco Buratto
Divine Magazine: Grecco Buratto has produced everyone from Shakira to Lionel Richie. What did he bring to this record that you couldn’t have gotten on your own?
Shawn Brown: Grecco is really good at globally understanding what a song is trying to be and then pushing everything toward that without overcomplicating it. He has incredible instincts about when something needs another layer or when everybody just needs to get out of the song’s way. We both had a pretty clear sense of where this song was going, so it’s always fun to work together to figure out fun ways to get there.
Divine Magazine: You recorded at The Trench in Portland with your full band — Ben Landsverk, Jeff Langston, Ned Failing. How much of the song’s backbone came from that lineup versus the studio itself?
Shawn Brown: We already know each other really well musically, so that’s really the key. There’s a level of trust with Ben, Jeff and Ned where we can lean into a new idea fully knowing something cool is going to happen. That chemistry was already there before we walked into The Trench. The studio gave us the space to capture it and Grecco and Greg helped shape it, but the backbone really comes from that trust and from having played together enough that we can just let the song happen.
On the story inside the song
Divine Magazine: The press materials describe the song as a portrait of young romance tested by instability. Is that instability personal, cultural, or both?
Shawn Brown: Probably both, but I wasn’t initially trying to write some big cultural statement. It’s more that young relationships don’t often exist in a vacuum. Money, family, faith, where you live, what you think your life is supposed to become—all of that set against a backdrop of political and economic instability creates a pretty fraught reality. I was pretty struck by the idea that sometimes when you’re young, you can believe love is somehow exempt from all of those things – and why not, right? The song lives in that tension.
Divine Magazine: There’s a defiance to the chorus, but also something bittersweet underneath it. Which one wins by the end of the song?
Shawn Brown: It’s definitely bittersweet. The characters are defiant because they have to be, but I don’t know that the song necessarily believes defiance is going to save them. “What a way to go” can sound triumphant, but there’s something pretty sad and resigned in there too. You can know something probably isn’t going to last and still believe it was worth throwing yourself into.
On what comes next
Divine Magazine: You’re releasing a limited vinyl 45 with “What a Way to Go” and bonus track “Hold Fast,” plus two Portland shows this summer. What can fans expect from those?
Shawn Brown: The 45 is really just a chance to get some physical content out there again. “What a Way to Go” and “Hold Fast” made sense as a little snapshot of where the music is right now. And the shows are always fun. These songs get bigger and a little messier live, which is exactly how I like them.
Divine Magazine: Since returning to music in 2021, your catalog has moved through soul, R&B, roots rock, and now this more explosive rock sound. Do you think about where “What a Way to Go” fits in that arc, or does each song exist on its own terms?
Shawn Brown: I think the songs exist on their own terms first. I’ve never been particularly interested in deciding ahead of time what genre I’m supposed to be representing, which has certainly bummed out a few A&R folks along the way. The common thread is probably my voice and the way I write, more than the production around it. Looking backward, I can definitely see an arc through everything Grecco and I have done since 2021, but while I’m making records I’m mostly just trying to figure out what each song needs and follow it as far as I can.
“What a Way to Go” is out now. Follow Shawn Brown for upcoming Portland tour dates and details on the limited-edition vinyl 45.