Normally on a Friday, we would be blasting the latest thumping tunes from our speakers to get us in the mood for the weekend. But between Drake’s Certified Lover Boy and SHADED’s “Heartbroken People”, we’re 100% in our feels. Dropping their new single today, the alt-pop trio led by Matt East gently ease us into the weekend, with soothing guitar-led melodies and introspective lyrics. Serving as an ode to his first love, East intricately details a long-lost memory, crafting it into an acoustic-style track that slips perfectly into any heartbreak playlist.

“‘Heartbroken People’ is a love letter to my high school best friend, East revealed. “It was a relationship that gave me my first insight into what it was like to be in love, and has in-turn shaped the way that I am in relationships. I wanted to pay homage to everything that this person gave me during that period of time, and just hope she’s happy, wherever she is.”

Serving as a teaser from their upcoming EP “_003”, the group are set to further explore the tougher and darker times that follow a heavy breakup, with East explaining that the EP will touch more on the topic in the rawest way. Catching up with us digitally, East explains the group’s creative process over the year, being so honest in their music and how we can expect pure energy when they return to the stage.

Check out the interview below…

Hey guys! How are you! How has this past year been for you?
We’re pretty good thanks! We’ve spent the last few days at festivals and seeing friends and just generally getting back into the swing of things/life. We’re feeling positive!

With everything that happened last year, was your creativity affected?
I think if we had taken some time off then it definitely could have. It was either we sit around and be sad about the fact that the world is ending or we use this time that we’ve now got to really focus in on our craft and make our songs, production and abilities as musicians as good as they physically can be. All that time that we had indoors, we’re probably never gonna have again in our lifetime, so we really wanted to use it and make something positive out of it.

How did you guys all meet, what sparked the interest? Why the name SHADED?
So Callum and I met at University in Guildford. Dan worked in the area and was a friend of a friend and it just happened to be a right-place-right-time moment where we were desperate for a bassist. We came up with the name at a similar-ish time actually – we were basically about to release our first ever EP and we still hadn’t submitted a band name to our artwork person at the time… and the EP was out in like a week. So we were basically panicking for a name, SHADED was on our list, it flowed the best. And it managed to stick! The early stages of our band were very chaotic like that, none of us knew what we were doing and we were just making music because we loved it. It didn’t occur to us that we needed to be… organised?

Where are you guys all from? Do you think your city impacted your sound in anyway?
I was born in London and have lived here my whole life, but pretty much my whole family is from Derby. Cal is from a village called Bassingbourn in Royston, just outside of London, and Dan is from a town called Gillingham in Dorset. And no, I don’t think so to be honest. I think because we were all from different places and we met in a town that, at the time, was pretty unfamiliar to all of us, our location didn’t really have any deep impact on the music we were writing or influence us in that sense.

You’ve just released your new single “Heartbroken People”, talk us through the production process!
I don’t know if I speak for the other guys, but this was my favourite one to produce on this EP we’re about to release. It’s the first proper love song that we’ve done. And when I say ‘proper love song’ I mean like from every lyric to every instrument… it’s gooey and gross but also so so so sweet. We didn’t really wanna branch too far away from our roots and make it a full-on singer-songwriter-style acoustic track, but we definitely wanted to challenge it in that area. I think the production of ‘Heartbroken People’ is where we managed to put the SHADED stamp on it.

It is such an emotional and heart-wrenching song, what was it like tapping into such raw emotions?
It was really weird for me actually, because it’s the first time I’ve ever addressed this person in a song before. It’s always been a memory that I’ve tried to push to the back of my mind because, for the most part, we write quite sad songs lyrically. But yeah, this was the first time I’d just tapped into that time of my life and just let whatever wanted to come out, come out. I’m so so happy with the end result as well and I wouldn’t wanna encapsulate it any differently. It’s a really fond memory and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

What do you want people to take away from your music?
That it’s absolutely okay to feel however it is that your feeling and that, no matter how cruel the world can be, everything that you say and think and feel are totally valid. The things that upset you, the things that make you smile, the things that make you cry – we’re all human and we all have completely valid ways of dealing with situations. You don’t need to ‘man up’ for anyone.

Who inspires you? Who would you love to work with?
A current artist that really inspires us in LANY. Everything that they do is so authentic and unique. For me personally, an artist from the past that would be a dream to work with would probably be Boyz II Men. I’m a sucker for a harmony.

You’re set to return to the stage very soon, what can we expect!
ENERGY. It’s been a long time and we’ve got a lot to give and a lot of built-up energy to burn. It’s gonna be a crazy time and we’re super excited. The set-list is pretty much entirely new songs that we’ve released during the pandemic so we’re stoked to see people singing along and reacting to these songs that we’ve only ever heard through our speakers and headphones.

What’s next for you! What are you most excited for?
I think the next step for us is to get out on the road and put these new songs to the test. We didn’t get to fully tour our last record as it came around just before the pandemic hit, so we’re really looking forward to the next few months and to 2022. In terms of releasing music, there’s a lot more still to come this year, and we have no plans on slowing down after that! It’s a really exciting time for us right now and we can’t wait for the ride.