The first time I saw Shera Shi was after stepping back into Richmond’s music scene, following a few years away during the quarantine-era shutdown. One of the best things about catching live music in RVA is stumbling onto “new to you” bands while showing up for the ones you already know. That’s exactly what happened at a spring 2023 show at Get Tight Lounge, where Shera Shi shared the bill with Ionna and the Prabir Trio.
It was the kind of night that reminds you how lucky we are in Richmond to have such an incredible depth of talent. The whole lineup delivered, capped off by a standout moment: the Prabir Trio covering Wings’ “Jet” with every vocalist from the night joining in on harmonies. Pure magic.
But it was Shera Shi that stuck with me. I left the show hooked on Brittany O’Neill’s voice, Hunter Pease’s guitar tone, and Garrett Russell’s basslines. From that point on, I caught every Shera Shi set I could—because, until recently, live shows were the only way to hear what they were creating.
Now, with their studio recordings finally out in the world, I had the chance to sit down with singer, lyricist, and guitarist Brittany O’Neill to dig into the songs and stories behind Shera Shi.
Todd Raviotta: When did you start putting together this project, Shera Shi as a band?
Brittany O’Neil: February 2023 marked two blissful years of working with my core collaborators—Hunter Pease and Garrett Russell, also of Space Koi). Over time, we’ve played with a few different drummers: Neko Williams, Andrew Sisk, and now Jon Chadwick, who also mixed our debut EP. Apparently, we have a thing for high-demand drummers—what can I say?
I’d say the official start of Shera Shi was when we began tracking some of the many songs I’d been holding onto at Ivakota in D.C. That’s actually how Garrett joined the band. He saw us recording on our Instagram story, realized I didn’t have a bassist (I was planning to just wing it on root notes), and showed up. He saved the session—and now he’s stuck with us.
T-Rav: What are the three tracks that started the process that led to those recordings?
Britt: The three singles that were released: “Luvyatadeath”, “See How It Feels”, and “Seed Spits”.
T-Rav: You were saying you’ve held those songs for a while. When were those composed?
Britt: If we’re talking about the Kneedy EP…
“Seed Spits” came out of the height of COVID—classic pent-up energy, soaked in nostalgia. “See How It Feels” had a longer journey. For years, I had just the verse progression, always circling back to it but never finding the right melody or structure. Then one day, I guess I was tapped in—heart open to the songwriting gods—and it just clicked. Suddenly it was a full song.
“Luvyatadeath,” though, was a last-minute creation. I came up with the idea the week before we tracked. It was simple enough to bring to the band on short notice, and everyone crushed it. That song let me channel exactly what I was feeling at that moment—both lyrically and vocally. Those are usually my favorite takes, when the emotion is fresh and real. You can hear it in the voice when something’s still raw and deeply felt.
T-Rav: For Kneedy how many songs will be on the EP?
Britt: 7. Technically 6 and a half. OM is like an interlude. But yeah, 7 tracks.
T-Rav: What are some of the directions that the other four songs that weren’t recorded at that initial tracking? How do we get to those compositions and those recordings?
Britt: Most of the songs on this EP come from a collection I’ve been building over the years. “Nvm Nvm” is one of the older ones—probably written around 2019. “Scaredy Cat” is a bit newer; I came up with that riff sometime in 2022.
The rest of the tracks evolved more collaboratively. “YUM” is a Garrett piece—he wrote the entire instrumental, and I focused on the vocal melody and lyrics. That’s actually the direction this project seems to be heading, and I love it. It’s not that I don’t have the musical ability to shape every part, but I’m not really interested in controlling how every song sounds. I’d rather see where things go when more brains are in the mix.
We also had a good stretch where we were playing these songs live before ever recording them, so each one’s gone through its own little evolution. “OM,” for example, was born out of trying to merge two different songs. You’ll even hear the same chord progression in our track “WRUXMAS” from the Xmas in VA compilation.
T-Rav: When did you start playing live? Following that recording session, how soon after that or what was the first show? The first Shera Shi set I caught was opening for Prabir Trio at Get Tight in April 2023.
