Shamir Bailey refuses to be pigeonholed.
In just a few short years, the Las Vegas-born musician has mutated from a country crooner to a punk rocker (fronting the scrappy, shape-shifting duo Anorexia) to his current guise as a disco-house belter on his excellent full-length solo debut “Ratchet.” Rather than pegging this game of musical hopscotch as some kind of search for an artistic voice, however, Bailey said he simply views these various guises as shades of a whole.
“I’m not genre-hopping because I’m lost and I’m not sure what sounds best for me to do,” said Bailey, 20. “It’s just that I love music—all genres of music—and I want to express that.”
You grew up close to Area 51. Is that why you decided to pilot a UFO in the video for “In the Kill”?
[Laughs.] I never thought about that! Oh my God. I should have totally put that in my bio for the video, like, “Yeah, I’m actually not from Vegas—I’m from Area 51, and the video’s completely true.” You know, my mom is this super hippie, and she’s definitely into things like that, so I’m no stranger to the different types of aliens. I have an alien tattoo on my leg; it’s like a gray alien. [My mom] was like, “Oh, why’d you get that one? I don’t like the gray aliens. Why didn’t you get this one instead?” She was pulling up all these different pictures [of aliens].
There’s not much of a local music scene in Vegas, is there?
Not really at all.
Do you think not having an established scene or sound allowed you more freedom to let the music go wherever you wanted it to?
Exactly! In a lot of other places like New York and L.A. and Philly, they have scenes where a person listens to this type of music, does this, looks like that and goes to these types of shows. There aren’t really any scenes in Vegas, so … I dove into music not thinking about genre and what type of person listens to it. I was just like, “I like this music, and I’m going to listen to it.” It wasn’t until later in life that I realized music was divided in a weird, social construct kind of way, and that’s definitely something I want to break down. If I want to do a country song, I’m going to do a country song. If I want to do a dance song, I’m going to do a dance song. If I want to do a punk song, I’m going to do a punk song.
You sing about starting fights on “Make a Scene.” When’s the last time you threw a punch?
I haven’t been in a fight since high school, but I fought all the time in middle school. I was super ratchet. If I had one more strike against me in middle school, they were going to transfer me to opportunity school, which is like a reform school for kids who are too bad for normal public schools, believe it or not.
It seems like high school was an entirely different experience for you, though. By most accounts, it seems like you enjoyed it, which isn’t the case for a lot of people.
I was one of the few people who was born and raised in Vegas because the city is so overrun by transplants. If you’re born and raised in Vegas, there’s almost this kind of small-town vibe. I grew up with a good amount of the people who went to my high school with me … and so they were already used to me. They were like, “Oh, it’s just Shamir. Why pick on him?” And if someone new did try to pick on me, they’d be like, “Don’t do that. That’s Shamir.” It was never a problem. We were all already used to each other.
Is a line like “I guess I just don’t belong” more aspirational, then?
Well, I mean, people were used to me, but I still couldn’t talk about this new band I listened to or talk about certain things a lot of my friends and people I was around in Vegas just weren’t into. That’s what made me so alienated. It wasn’t about how I looked or how I was; I just felt like anything that entertained me no one else was into.
You touch on the idea of legacy on “Head in the Clouds.” How do you hope to be remembered?
I just want to be remembered as someone who was never pigeonholed. When I think of people like that, I think of Bjork or Andre 3000, where everything they do is so different, but it’s still so good and fresh, and they’re never judged for it because people just want to hear their artistry.
Andy Downing is a RedEye special contributor. @andydowning33
Shamir, 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, at Lincoln Hall. $15.
![“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CTC-L-ENT-PHISH-04-e1713888536637.jpg?w=620 "“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]")