The Daily Signal - From Kitchen Table to Recording Studio: A Daddy-Daughter Success Story

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

Father and daughter Mat and Savanna Shaw began singing duets together from their kitchen table at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. After they posted their first song on social media, the pair were shocked by the response they received. Ten months later, they have recorded two albums and gained international attention, making two appearances on the Kelly Clarkson Show, receiving a write-up in The New York Times, and performing at their first arena concert. Today, Mat and Savanna join the show to share about their journey of success and how it has impacted their relationship as father and daughter.  You can support Mat and Savanna's music here: https://www.patreon.com/matandsavanna. We also cover these stories: America surpasses 18 million coronavirus cases. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar receives the COVID-19 vaccine. Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., rails against the latest $2.3 trillion dollar Congressional spending bill.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca. slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, December 23rd. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Virginia Allen. Father and daughter, Matt and Savannah Shaw, began singing duets together from their kitchen table at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. After they posted their first song on social media, it quickly went viral. Ten months later, they have recorded two albums and gained international attention after multiple appearances. on the Kelly Clarkson show and are right up in the New York Times. Today, Matt and Savannah joined the show to share about their journey of success and how it's impacted their relationship as father and daughter. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts.

And please encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. America has now surpassed 18 million coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. 320,000 Americans have died as a result of the virus, making the U.S., the nation, with the highest number of reported deaths and confirmed cases. With about a million cases reported in the past seven days, there are increased concerns about the new strain of the virus

that has been discovered in the U.K. and appears to spread more rapidly. The White House may be considering implementing travel restrictions on the U.K., But Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CNN Monday that while it's important to follow the new strain of the virus closely, we don't want to overreact. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, received the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, saying per the Hill that Americans should also know that this vaccine has been through the kind of searching an independent review that they expect for any drug or vaccine at the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also took the vaccine. Here's what he had to say via CNN. Well, for me, it's important for two reasons.

One is that I'm an attending physician here on the staff at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. And so I do see patients. But as important or more important is as a symbol to the rest of the country that I feel extreme confidence and the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine. And I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we could have a veil of protection over this country that would end this pandemic. Speaking on the Senate floor Monday night,

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, railed against the latest $2.3 trillion congressional spending bill and his colleagues who planned to vote for the package. The bill included a 900,000. billion dollar coronavirus relief package that will send a $600 check to almost every American making $75,000 a year or less and will provide about $284 billion of loan funding to the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses. The bill will also extend unemployment insurance

at $300 a week. Paul attacked the bill for being fiscally irresponsible. The Monster Spending Bill presented today is not just a Deficits Don't Matter disaster, it is everything Republicans say they don't believe in. This bill is free money for everyone. Proponents don't care if you're fully employed or own your own house or own your own business. Free money for everyone, they cry. And yet, if free money were the answer, if money really grew on trees, why not give more free money. Why not give it out all the time? Why stop at $600 a person? Why not $1,000? Why not $2,000? Maybe these new free money Republicans should join the everybody gets a guaranteed income caucus. Why not $20,000 a year for everybody? Why not $30,000? If we can print up money with impunity,

why not do it? The Treasury can just keep printing the money. That is, until someone points out that the emperor has no clothes and that the dollar no longer has value. The 5,600-page spending bill was approved by the Senate in a vote of 92 to 6 and is expected to be signed by President Trump in the coming days. The Kansas City Star is apologizing for its past coverage of local black residents.

Newspaper president and editor Mike Fanon writes, For much of its early history, through sins of both commission and omission, it disenfranchised, ignored, and scorned generations of black Kansas citizens. It reinforced Jim Crow laws and redlining. The editor also says, in the pages of the star, when black people were written about, they were cast primarily as the perpetrators or victims of crime, advancing a toxic narrative. Other violence meantime was tuned out. The Star and the Times wrote about military action in Europe, but not about black families whose homes were being bombed just down the street. Now stay tuned for my conversation with recording artists and father and daughter Matt and Savannah Shaw

as we discuss their rise to fame during the coronavirus pandemic. It's because of support from listeners like you that we can continue to produce podcasts like Heritage Explains and SCOTUS 101. And you can help us keep it up by going to www. www.org slash podcast today to make your tax deductible gift. I am so thrilled to be joined by recording artists and father and daughter duet, Matt and Savannah Shaw. Guys, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here. And that's fun to hear you call us recording artists. We're going to be told us. That's just funny. We're still new to this, Virginia. So we kind of love to hear that. Well, let's go all the way back to the spring.

