A pair of Shanes—Everett (left) and Barnard

When Shane Barnard and Shane Everett met in college, they never planned to be musicians. But that's just where they've ended up, as two of the most popular in Christian music, selling a total of about 350,000 albums since their 2002 debut, Psalms. Their latest CD, Clean, debuted at #2 on SoundScan's Christian sales chart and at #5 on the overall Christian chart. The first single from Clean, a cover of Twila Paris' "He is Exalted," is receiving numerous radio spins in multiple formats, quite a feat. We spoke to the Shanes about Clean and life as musicians.

You put out two albums in one year. Your concert dates extend from this past fall to this coming spring. Don't you guys ever rest?

Shane Everett: That is the million-dollar question. We stumbled into this music thing. We never really asked for it, and that is the irony of what we do. We were both going to school at Texas A&M and got plucked out by the providence of the Lord. So many great things have happened over the past six and a half years. We're off a month-and-a-half in December and January, then we'll be home about three days a week after that. This is the first time that has ever happened. It feels like the last day of school to know we will have a considerable amount of time at home.

How many concert dates a year are you averaging?

Everett: It's been anywhere from 250 to 300. Now, we are looking at about 160-170.

What did it take to realize you were doing too much and make changes?

Everett: About a year and a half ago, we realized we needed to make some changes. When it's happening, you are in the middle of it, and your adrenaline is pumping and you feel like you are doing the will of God. Then, you just wake up and say, "We need to slow down!" You realize that you need to be home with your family and the people in your life. We finally landed there, and it's a really exciting time for us.

You play mostly at colleges. Why is that?

Everett: Again, it's the providence of the Lord. We just go where we've been called. We play in a lot of college auditoriums, probably 90 percent. If we hit a church, it's usually associated with a college. It's weird, because we never said we wanted to play for the college demographic and young adults. That's just where we've landed. It's been this grassroots Internet fan-based thing. We did it for four years without being on a label and were still traveling all over the U.S. Just recently, we've seen a shift because of some radio play that has brought in a bit of an older crowd.

Why did you put out two records in 2004?

Everett: We did the Upstairs record upstairs in Shane's house in a week. It was stripped down and very organic sounding. It was initially intended just for our fans, and we were going to sell it on the website. But Inpop [their record label] really liked it and wanted to release it to give people an opportunity to get it. We had already planned on doing the Clean record that would release in October, so they kind of slipped it in.

You recorded Upstairs in your own studio. Did that affect the creative process?

Barnard: We didn't get to explore that too much, because we had a serious deadline with this record. In the future, when we can spend a year going back and forth into the studio, it will really make a difference.

Did having your own studio allow you to do things differently?

Barnard: We didn't have each musician play ten songs in a day and zap into ten modes, ten tempos and ten emotions in a day or two. We corporately jumped into each song and recorded them one at a time. Doing things back to back, you might set up the drums and those same drums will be on every song. This time, we totally rearranged things on each song. On one song, we put tape on the tom drum. We set things on it and hit it with a broom. We used different amps for guitars for each song. We used small ones, big ones, new ones, old ones. We put foam under the guitar and bass strings to have a muted sound on some songs. We even removed things from the room to make it brighter and set the mood for certain songs. Whatever the song was calling for, we did. It took us maybe a day-and-a-half per song. I think we will continue to do it like this in the future.

How did that difference translate onto the album?

Barnard: I think it gives it more versatility. Each song has a certain mood. Even sonically, you are listening to totally different mics and instruments. It makes each song totally different.

Why did you choose grace as the main theme of Clean?

Barnard: I didn't choose it on purpose. Albums are the closest thing I have to a journal. God has highlighted grace in my life. In those dry seasons, when I've felt unworthy and detached from the Lord, I've seen that my performance in life has nothing to do with how he sees me.

How did you choose Clean for the album title?

Barnard: It speaks of a theme, lyrically and image wise. There were other words that described the album topic, but that one stuck out. We thought it would be a cool word to put imagery to.

You've had more radio success recently than in the past. Did you try to appeal to an adult contemporary radio audience, rather than collegiate listeners with Clean?

Barnard: I would say yes. Maybe not so much in the writing, but in tracking and mixing the album, we had the AC radio equation in the back of our minds. We tried to make songs in between three and four minutes, for instance, to make the opportunity for radio a little greater.

Why did you record "He Is Exalted" on this album?

Everett: If there's any song that has ministered to us over the years, it's been that song. I don't think there's been a night that we haven't sung that song. When doing the record, we decided to include it.

You were fairly new Christians when you fell into this music ministry. How has it affected your Christian walk?

Everett: Shane became a Christian in high school. I was 22 when I accepted the Lord. Being in Christian music makes it so that you are immersed in the things of God. Not that what we do is any more important than being an accountant. But, just being around such a great pool of people who inspire me to know God more has been amazing. I get a lot of that, even just sitting around the office. Shane loves God so much that he's been a huge influence to me and my walk, as has everyone in our crew.

How did two guys who didn't plan on being musicians become successful?

Everett: I have no idea! I was a business/finance major. Shane B. was a speech/communications major. I couldn't wait to get into the business world and get my hands in corporate real estate, but the Lord had other plans. We had to drop out of college, because so many people were asking us to do concerts. They'd call and we'd write it on our calendar. For three years, we did that, plus putting out independent CDs. We'd make them for nothing and sell them on the road. We always just flew by the seat of our pants. We didn't even think it was a job, or that we would be a band. We just did it.

Then we tried to stop doing it. After three years, we decided to take jobs at churches. I was a worship leader for nine months. Shane was working with the college group. We'd still play on weekends. Then we were approached by labels and realized that maybe we really were supposed to do this. So, we gave it a shot at doing music for a living. The irony was that we had been doing that all along. Now we've realized that this is our life.

Why do Shane & Shane sing Christian music?

Everett: It is an excuse to preach the gospel. It gets our foot in the door to preach, to proclaim from our hearts that Jesus has saved us. We want to tell the world.

For more about this acoustic pop duo, visit our artist page for the Shanes. You can read our review of Clean by clicking here. Don't forget to visit Christianbook.com to listen to sound clips and buy their music.

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