Britt: That’s a good question. I want to say that there was a show that we played before ever recording. It was just with a couple of different musicians at The Camel. But with this band, it was pretty much after January 2022 when we were tracking that we started playing live shows.
Garrett: I’ll say 2022. At Gallery5. No no no, no, I think it was Get Tight Lounge. No, no, no, it was a Brambly Park with Goldfish’s band.
T-Rav: Okay. That was it. And that must have been soon after. Or was that a year later from us tracking?
Garrett: I don’t think it was a year later. I think it was a few months later..
I think it was the first outdoor show they did that year. So it was probably like early April.
Britt: Why was it so cold?
Garrett: It was weirdly cold.
T-Rav: It is Virginia. It is cold one day and hot one day up until April.
Garrett: Yeah, it could have been 70 degrees that day.
Britt: That’s crazy. The accuracy of things like dates and stuff is always difficult for me. Everything kind of all happens at once, I don’t know. Life’s a time warp.
T-Rav: I totally get it. So, with the name Shera Shi. Can you tell us about what made you call that your music work?
Britt: I’ve been thinking about using the name Shera Shi for probably a decade. It was given to me by my grandfather—my Zayde—who was both a Cantor and a Rabbi. In the Jewish tradition, if you’re not born with a Hebrew name, one can be given to you. Brittany O’Neill is, well… very Irish. Haha.
Shera means “singing” or “music,” and Shi—pronounced “Shy”—is a nod to my Zayde, whose name was Shia (like Shia LaBeouf). I’ve got to hand it to him—it has a really lovely ring to it.
I’ve always felt a pull to connect more deeply with my roots, on both sides of my family. Using this name is one small way of honoring that history and paying homage to where I come from.
T-Rav: We have long histories that inspire the expression traditions of being an artist and as a songwriter and storyteller.
Britt: Absolutely. And he was also an incredible vocalist. I once saw him break glass with his voice in real time. And it was unbelievable. So I do really, truly feel like it is actually paying homage to somebody who I’ve always looked up to as a vocalist.
T-Rav: What were those inspirations to become a youthful singer that leads to being an adult singer, a performer, what’s a little bit of the story behind, from your grandfather’s voice, then being part of the Richmond scene?
Britt: So I feel like I definitely have deep roots when it comes to the Richmond music scene. And that’s 100% my mother and stepfather’s doing, because they both are musicians. I grew up in a very musical family home. And my mom is by far my biggest inspiration as a child. She introduced me to all the music that I still will look back on and be like, “Oh, I didn’t even realize how highly influenced I’ve been,” because I still can hear this vocalist in my voice, you know?
But she’s been a musician my whole life. I was conceived in a studio. My biological father is a singer as well, and a guitar player. And of course, my Zayde was a Cantor (singer in the temple). And so it’s just very much a part of my family.
And growing up in a musical household, they didn’t necessarily ever push it on me. But it was one of those things where I wanted to be involved. I wanted to be a part of that. So I started learning how to harmonize—just to be involved in their jams when I was very young. From there, I took on guitar as a way to song-write.
Back when I was a child, the inspiration was very broad. My mother was kind of this 80s hair metal fan. So we would listen to AC/DC, Manowar, and Pantera—and like, some really crazy things. The vocals in those bands are wild, you know?
We were from New York City. I was four years old when she moved us down to Virginia. It was definitely a different inspiration for her when it came to music. She went from listening to a lot of metal and heavy music to, all of a sudden, blues and jam-y rock. Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Let’s put it this way… the first concert I went to was KISS. The second one was the Grateful Dead. Haha.
Once I kind of created a stronger sense of self and independence, I really flocked toward female-fronted groups. Always women with this underlying anger and grit. Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Gwen from No Doubt… And then I was introduced to Laura Marling. A true poet. A folk (or possibly anti-folk) artist at its finest. Laura Marling was by far the biggest inspiration for me when it came to songwriting with a guitar. I learned essentially how to play guitar by learning her songs. Later I realized I really had Joni Mitchell to thank for this open tuning, lyrical bounciness that I was infatuated by.
At some point, indie soul, RnB, and funk became my love language. And I thank Gabe Santamaria for that one, because the first band I was ever in—SoundStorm, back when I was 19—was full of that.
