Shawn Byrne has been obsessed with sound since he was small child in the New England town of Portland, Ct. His Dad’s eclectic record collection and a set of headphones were all he needed. That and the occasional bowl of fruity pebbles. In 3rd grade Shawn snuck his dads ‘71 Gibson Goldtop out of the house, onto the school bus to impress his classmates at show and tell. Dad found out and Shawn surprisingly lived.
In his early teens Shawn formed his first band, The Nameless Faces and he played his father’s Goldtop a lot. You could say that Shawn permanently “borrowed” his Dad’s prized guitar. According to Shawn, his Dad never asked for it back. Dad has no comment.
When Shawn was 20 the guitar went with him to Boston where he studied music production at Berklee College of Music all the while playing lead in The Kickbacks, a prominent local indie rock band. After a decade of making records and playing the New England scene, Shawn took that guitar to Nashville where he and the guitar began his new career as a dishwasher at the world famous Bluebird Cafe. Shawn and his guitar quickly settled into writing and performing his own songs and taking sideman work. It wasn’t long until Shawn was backing up artists like Taylor Swift, Rodney Atkins, Billy Bob Thornton, James Otto and many more. After close to 10 years of heavy touring and being spoiled with all the free beer he could drink, Shawn decided to quit his sideman duties to focus on songwriting and production. In the 8 years since Shawn has become an in demand producer, session guitarist and mix engineer.
As a songwriter Shawn had his song “Old Cook Pot”, recorded by Canadian group The Duhks and reached #2 on the Americana charts. Bob Dylan held the #1. Way to go Bob.
In 2020 Shawn was also awarded grand prize in the American Songwriter Magazine lyric contest with “Love Was Just a Word” a song written for his baby boy Arlo.
In 2022 Shawn was asked to play lead guitar in the fictional “Roman Family Band” for Fox’s prime time drama “Monarch” starring Trace Adkins and Susan Sarandon.
These days Shawn spends most of his time in his studio noodling away writing songs, producing, mixing and composing music for TV and film for companies like HBO, Showtime, Alloy Tracks and Imagine Entertainment. His newest musical endeavor is a collection of songs heavily influenced by the music he fell In love with when he was a teenager. Bands like U2, The Cure, Echo and Bunnymen, The Alarm and the Clash. It’s all bubbling back to the surface causing some sort of guitar and synth miasma in Shawn’s studio. A mid life crisis you say? Perhaps. Or maybe Shawn, who doesn’t like to linger too long in one sound is enjoying swimming in the sounds that set him on his musical journey all those years ago with his now battle scarred and weathered Gibson Goldtop Les Paul guitar.
Website: https://shawnbyrnemusic.com
Listen to Shawn on Spotify
