Since Joseph Shabason and Nicholas Krgovich first began collaborating way back when with 2020’s Philadelphia (alongside Chris Harris), the prolific and inventive duo have shaped entire genres in their image. Whereas Philadelphia reimagined ’80s rock as a minimal, experimental enterprise stripped of fluff and excess, 2022’s At Scaramouche took the neon ambiance of new age music and shaped it with funk interludes and Tunnel of Love–era Springsteen bombast. Fast-forward to right here, right now (shoutout Fatboy Slim), and the duo are back with the recently released Four Days in June.
On their latest collaboration, Shabason & Krgovich play with country, AM folk, and alt-rock, drifting these styles in and out of the tactile, shimmering-textured space most of their work occupies. For this new release, we asked the duo to break down some of the influences that went into the record, with Shabason’s variety—Bonnie Raitt, Sam Amidon, Air (not that one)—emphasizing the sonic range they embrace on the project. Krgovich, for his part, nods to country music both classic (Willie Nelson) and new (Morgan Wallen).
Check out their full range of picks below, and listen to Four Days in June here.
JOSEPH SHABASON
Bonnie Raitt, “Have a Heart”
This song popped into my head one day as we were starting to write demos for the record and I instantly played it every day for a week. I feel like it was omnipresent on the radio in my childhood, and when I listened to it again as an adult it was somehow a million times better than I remember it. Just such a weird white-reggae/country hit that has really cool changes and a weird slide guitar solo. I love that there was a time where songs like this actually had the chance to be massive radio hits—truly a bygone era! Anyway, I unsuccessfully tried to write something like it, but then, when we were recording “Little Wind,” Phil [Melanson] snuck a sneaky little reggae groove in on the choruses and I feel like in some small way “Have a Heart” made its presence known on the record.
Air feat. Googie, “In Need of You”
I think Bram Gielen shared this lo-fi devotional funk record from the mid-’80s. It’s perfect. Such minimal arrangements with incredible lyrics and immaculate grooves. I listened to this so much before demoing for Four Days in June, and also sent it to Nick who immediately loved it as well. I didn't necessarily reference it directly, but the spirit of these songs definitely crept into my songwriting in that the general concept and direction of this record feels concise and groovy in the same vibrational way.
Van Morrison, “Dweller on the Threshold”
This was the first time that a song and record had taken over my whole life in a long time. The second I heard “Dweller on the Threshold” I was hooked. The rest of the record is also amazing! It feels like a real departure from the Van records that I already knew, and I loved how the songs were really poppy (in Van’s weird way) compared to records like Veeden Fleece and Astral Weeks. In a lot of ways, I think that Four Days in June feels a lot like Beautiful Vision in that it’s a band playing and moving together with a really good singer and lyricist weaving his way in and out of what the band is doing. On a side note, I love how insane the hi-hats sound in this song. They’re so much louder than Van’s vocals. Feels like a cocaine-inspired decision.
Eliza Niemi, “Sushi California”
Eliza’s first album had been on heavy rotation for the year leading up to us recording Four Days in June. I just love how personal and intimate all of these songs feel while still having such a wonderful sense of humor. Simply by osmosis I’m sure that the spirit of her songs found its way onto this album—you can’t listen to something that much and not have it seep into your musical subconscious
Sam Amidon, “Oldenfjord”
Nick sent me this record a few weeks before we started recording Four Days in June and we both really fell in love with it instantly. Phil Melanson (who drums on our record) plays on Sam’s album, as well, and Thom Gill often plays guitar in Sam’s live band. When we were planning the sessions for Four Days in June, Thom let us know that Sam would be in town, so we asked him if he’d be into coming over and recording with us on his day off. It felt really serendipitous that the person who recorded this album that we were both really geeking out on just happened to be in town and able to record with us on the exact dates that we were planning on making our record. I feel very grateful for Sam's contributions to Four Days in June. Everything he played was so spot on.
NICHOLAS KRGOVICH
Laci Kaye Booth, “Damn Good in a Dive Bar”
Last summer and fall I was making up words and melodies for the songs on Four Days in June—often while at work doing menial tasks like cleaning toilets, etc. I like to laugh a lot and also knew I wanted to learn more about contemporary country. So I subscribed to Sam Buck’s KFM Country Radio show, which turned out to be a godsend. I heard this Laci Kaye Booth song there. Before we started recording, I thought the whole album might have this new-country feeling and sound something like this song—music you might hear playing out of a truck at a campsite, or the FM radio at a fruitstand—but I think about 0 percent of it does, which I also like!
Morgan Wallen, “7 Summers”
Years ago I got a text from my friend Angel, who was listening to this song with her sister Arlene, and they were like, “You need to cover this!” I’d never heard of Morgan Wallen before and this one got an instant toot from me. When Jos rounded up the band for this record he told me, “Dude, this pedal steel player’s coming, he’s incredible,” and again I just started thinking about that new-country feeling and angling toward making an album that evokes that somehow. It felt like a weird, fun, and kind of radical jumping-off point even though we ended up making something else.
Megan Moroney, “Hair Salon”
This one totally exemplifies an ideal for me. It’s me as an annoying teenager in full indie-rock-music snob mode on a family roadtrip, hearing something like this at the grocery store or somewhere and being completely moved by it, but also totally embarrassed. Now it’s such a gag to be older and just unabashedly enjoy things! My friend Owen sent me this one and he’s such a lyrics person (I don’t think I am), but I find the palette and lyric sheet of this one irresistible!
Chris Knight, “Enough Rope”
There’s this new new-country superstar I was introduced to—again on the KFM Country Radio show—named Parker McCollum. He seems like a bit of a doofus (for example, he named his firstborn “Major Yancey”), but for whatever reason I listened to his latest album all the way through one day at work. One song buried late on the record kind of stopped me in my tracks, and I was like, “There is no way in hell this person wrote this,” and it turned out he didn’t. It’s by someone named Chris Knight who I’d never heard of before. I’m admittedly a bit of a crier, but this one really gets me good.
Merle Haggard, “No Time to Cry”
Speaking of crying: This song’s by Iris Dement, who I’ve seen perform twice at the Vancouver Folk Festival where she played on a big stage by the ocean around magic hour. Both times I was just a puddle. I remember during the first show back in 2005 I was a twentysomething trying to covertly wipe tears next to a lady helicopter dancing—and I was surprised by how almost two decades later my response was basically the same. It reminded me that, “Nick, you are you!” I remember right after this last show being a blubbering mess in the backstage zone with bandmate Bram Gielen, and he got to see me attempt to compose myself while trying to figure out why I get this way when I hear her sing her songs. The best I can explain it is I feel like I go a bit existential at every turn, but something about Iris just floods me with belief and hope to a degree that just shocks my nervous system or something. I think she somehow puts me in touch with how I actually feel at the root of everything, and the unexpected relief there is just wild to me!
Willie Nelson, “Color of Sound”
And now, speaking of hope and belief! How can you have a songbook like Willie Nelson and then this is just, like, track 12 off your 76th studio album? Completely cuckoo and unreal. I don’t know if I can really say anything about this song other than please play it at my funeral.