We spoke in March, and I wrote a brief daily signal story about you all. As COVID was setting in, you decided to start recording music together. You both have amazing voices, and you sat down at your dining room table, and you started making music. So take us back to the spring. Why did you guys decide, okay, we're going to start recording. We're going to start putting songs on YouTube. Well, it wasn't really a choice at first. It kind of just happened.

I wanted to record a video and post it for some friends I wanted to keep in touch with. And I didn't want to do it by myself. I was too scared. So I had my dad come and sing it with me. Well, she did not have social media at all. So this was her starting. an Instagram account to share music with her friends. So this was her first experience on social media.

And your very first post was the prayer, yeah. The prayer. Yeah. We sing together. And after that started getting views, we just decided that we liked it. And we like singing together and doing videos. So we just kept on posting. I've been doing it ever since.

It's been really awesome. Well, it's working out pretty well for you all. that very first video that you posted the prayer i think it now has over eight million views on youtube and i mean it's just been incredible to see how you all have gone from like zero to 60 in just a few months was there a certain moment when you begin to think okay wait a second i think maybe we should take our music from you know just our our dining room and using our closet as a recording studio to I think there might be more here and we should maybe pursue this in a bigger way. Yeah, I mean, it's it's coming stages for us, I think. Because I remember the first,

I sent Savannah a screenshot of my phone when we were at 3,000 views and my mind was blown. Like people were sharing the video and they were enjoying it. And so, you know, now that it's got, you know, quite a lot more views than that. But the reason I think we wanted to take that a little further into an album, two albums now, we just got so much positive feedback from people who, during a very difficult time, they seem to listen to the music and their heavy hearts were lifted. and the feedback we got was really remarkable. It made a big difference in a lot of people's lives.

And maybe it was just because, you know, it's a father and a daughter, and it reminds us about our relationships and those we love the most. During a time where maybe we're not able to be with them, I think it struck a chord, but we just thought, it felt like a heavy responsibility kind of to use our music in a positive. way to really help a world that was that was struggling at the time. And so that's why we wanted to do that is share hope, spread joy through our music from a simple dad and a daughter. And that's where it kind of led to is making those albums. If that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, that's so beautiful.

And it's so powerful. Just like you say, that picture of family doing something together in this season. and so many of us have had the blessing of just being reminded in this season when we are at home of the value of family and the importance of kind of getting back to what really matters. But Matt, you reference that you have two albums out right now. You started with one single somewhere out there, then you released another single. You came out with your first album, picture this over the fall, and now you've just released a Christmas album. So I want to take a minute to let our audience hear just a single,

clip of your beautiful song, your rendition of the song, Hallelujah. So let's take a moment to listen to that song off of your album. Picture this. And I could just listen to that all day long. It's absolutely gorgeous. A lot of the weekend listening to your music, specifically your Christmas album. It's a great time for the Christmas album.

So tell me about the response that you received from your first album, picture this. You all got pretty high on some charts, didn't you? Yeah, we did. That was pretty crazy. Just see our names on a chart. We were like, we still can't. really process what that means. It's just so crazy. But yeah, we were, what were we did?

Well, we were hoping to get onto the classical and like classical crossover chart for iTunes because you get a little bit more visibility there. And so when we checked that first day, you'll remember we were number one on the iTunes classical crossover chart, which we couldn't believe. And then we had a friend text us later that they were like, oh, it looks like you're number 10 or something on the crossover chart. Congrats. And then so I looked it up and we weren't even on the chart anymore at all. And so I was like, oh, well, we had a fun ride. That was cool while it lasted. But the reason is because somehow iTunes switched us to the pop charts. And I looked at the pop chart, we were number one on the iTunes pop chart. And that one really blew my mind because, you know,

just like a simple dad and daughter from like who knows where Utah. It was crazy to be up there with like Ariana Grande. She just came out with a new single or something and like tons of other really amazing artists. We made it on the billboards. We were their number one emerging artist on the billboard chart. Just I mean we didn't know what to expect and so to see all that and the positive feedback is just incredible. We were selling physical CDs,

and we weren't even sure people had CD players anymore. But we've sold tens of thousands of physical CDs, and so the response has just been remarkable, and it's encouraging to see that we can make uplifting, inspiring music and have people actually enjoy it. It's really fun because we package all the CDs at our house, house. So we physically get to see every CD that goes out and like people's names and all the different places they live. Yeah, it's really fun to just connect with people that way. That is so fun. Yeah,

