When you hear a sleek pop-rock fusion that jumps up in your face like Kick It, the debut album from The Shake, you may not think of the men behind it as a group of relatively normal college guys. However, that"s what these guys are.

Students by day, rockers by night, the guys of The Shake are the some of the newest masked heroes of New York City. Their mission was to save the city from the homogeny of modern-day music. With that mission accomplished, they are well on their way to saving the world with their debut album.

We asked The Shake’s Jon Merkin (lead vocals/guitar) and Eliad Sharpiro (lead guitar/vocals/keyboard) about the creation of Kick It and how the songs came to be.

Though Merkin started his first rock band in grade five, he didn’t play a note with Sharpiro until the two were 17 years-old. "The first band that I played in was my high school’s band," said Sharpiro. "That also happens to have been the first time that Jon and I played in a group together."

Merkin and Sharpiro joined with the bassist/vocalist Jeremy Stein and drummer Andrew Robert McNellis to form The Shake in the summer of 2005. Ever since, the band has committed itself to a stellar new sound. With their very first song, the band was already getting some interesting vibes from the airwaves.

"The first song that Eliad and I worked on was 'Princes and Kings'," said Merkin, "and it’s interesting that it leads off the album."

"When we were writing 'Princes and Kings', Eliad’s guitar suddenly started to pick up the signals from a Spanish radio channel and broadcasted them through my amp. I guess we kind of took it as a ‘sign from the Heavens’ that the song would need some cool radio effects."

All effects aside, The Shake has also produced some great lyrically-charged music, like the sharp-tongued "Manic Boogie".

"A lot of the anger in the lyrics came from me," Sharpiro admitted about this song. "At the time, I was attending a religiously-affiliated university where I didn’t really feel comfortable all the time, and where I felt that I was almost perpetually being judged by the students and faculty for having different opinions. It’s kind of just a big ‘F-U’ to that particular institution."

While the real world is easy inspiration, the band also forays into fiction. Other songs on Kick It, like the post-relationship tune "Devil’s Side", don’t reflect the life of its original creator.

"Actually, our bassist Jeremy wrote the majority of that tune. I don’t think that he was in a relationship at the time. He’s been going out with the same girl for over a year now. Now we kind of joke around about how those lyrics are what Jeremy would tell her if he had it in him to do so."

The band has learned some major lessons in songwriting 101. "The process is by no means scientific, but one of us—Jon, Eliad or Jeremy—will write a riff or a chord progression and present it to the rest of the group. Usually Jon will come up with a few melody lines that suit the music and then Eliad will throw together some lyrics. Once we have a few parts that go together well, we’ll have a song."

Once the song has been written, tweaked, and tweaked again, the guys still make sure that the song has evolved into a sound that they all enjoy.

"Nine out of ten songs we have are never performed because many simply don’t hold up against our standards as a group."

Now that The Shake has put out a critically acclaimed album, played with notables like The Living End and Band of Thieves, had a song appear on the License to Wed soundtrack, and released a music video for "Maniac Boogie", a tour should be next, right? Not quite!

"We play mostly in New York City, so we’re able to keep ourselves fairly occupied without going on tour. That’s not to say that we don’t see a reason to tour, but we’re all still in school, so we don’t have the time or resources to tour," they explained.

Despite a lack of touring, The Shake is continuing to play, and improving upon their musical talent right in their own backyard.

"The New York City scene is simply bursting with talent. As a result, audiences in New York are simply more jaded than they are in other parts of the country," they said. "You always have to bring you’re A-game and be prepared to give your all on stage if you want to capture an audience’s attention and separate yourself from the ocean of talent that you find in this town."

Life in the New York rock scene is not all about the music. Merkin and Sharpiro said they’ve also learned a whole lot about the dynamics between the members of The Shake.

"I’ve learned that there are certain times when the four of us get on like best friends, and other times when I want to punch one of them in the face," Merkin said. "But I take the bad with the good, because the high times are magical."

"We argue all the time and we have to compromise all the time. Though it might not sound as though the four of us should be playing together, we really do believe that it’s that dynamic that keeps the music interesting and fresh," Sharpiro said.

"If worst ever comes to worst, we just turn to liquor help resolve our differences," they laughed...

You can learn more about The Shake at wearetheshake.com.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."