But in my lifetime, my absorption of music has spanned across all genres. I’ve had so many phases of life. I’d say the only one I haven’t quite had yet is a country phase—but who knows, it’s never too late to change up one’s musical identity.
T-Rav: And that’s something with the music of Shera Shi, there’s pieces of a lot of stuff going on. And so it’s hard to say any one word, pigeonhole, or classify, whatever that means. Because it’s all over the place and that’s part of what I love about it, it’s got some progressive stuff, there’s some jam, there’s some power woman vocals, there’s some soul, there’s some R&B, there’s some folk. What do you think the sound of Shera Shi is for that? If it did need to get into a single filing at a records store?
Britt: Like, what would the genre be? That’s why I think it would just be alternative (laughs), or like indie soul. This has been an ongoing conversation between all of us, really—“Where do we place ourselves?”
I definitely think the “alternative” / “indie” space is the best option for us, because again, it is a very broad spectrum. It’s interesting—it just feels very much like its own thing. Like, it doesn’t quite fit anywhere, which is cool. Because I think that in certain ways, since we don’t quite fit into an exact genre, we can mesh well with many bands.
T-Rav: And not all the compositions, all the songs are not the same…
Britt: …the same. And in fact, I think that there’s been an evolution in our songwriting, since we tracked the first EP. It’s taking a different route. And we’ll probably continue to change as time goes by… who knows, maybe we’ll end up writing a country album.
T-Rav: With this collection of songs, this first EP, are there compositions and songs that you’re not going to release now, but you’re working towards, composing and performing? Is there a queue?
Britt: So yes. We’ve sat on a handful of new ideas while this recording process has taken priority. Of course, while tracking for the last year or so, we’ve been performing these same tunes—so some people will have already heard these songs if they’ve come to a Shera Shi show.
I really love being in a studio setting, and I love creating through tracking. In fact, I think that’s how I best come up with ideas—how I like to hash out a song. So our plan is to release KNEEDY, maybe play a couple shows, but really focus on tracking a second album!
T-Rav: Awesome. So this being the debut EP looking towards the full album, that’s the next?
Britt: Yeah. So, I mean, I don’t want to… maybe I should… but I don’t want to give it away too much. The direction is changing—not necessarily forever. Who knows?
Back when we tracked these first songs, I felt more compelled to write serious songs. More heartfelt, love-based, breakup kind of stuff. Because that was the space I was in at the time.
I find all of us are flocking more toward a playful, upbeat, maybe sometimes silly sound. So our goal is to release what I like to call a “jingle album.” When it comes to the social and political dynamic of today’s world, I feel inclined to be an artist who emphasizes encouraging, feel-good themes—along with some satire.
T-Rav: Counter postures.
Britt: Yes. Yeah, totally.
T-Rav: To the compositions and you were kind of talking about a little bit of your process of layering and building up. Do you find that you have ideas for the melodies and the sort of sound, or do you come from lyrics first? When you’re like, okay, this is a seed for a song. Is it verbal or is it melodic?
Britt: So, my spine for a song is usually—it has to come to me, in whatever form that might be. It’s hard for me to… I’m still actively working on this… to sit myself down and have a productive songwriting session when I don’t feel called to it. It can come through a lyric that just pops up in my mind, a melody that sticks, or from a chord progression. I don’t have much control over when it’ll happen.
But I think my guys do, which makes it a lot easier. When I have a band to be like, “Hey, I sat down and I wrote this idea,” it’s way easier for me to be inspired by a chord progression that I can hear and write a melody on top of—versus starting from scratch. That spine has to kind of come to me. But otherwise, if somebody else is offering it to me, I’m like, “Okay, I can work with this,” and play around with it.
T-Rav: You’re saying spine or whatever becomes that root of the thing. Then the collaborative conversation goes somewhere else from where it started. Being the conduit for that, that’s the sensitivity of an artist that can receive that whatever the concept of collective unconscious or the antenna for that, which is something that does come from grandparent’s obsessions and interests to parent’s. That’s precious and such an important human thing.
