Name: Joseph Shabason
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, mixing engineer, saxophonist
Current release: Joseph Shabason's Welcome To Hell is out October 20th 2023 via Western Vinyl.
Recommendations: The album: Count Basie Live At Newport; The Book: The Kindly Ones

If you enjoyed this Joseph Shabason interview and would like to keep up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier Joseph Shabason interview.



Many artists feel both a desire to write and perform their own music and to take a spot in the limelight. Interestingly, many producers and session musicians prefer to stay in the background. You know both situations – what are their respective benefits from a creative and personal point of view?

Limelight: You get all the glory!!! Hahaha. But also, you do and it’s nice. You get to build a reputation for yourself that exists separately from a band. I find that that has been especially helpful for getting scoring work because people associate my name with my records and I often get called to score films because directors want their movies to sound like my albums.

The other big benefit is that you get to do whatever you want. You don’t have to listen to anyone else or consider anyone else, so you are able to execute a singular vision without other people and other people’s egos getting in the way. It goes without saying that I would absolutely not be able to make my records without my music community helping me flesh them out …

But at the end of the day I am the one who is making the final call on everything (with lots of consultation from close buds) and there is a real freedom to having that level of control.

Sideman: The benefit to being a sideman is that you get to talk away at the end of the session or tour. You aren’t the one doing tour accounting or taking any kind of financial or creative risk. You’re a hired gun who is paid to elevate the music and then you leave.

I think that if what you want is to have more creative control than being a sideman can be frustrating …but personally I find it really liberating. Like in Destroyer I loved that Dan was always the one to make decisions. That was never on the table for the rest of us so I could just sit back and enjoy the ride and play music with my buds without any of the stress of being responsible a band.

There is a romantic ideal of a band as a bond of brothers or sisters, with the implicit assumption that this bond furthers better music than any constellation of even the most virtuoso session musicians. What's your take on that?

Good question! I think that that particular archetype really appeals to some people. You see bands like Cluster or The Band and it’s easy to romanticise getting away from it all and just collectively making music and elevating each other’s playing. But to be honest my experience in bands has been a mix of that profound bond that facilitates greatness as well as the exact opposite: a combination of strong personalities and egos that facilitates absolute creative hell.

I collaborate with lots of musicians these days … but my days of being in bands are done because I had such brutal experiences in creative democracies. There are a few exceptions to this rule though … making music with Nicholas Krgovich is both a democratic process and an absolute joy. Same with Thom Gill and Kieran Adams … but I think that those projects are fun because we all have been so burned by being in bands that we know how to just go with the flow vs being insane about having our ideas heard. We also trust each other deeply.

So yeah, maybe that’s a convoluted answer but hopefully it makes sense. Oh, and session musicians rule!!! It’s not an either or … it’s a both and!

Can there be a band feeling even if none of the musicians have played with each other before? How does a group of musicians grow together quickly?

I don’t know if there can be a band feeling without familiarity. There can be a musical connection … but in order for a band to feel like a band you need to have really gone through it together. Just go on tour for a few months. That’ll do it.  

Sometimes, I'd assume, your parts are not particularly challenging in a technical sense. What is it that you want to bring to a song – your personal mark, as it were?

Hahahah. How dare you insult my parts!!! I happen to know a lot of 11 year old sax players who would find them VERY challenging …

For real though, they are basic as hell! I think maybe that’s my strength? I’m good at playing melodically and not letting technique get in the way of my ideas. I also think about sound a lot so I feel like my tone and playing are quite deliberate … I also think that playing with vocalists my whole life has given me a sense of where to play and where not to. I’m a pretty decent accompanist.

After the song is done, do you feel a sense of co-ownership with the music that is at least similar to that of having released your own song?

Nope … with maybe the exception of the album Kaputt by Destroyer. I certainly don’t feel ownership over those songs because Dan and John and Dave 100% were responsible for everything.

But I do think that the addition of the saxophone to what they had already created added something to the record that felt meaningful.

I probably wouldn’t use the term co-ownership … but I would say that I feel really proud of that record in a way that I don’t with a lot of other session work that I do. Same goes for Poison Season.

When bands end, members can often lose touch with one another. How much contact was there with the artists for your session work, if any?

To be honest that really depends on the band. Usually if I don’t know them at all I rarely see them or hear from them after I hand in my parts.

But I recently did some work on a dude named Adrian O’barr’s new record (he goes by Wildflower) and we went on a tour of Maine and Vermont together a few months after I handed in all my parts. We had never met irl and we kinda just went for it and the tour was an absolute dream. I knew he was gonna be a cool guy from talking to him on the phone, but it just goes to show that there are no hard and fast rules with this stuff.

Let's talk about Destroyer. You're based in Toronto, Dan and Destroyer in Vancouver. These cities are not exactly nearby. How did you meet and start to collaborate?

