Going Deep with Shallow Alcove

“I spent a really long time being like ‘Oh I have ADHD; that’s why I’m messed up I guess :/’ and not seeing it as like a neutral thing to be working with. So if I can ever help anyone else with those feelings, I’m happy to. Idk if you have that but yeah. 

Also, this song [listen here] kind of reminds me of ur music, I think this band is cool!”

In December 2023, a friend of mine sent me this string of texts that would go on to change my life in two ways. One being that I had undiagnosed ADHD, an idea I had never really considered before that had caused car crashes in my life almost everyday as a kid. But also, my friend introduced me to the band Shallow Alcove, a band that would reignite my childhood love of art, and whose music made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the things in life that I valued. Incidentally, three years later, I would hear the band talk about how their ADHD fuels their art and friendship with one another, too.

Shallow Alcove, as they describe themselves on their website, is a band of friends fronted by Grace Krichbaum and Dan Harris, with Peter Groppe, Jack Harrington, and Noah Dardaris. They combine stacked vocal harmonies, catchy guitar riffs, and diary-like lyrics to form a tender soundtrack to young adulthood. Their music is based in their love of DIY folk music and colored with narratives of friendship, the changing of the seasons, bad haircuts, and the ache of growing up. What started as friends writing songs in the bedrooms and basements of Upstate New York has since shifted to the apartments and studios of New York City and Philadelphia, but Shallow Alcove’s roots have remained the same: story-telling with the people they love.

I was able to see the band perform some of their newer material with some fan favorites, including “Aim To Please!,” “We’re All Doomed,” “Wishes on Weeds,” and my personal favorite, “Heart Shaped Locket.” In the latter, Grace sang the last lines, “The hard part is it never lasts but the best part is just that you / had it” acapella into the mic as the band faded away, singing softly but with the attention of the entire room. It brought their studio recordings to life in a way that felt just like their ethos: emotional and unapologetic. 

Grace led me upstairs to the green room, and once inside, introduced me to the rest of the band. The interview ended up being with Grace and Dan, who were both extremely kind, complimentary, and generous with their words and time. Speaking with them felt just like how it feels listening to their songs, reminders that connecting and giving are the best things in life to do. Here’s part of that conversation.

What are you looking for in your favorite music? And what do you hope that your listeners take from your music?

Dan: Is this where we should start?

I had an easy question and then a question that was more of a bomb. But starting here’s good!

(They both laugh) Dan: Well, generally, I listen to music that confuses me. I also just listen for things that, off-rip, just kind of align with my taste. I just love a little chair-creak-core music, really hot mics, really quiet, delicate performances. I also love just really loud music, really emotional music in general.

Grace: I think I like music that I see myself in because I’m selfish. I want to relate to it, unfortunately. And I think that that’s kind of what I want out of our music too. I do like when I listen to things and I’m like ‘Oh, that’s so me’. I felt alone in that. And I like when people feel that way about our music. To me, that’s the most amazing thing ever. I’d much rather connect with somebody because they were like, ‘I see myself in that, and this helped me’, than have a cool answer.

Not selfish at all. The fact that you want to give that back to people, what you receive from music, is the opposite of that.

Grace: Thank you, that makes me feel better. Because I’m like, ‘What do I listen to music for?’ I wanna see a reflection of myself. 

That’s how we feel less alone. And that’s how we communicate. I love that answer. 

Dan: Exactly! And I just want to make cool stuff. Another thing that really gets me is when people come up to us about our music, when they’re not music school people or scholastic or academic people. I think music, especially folk music, should be for the people. Our approach to music has never been, ‘What’s the theory behind this?’ It’s always been about, ‘How does it make you feel?’

What’s the best thing about your favorite lyrics, and any favorite songs?

Grace: Well, my favorite is when songwriters make the specific universal. Like how Phoebe Bridgers can talk about drinking a shower beer and completing a payment plan, and it sounds so specific, but it’s so honest that it’s relatable to everybody. As long as you’re being honest, there’s no amount of specificity or lack of vagueness that will prevent it from being universally felt.

Yes, “Scott Street,” so good! My best friend and I met through that song. I played it at a party, everyone but me was on MDMA and was like, ‘Who played this really slow song?’ But she was the only one who thought it in a good way. It’s so good.

Dan: (Laughs) At a party is a power move.

Grace: Yes, it’s so good! Those were the good days, when her first album had just come out.

Dan: For me, I feel the things that really just rock me with lyrics are half the time … things that I’m just, ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ It almost makes no sense to me at first. And on the flip, I think I’m a big fan of just really simple lyrics. I really like a lot of classic music, a lot of just classic folk and rock songwriting. But my favorite song of all time is “I’d Rather Go Blind” by Etta James, because I think the lyrics, the music, everything is so simple in it. And the whole point is I’d literally rather be blind to see you walk away from this relationship. That image is so powerful to me, because it’s not overly thought out.

I feel those are almost similar. Both really simple words and ones where you have no idea what it means. Both of them kind of make you lean in, because they catch you off guard because they’re extremes … most people don’t actually speak that way in real life. What’s the closest that you’ve come to that in your own writing?