Britt: You have to be open to it, you know? As Laura Marling kind of puts it, she says, “You have a breathe-in stage, and then you have a breathe-out stage” in artistry. And in your breathe-in stage, that’s when you are called to something greater—called to take in and create through the things that are specifically peaking your inspiration in that time.
Those moments—those breathe-in and breathe-out stages—for me, I don’t know when they’re going to happen. I just have to be ready for it. During the breathe-out stage, where I’m essentially hibernating, I have to remind myself over and over again that “this will not last forever.”
I wish I did have the capability or the wherewithal to sit down on a regular basis and force myself to write something. But I am a recovering perfectionist. That’s one of the biggest things for me—to try and divorce from the perfectionism that creates this inability to really let something just exist and be there without needing to construct it so much, to the point where I’m exhausted and overwhelmed by it, and then I let it go.
Which—this whole process has actually been so helpful in that: disengaging from perfectionism, that kind of imprisons me. It’s really hard to let something live without thinking that it’s fully, you know… in its prime.
T-Rav: Whatever the final form is, it still kind of leaves space for interpretation—how you might approach something you wrote a decade ago, or how you might approach it a decade from now, will allow for a different take on the same thing.
There’s that discipline as an artist—especially as my time has become more fragmented. Chaos of this, chaos of that, family stuff. I have to be my own assistant to get through the stages that aren’t the fun parts of art-making. They’re the preparatory things.
When I was younger, there might’ve been ten-hour pushes on an edit or something—but I don’t have those ten hours locked down anymore. So now I have to do it in 30-minute bites here, 40-minute bites there. That kind of discipline work adds up to the result later.
And I think there’s also something to the idea of tuning the antenna—or tuning an instrument—that keeps you open to reception. That openness comes from disciplined habit.
Britt: Totally 100%. It’s as simple as literally just picking up the guitar every day at some point in the day and just spending five, ten minutes, you’re opening yourself up to the possibility of having that right now and then that moment being drawn to create. Otherwise if you’re not doing that, then you know, you’re most likely not going to find it.
T-Rav: I have found by resigning myself to saying, ”oh, I’m quitting filmmaking”. Inevitably that’s it’s more of a pause. And when I return, having done something else, then I’m actually better at what I thought I was giving up, but I didn’t, because of brain wiring and other experiences.
Britt: Sometimes we just needed a pause. Yeah, a break from it. Yeah. And you come back with fervor.
T-Rav: Was there something that we didn’t necessarily converse around about these songs about this release that you wanted to tell us?
Britt: (Pointing to and introducing her cat that has been chilling during the interview) This guy is my inspiration for the album artwork by Jessica Camille. This is Buster. He’s a nuisance. But we love him very much. He’s on the cover. He’s the cat that’s eating my brain… very telling.
T-Rav: Kneading it.
Britt: Yes, a play on words.
T-Rav: And the release is April 18th?
Britt: April 18th. Yes. Wherever you get your music. We aren’t going to have an album release show, but giving it a listen, maybe coming to see a show, buying merch, subscribing to our onlyfans… is enough. Just kidding. Haha
T-Rav: “Link in bio” Ha. Being someone that has enjoyed the live sets and shows and then the thoughts of “how do I take those songs into my life?” This is how that happens.
Britt: Yes. I also would love to mention some pivotal players in the production of this EP. My band, of course…
We tracked “Nvm Nvm,” “OM,” and “YUM” all at Garrett’s home studio—a man of many talents. John Chadwick is our mixing engineer, who absolutely murdered it. Bryan Walthall was our mastering engineer.
Patrick Dahlman played keys on a few tunes, Chris Sclefani added saxophone on “Scaredy Cat,” Sam Koff played trumpet, and John Hulley handled trombone for “YUM.”
We were also lucky to get a session at Spacebomb, where we tracked “Scaredy Cat.” John Trainum was the recording engineer for that session.
And big love to Jess, who created such a perfect visual for such a silly idea. I’m just extra grateful for everyone involved.
T-Rav: I look forward to the studio cuts, the live interpretations, and the new music too.
Britt: Honestly, this is my first time releasing an album. It’s all trial and error. But it’s fun, and the beginning of many to come!
Main photo by Kai
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