You have said in your RA exchange that you feel the urge to produce something every day even though you might not think it’s really good. Do you still feel like this?
Shaw: I still really believe in that, knowing that it doesn’t work for everyone. I look at friends of mine who produce and they don’t work in that way at all. They all go for sometimes months without really getting in the studio and then get in the studio and just be incredibly prolific. And everything they write seems to be incredible, and that drives me a little bit insane. I can spend months writing nothing that I think is worth showing anyone. But I do feel that that a certain amount of trial and error and finding out what you want to say and what you wanna do is really important as any sort of artist. That’s how I learn how to use my modular. Just every single day sitting in the studio plugging things in. That’s how I worked out what I wanted to say with the record. It took a long, long time, but that’s how I found the sound palette that I wanted to use. So I still definitely believe in that.

Do you have any coping strategies for creative problems?
Shaw: Not really, I cope so badly. (laughs) I don’t think it’s at all just me that feels like this. But unfortunately, and it’s definitely unfortunately, my self-worth is totally tied up in how I feel my creative output is doing. Not necessarily in what other people think of my music, but in having a day in the studio and being able to walk out of it and say, “That felt really good.” If I can leave the studio and feel like this I know that I will be totally happy, or at least not miserable. (laughs) But, conversely, if I hit this kind of wall I get incredibly depressed. The problem is that becomes really self-perpetuating. Because you get depressed – and although there is this myth of depressed musicians making amazing music – I can’t make music at all. It becomes a feedback loop. The best thing to do is to turn the machines off and step away and maybe watch a film that you know inspires you, maybe go to a gallery, see an exhibition. Just something to fire things off in your brain, start things thinking in a slightly different way. But I don’t always take my own advice. More often than not, I just sit there feeling miserable for weeks.

You also said in an earlier interview that you get a lot of inspiration from faith and religion. Would you describe yourself as a religious person, or is it only the idea of faith and religion you draw from?
Shaw: I am not religious in terms of conventional religion, I would say. I’ve definitely investigated faith a lot in the past. When I was at school I had to go to chapel twice a week. I was a teenager and I was very kicking against organised religion. I think something positive was that I started investigating other religions other than just the one that school was forcing down my throat, everything from buddhism, hinduism, every aspect of faith that people were entering into in the world started to really intrigue me. I wouldn’t say I’m a religious person, but I’m incredibly intrigued by faith and religion. I think some of the most incredible, beautiful art has been born out of faith. Obviously, I think it’s very easy to disparage faith and religion. Especially as someone who’s pretty much an atheist. But if I’m really honest, I wish, in myself, that I had that level of faith in something other than what is directly around us. Unfortunately, I don’t. In terms of drawing parallels between worship and music and specifically club culture – you’ve got a room full of a thousand people, having a collective experience to music. That’s a role that religion and faith I think has played for thousands of years. It’s so powerful or has been so powerful because it is able to instill this euphoric quality that you get when you’re sharing emotions with so many people. 300, 400, 500, or 600 years ago, if you were in a cathedral, and you were listening to the choir sing, an average person would never have an experience like that at any other time in the week and it must have been captivating and incredibly alien, in a strange way, really beautiful. And this then being shared with a thousand other people, who are all feeling the same emotion and the same thing at once would be incredibly powerful. I think that’s the same feeling that you get when you’re on the dance floor on a perfect night when a great DJ is playing.

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