Dan: “It’s no wonder why I feel washed up when I’m only 23, when women start depreciating after 17.” That’s a bar. It’s a crazy lyric. That’s heavy. Or, “The hard part is that time, it passes, the best part is that time it / passes. / The hard part is it never lasts but the best part is just that you had it.”

I think that might be my favorite lyric by you guys.

Grace: Aw, thanks!

That’s my favorite song of your songs.

Grace: Really? Good, I’m playing it tonight! And I do love those lyrics. Those are some of my favorite lyrics that we have. I really like even just silly lyrics and “Wishes on Weeds,” where it’s, “Roll the windows down / Just to drive past the dead end / The one where we got naked / And lit off those sparklers.” Such a highly specific thing.

Dan: Also, from our newer songs, “When I’m eating key lime pie, it makes me wanna cry like it’s 1999.” It’s so funny. And oddly specific.

Grace: And we realized that 1999 was the year I was born. So it makes me want to cry. Like a baby!

That’s so good, that was an accident?

Both: Yes!

Grace: You just tap into something else.

Because you’re not reserved or thinking about it.

Grace: Exactly. You don’t care.

Speaking of new music, congrats on making this new album. How’s it been going?

Grace: Thank you! I think the most surprising thing for me was how much it just fell together. I felt in the past I’ve held on really tightly to creative things where everything has to be intentional. And at the end of it, I was just like, ‘Oh, this album just ended up having all these goals that I have for it’. It ended up fulfilling themselves on their own.

Dan: I’m a super fast-paced ADHD kind of guy, generally speaking. And this was the longest, most planned process. We went up to Vermont for two weeks to write the record all together, then went up in January for three weeks and recorded it all. It was the most procedural process, but it ended up working out awesome. This is the first time we ever worked on a body of songs at the same time, and I feel that, in a good way, it took the hyperfocus away from individual songs. And just allowed us to see them as an overall picture.

Grace: It’s good to stay on task.

Yeah, he mentioned ADHD-ing out.

Grace: (Laughs) Yes, there’s a few of us.

Does it exponentially grow when you’re together?

Both: Yes!

Grace: It’s really fun.

Dan: It all happens at the same time. Playing music while hanging out, that’s the real cheat code they don’t tell you in school.

Visuals are a really big part of your band. What are your biggest visual inspirations, and also, what do you think is the importance of the relationship between visual and audio art?

Grace: I love the relationship between music and art. I love Chappell Roan, obviously. She’s so intentional and perfect. I feel it’s a lot of non-musicians, crafters. Or visual artists. I love Carol Ades. Carol Ades’s stuff is so perfect. I’m obsessed with everything that she does …. Tattoo artists are so good, children’s books, Frog and Toad! A lot of times I pick up children’s books from the thrift store or whatever to get inspiration. I love Fancy Nancy. Yeah. Maisy Mouse.

Dan: I personally feel I don’t have the visual gene, and I envy it. The equivalent of visuals for me is live shows, and the live arrangement.

Grace: Music and art, I feel being able to marry them is such a privilege because you get to make your other musical art piece, your music, and then you get to make a companion piece to try to get to the bottom of the feeling again. You’re like, ‘Okay, if I didn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel of the feelings with a song, I get another try to just really get in there’ and be like, ‘Okay, did I really scrounge up everything that I wanted?’

All right, I’ll give you guys the bomb question if you want. 

Both: (Laugh) Yes!

Do you think we ever truly get over our exes?

Dan: Hard yes for me.

Grace: I think I can still care about them as people. But it’s been very clear to me, I can’t believe there are people I used to cry over, and now I think about them and I feel nothing.

Dan: I’m also just smitten by my girlfriend. I’ve been with her for seven years, so everything before that just pales in comparison.

What are your best guesses at what being in love is?

Dan: Being in love is the easiest thing in the whole world. It should be easy. It should be really easy. It should be pretty much a no-brainer. There should be an overwhelming feeling of ease and forward momentum where you’re just like, ‘Yeah, I wanna do that’. There should be no doubts. Not that I’m not trying to preach perfectionism. And also, I know relationship OCD is very real. But there should be an overwhelming feeling of ease.

It takes a lot of effort and effort is so cool. It should be effort that is easy to put in. There’s momentum behind that effort where you’re [feeling like] ‘I love this person, I’m just gonna do it’.

My favorite part about the relationship I’m in is it was formed on being individual people. I think it is really cool to be a pair, but it’s also sick to have separate friends that are also friends with each other. I’m friends with her family, she’s friends with my family.

I kiss my girlfriend goodnight who falls asleep three hours before me. And I think about 30 minutes. I’m like, ‘God, my girlfriend’s so sick’. Oh, when we play Red Rocks, she better be there. To be clear, she is my best friend and she is the greatest thing. And to be clear, I love music. That’s just my relationship is amazing.

Grace: For me, being in love is … I think about it in my head before I fall asleep every night, I just imagine sweet things that we’ll do someday. Every night, always, for six years.

Dan: These are really good questions, this is so fun.

I love asking questions, and I loved your answers. Thank you guys so much!

For more on Shallow Alcove, see shallowalcove.com.