I met Dan because I was playing in Andre Ethier’s band back in 2008 and we opened up for Destroyer on the east coast leg of the Trouble In Dreams tour. We hadn’t seen each other in ages but when my wife (then girlfriend) was doing her masters in Vancouver I emailed Dan and asked him to hang out when I went out to visit her. He said he was making a record and that I should bring my horn and come play on it.

That ended up being how I played on Kaputt. Total dumb luck and good timing.  

On ken, you contribute saxophones and effects. The former is obvious, but what did the latter consist of?

Damn, I have no idea. Hahah. Maybe some delay? My setup was basic as hell back then so I really don’t know what is was that I did.

Where there discussions beforehand about the general sound Dan was looking for?

Not at all. Dan’s strength as a producer is that he calls on musicians that he trusts and then let’s them do their thing and doesn’t get in the way too much.

With Kaputt I just did a couple of improvised takes of each song without hearing them in advance. Very much “first idea best idea” approach. Always be reacting. So yeah, Dan just let me do me and that was what come out.

I learnt a lot as a producer from working with Dan … I think it makes players feel valued when you don’t try and micromanage them. Why nit-pick when you can always mute them if you don’t like it?

On “Dream Lover” there is a passionate and wild interplay between a lot of different instruments. What do you still remember about this?

I remember that my lips hurt like hell. I had been recording so many different woodwinds for 2 days straight and I was very out of shape when it came to playing my horn and I was doing all the arrangements in the studio as we went and by the time we got to that song my lips were shot.

That being said, I remember loving how raunchy and fun it was. It was so exciting to hear it for the first time and know that I was just gonna go for it and make the solo balls to the wall.

The musicians on Poison Season come from all corners of the Canadian music scene. Did you know some of them beforehand? Were there connections you established that led to new projects afterwards – is that something that will regularly happen from session work?

I knew most of the players already from touring with the band for the Kaputt touring cycle … but saying that meeting those guys changed my life would be an understatement. So many of them became collaborators on my own records and people who I would always go to for advice because they were all older and wiser than me. Lifelong buds for sure.

The connection that I made with the Destroyer dudes is different from most session work because most session work doesn’t end with you joining a band and spending years of your life on the road with them. I also just got off the road playing with Wildflower and Balmorhea and I met both of them through them asking me to play on their records.

Those examples aren’t the norm … but real connections do happen!

[Read our Balmorhea interview]
[Read our Michael A. Muller of Balmorhea interview]
[Read our Balmorhea interview about Climate Change]
[Read our Balmorhea interview about Pendant World]

On the Destroyer Wikipedia page, you're mentioned as a “past member.” Even if you're working on several projects with the band, does it feel that way? How would you describe your connection to the group?

To me Destroyer is always just Dan. I have no illusions that I am in any way an integral part of that band. I feel so grateful to have played with them for as long as I did and I know that we will play together again very soon …

but yeah, at the end of the day Dan Bejar is Destroyer.

For the recording sessions with The War on Drugs, did you fly over specfically for your parts? Did you record them at your own studio and send them over as files? What did the collaboration look like?

It was pretty minimal to be honest.

Most of the horns on the War On Drugs albums are done by Jon Nachez who is an absolute GOAT. I just plonked some shit down in my old basement studio in TO and sent it to Adam.

For your work on a fairly big project like this one, who will be your contact person? The band? The producer? Someone else?

Almost always the artist  

On “Eyes to the Wind” you play a wonderful sax solo. When you played it, was it always clear how long it would be? Or was your part culled from a longer take or multiple takes?

It was so long ago that I truly have no idea … but I remember sending Adam a few takes that I’m sure he comped from. He sent me a version of the song and was just like “start soloing around this point” and then I went into my basement and ripped a few takes off and sent them over. Haha.

Very not glamorous or thought-out.

How much freedom was there for the solo, how much direction did you receive?

Total freedom, zero direction. Power combo!

You're not just a musician but a producer in your own right so I can imagine that the end result of these sessions may end up sounding different had you engineered it yourself. What do you take from such sessions for your own work?

Don’t be precious about what you record!!!! If you are, it’s an exercise in insanity and disappointment. Nothing matters and there are no right answers or perfect takes. Because music is so subjective just do what you think is best for the song and then relinquish control.

That is truly an overarching philosophy when it comes to my session work.

I would assume your involvement for “Lost Moon” by Nightlands came about as a result of the War on Drugs sessions. What do you still remember about that track?

I remember loving it and being really stoked that Dave asked me to play on his album. All those The War On Drugs dudes are such rad musicians and all make such cool records so to be a small part of one of them felt really exciting.

I also like how the sax feels singular when it comes in compared to the rest of the song which is so lush and orchestrated.

Have there been talk of maybe renewing ties with either Destroyer, The War on Drugs, or Nightlands for future projects?

You bet! Can’t really give specifics but a resounding yes is the answer!