What made you want to sit down and write the Lost Inside?
I guess the reason I wanted to write the track was that, well I started off with a different project, named something really stupid. It was this cheesy 80’s thing that didn’t really go anywhere, it was a stepping stone I guess that was a good place to start for me but as I kept trying to write for it I really wasn’t feeling it.
I took the music off Spotify and everything, changed my artist name to Shaf since it’s what all my friends call me. Then I ended up coming up with the piano chords for 'Lost Inside’ and like I couldn’t find where to go with it so I left it for months, before coming back to it.
I wrote the lyrics super quickly and I knew what I wanted to do with it…I had a lot of personal stuff going on in my life that I just wanted to push out onto paper, to help me get some closure with. All this and now it’s a track I’m really proud of.
I really like it and think it’s cool! Now how did you end up finding Emily and how did the music video come about?
I wanted to do a music video for lost inside even though I put it out last July, it’s such a concept-driven song and I felt like it deserved a music video more than my other songs. Emily’s actually one of my best friends so when I was hunting around for someone to be in it, I ended up asking her and she was completely up for it! Then one of my friend’s Joe offered to direct and film it for me as well.
We filmed it over two days but since we used so many locations in London and you usually have to have a permit to film in a lot of places where we had to film really small sections in a ton of places before running away! It was just very stressful having to get stuff in one or two takes…but I’m really happy with the overall result and feel like it does the song justice. It’s got just right level of a certain crypticness that really leaves it to the viewer to interpret it for themselves.
If you could collaborate with any other artist, alive or dead, who would you pick?
It’s gotta be Michael Jackson or Prince for sure. I feel like Jackson is dead straight to the point and knows what he’s doing but Prince creatively was just an absolute enigma, with so much mystery behind him. I think from that angle it would be amazing to theoretically have the chance to work on something with him.
I also think people that I’ve looked up to like Mike Shinoda, Billy Joe Armstrong and maybe even John Feldman would be super fun! Recording with John would be pretty sick actually the more I think about it!
What was the previous gig you did like?
It was my first ever gig, so it was very overwhelming. I said yes to doing it so early and the closer it got I kept getting more and more nervous. I was pacing so much and so many people turned out that I didn’t want to look at the crowd because I was so nervous. The most amazing feeling was playing lost inside was having my eyes closed and hearing people singing and I opened them in the last chorus and saw everyone with their phone lights on and it was so magical.
I feel like having that nervous energy really helped and made me realise how much I loved it and I can’t wait to be back on the stage soon!
What else have you got up your sleeve for 2019?
There’ll be some more gigs coming and there’s some in the books that I can’t talk about yet, I’m trying to get some headline gigs in over the summer! There’s so much new music on its way and if plans go well like the past two singles then there’ll be a new single out next month. It sounds different to the other two singles like it’s a bit rockier with a bit of a pop sound?
Then hopefully a double single with two tracks and I’ve got an EP in the works that I want to have out at the end of this year hopefully, but it’s something I really want to perfect it and make something I'm really proud of before I release it out into the world!
So yeah I’m just really excited and can’t wait to see as many people as possible at gigs in the near future!
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