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Meet Shawn Berry of Small Spring Records in South Phoenix

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Shawn Berry.

Shawn, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Music has always been a part of my life. I remember having the old iPod shuffle in middle school, the one that looked like a USB stick with a lanyard attached to it. I used to raid my parents’ CD collections and import them into iTunes. Bands like Meat Puppets and Red Hot Chili Peppers formed my early musical tastes and got me interested in playing guitar. I played violin from 4th grade through 8th grade, which taught me the basics about reading and paying music. My parents bought me a guitar when I was 12 and it sat around for a year or so, until I picked it up on break from school in 8th grade. I started trying to figure out the songs we were playing in the orchestra on the guitar and soon became very attached to the thing.

From that point on, the guitar served as my passion and emotional escape from the world at times. I continued to practice and get better at the instrument and started writing my own songs during the middle of high school. I formed a band with a rotating cast of friends that practiced in my backyard. Sometimes, the neighbors would stop by because they could hear us from down the street. Not to tell us to stop, but to stop and watch us play. The band was called GuestHouse. (The band still exists today but mostly only in name. I’m the lone remaining member). GuestHouse played at parties around town and started playing gigs at actual venues once I hit college. We had our own little following and we had started to really cultivate a distinct sound and energy. The last show we played would have been in 2013, where myself and the other band members became too busy with school and work to really carry on as a cohesive unit.

From that point on, I focused on writing and recording music as a solo artist, first under my own name and later under the name REYEZ. The name comes from my grandmother’s maiden name, Reyes. This period of time, resulted in a plethora of recorded material. I’d have to look on my hard drive but there has to be upwards of 200 songs written and recorded from 2013-2016. The music ran across the genre spectrum, with the music released under my own name sounding more introspective and psychedelic, whereas the REYEZ material was largely electronic and manic sounding (partially the result of the hectic and often ill-advised college lifestyle was living at the time). During this time, I also started playing at open mic around Tempe and Chandler, which was my first foray into singing publicly since I had been in the honor choir at my elementary school. My cousin Eli from the east coast had traveled out here to Arizona and urged me to come with him and before I knew it I was up on stage with him singing folk songs and having a blast. I have an EP dedicated to him and the period of time.

Fast forward to 2016, REYEZ had become my main point of focus and I had compiled enough material to release a proper album. The album was called VISTA (or Desert Vista Behavioral Health Center), inspired by a week spent at the facility of the same name. That was released in August during a tumultuous time in my life, trying to sort out my personal relationships and get my mental health on track. During this time, was when the idea for Small Spring Records became a thing. I wanted a place where I could release my own music, under any moniker I wanted, as well as having home for artistic endeavors that my friends were undertaking. Fast forward to late 2017 and a domain name was purchased (smallspringrecords.com). As it stands now, the website is still in its infancy. Balancing my entrepreneurial and artistic goals with my work and personal life is challenge in itself so for now the website has to grow at a natural pace.

Fast forward to 2018, I released an album under the GuestHouse name on the 1st of January. The songs were written in the very house where I started the band, in South Phoenix underneath pecan trees and the sounds of helicopters and sirens. It’s as cohesive of an effort that I’ve ever produced and to release it under the GuestHouse name means a lot to me. It means we made it.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think that the smoothest road to success is the least interesting. There have definitely been times over the past couple of years where I felt as if the struggle was a bit too much to handle, but being on the other side of things means that I got through it and have more stories to tell.

Some of the struggles that stick out to me are band members coming and going, trying to finish my degree while still dedicating time to music and art, and the mental health problems that I’ve dealt with the past couple of years. During my sophomore year of college, I was diagnosed with acute anxiety and for a while had a hard time even leaving my house to go to work. I’ve been able to channel some of those feelings into music, but that’s not without the anxiety serving as an impediment to my goals and aspirations at times.

During what would have been my senior year of college, I started having manic episodes and was hospitalized at a behavioral health center for a week. Without going into too much detail, I can say that my experience staying there served as an emotional roadblock for the following year and still shakes me up a little to this day. The following year after I had finished my degree I was taken to urgent psychiatric care for having a similar episode and was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder. With a proper diagnosis under my belt, I’ve been able to seek help and have been properly treated and medicated since December of 2016. Although, I feel great now in March 2018, it goes without saying that most of 2017 was a period of growth for me, learning to live with the diagnosis and how to take care of myself so that I could avoid any future problems. The album that I wrote during that time period (L’Appel du Vide by GuestHouse) was largely inspired by my diagnosis and learning how to succeed in the face of it.

Please tell us about Small Spring Records.
Small Spring Records (right now) is an art collective based out of South Phoenix, Arizona. We currently serve as a home to artists such as myself and others that I have collaborated with including James Karcher, DM Delgadillo, MUNZ, etc. We are mostly known for our musical output, but we hope to expand into other mediums as the year goes on. Currently, we have plans for short films, interviews with other local artists, as well as other journalist endeavors covering what’s going on in Arizona and elsewhere. What sets us apart at the moment is our diversity of interests and ambitions. I’m personally interested in the journalism side of things moving forward, where as James (currently living in Vietnam) is working on digital artwork (among other things). The future looks bright for us, but we are looking to grow naturally and organically. We have to ride the wave like everyone else.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite childhood memory is probably learning how to ride a bike. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the training wheels coming off. I remember falling off and getting back up and trying again. I think that was the first time that I knew, that I was capable of things beyond my current skillset and that I liked learning new things.

My other favorite childhood memory is probably of my mother reading Harry Potter books to me before bed as a child. I think those stories instilled a sense of imagination in me that remains today.

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