I remember seeing on your Instagram your living room just like covered in boxes and packages. It's like a whole family affair to get all those CDs out, which I love. It was. It was. So we decided to ship it ourselves. And originally my wife, She's like, it'd be cool if we could like handwrite their names and addresses on the shipping labels because we honestly did not expect to sell very many. And then when they came in and they were thousands, I mean, we sold out, we ordered 10,000 CDs thinking that would take us the year to get through, but we sold out on release day. Wow.

And then we were in big trouble because we had to ship all of those from our living room. But the whole family pitched in. My brother, Easton, pulled an all-nighter one night, just packaging cities. He was a rock star. But we got him out, and, yeah, we learned some lessons for the Christmas CD. Yeah, yep. Order more. That's great.

So what has this experience been like from your family? I mean, to go from, you know, just living your lives kind of normally to all of a sudden, you're in the limelight. You all have done two different interviews on the Kelly Clarkson show. You've done tons of other interviews on various outlets. How has it affected your family to all of a sudden be getting all of this attention? Well, my family is all really supportive. If we're going to do music, we decided that it had to be a family commitment. So we always talk with our family, like our whole family, even down to my six-year-old sister,

just to see like how they feel about things. So it's definitely like we all work together to do this music. It's not just us. Like they're even there at the recording studio and everything. So it's, I feel like it's actually brought our family closer because we have a way to kind of serve together, which has been a really cool experience for all of us. Yeah, I mean there are some hard times.

It's because we are busy. And so, you know, as a father, I don't have as much free time as I did before in just kind of hanging out and playing with the kids. But we try to make, like she said, the things that we're doing, you know, meaningful. And we try to make it a together family affair. So everyone can feel involved. And, you know, the kids have earned some spending money. We pay them for packaging envelopes and stuff. So they've had some fun with that.

But, yeah, I mean, it is still kind of funny. we get recognized, you know, as we go out. Our family will be like grocery shopping or something. People want pictures and it's really funny. But we love it. I think that's so cool. And, you know, people are so kind. And honestly, they have been so kind to our entire family.

And so, yeah, we're just, we feel very humbled and grateful to be in this position. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's so, it's so healthy. I think the approach that you all have taken to this. And you all did make the decisive decision that you were going to approach recording music in a really unique way and essentially make the fans your recording label. Can you talk a little bit about that decision and why you decided to make the band your recording label

and really to be crowdfunded? Yeah. So when we started this, we talked to some other artists and friends of ours. and we've got some really good advice. So when you sign with the label, they kind of control the music. And for a lot of people, it's a great way to go. But for us, we wanted to be so careful about the message and the image and the brain.

And my daughter was 15 at the time. And I just wanted to make sure that we could do the things that we wanted to do and that we found was important. We have friends who would try to go sing for a charity, you know, and their label would say no. We can't do that. We just never wanted to have to be in that position. And so we have, we call it our Shawfam.

You know, it's the Shawfam.com. And, you know, our fans can go on there and they can support us and have a say in our music. And it's been so fun. So our fans have helped us decide cover art, which songs we do. Which videos, like we'll record two different, like, kitchen panels. Versions or something. And they get to the side. And it's really helpful to get their opinion.

Yeah, because that's who the music's for. But, like, it's like this really cool focus group that we get of our super fans. And the feedback is so cool. Like, they're from all around the world, but we are able to message each other. and we do these Q&As every month or we get to talk to each other. So we've actually become pretty close with a lot of them, which has been super cool and really fun. And we love it.

Yeah, that's so unique. I absolutely love that. I love the approach you all have taken. Matt, I want to ask you, as a dad, how are you sort of navigating like, okay, how do we kind of balance that, like, okay, we're growing and we're pursuing this awesome thing? But at the same time, you know, you want to have those boundaries and keep family first and foremost. So how have you been navigating that as a father?

It is a work in progress. I haven't figured it out yet if I'm being totally honest. And it's just, you know, there was a lot that we didn't know that we didn't know when we started. And so as we're learning, you know, this music world and what it requires, we adjust, you know, and learn as we go. And so balance is really important to us. We haven't figured it out quite yet. I still have my day job. I run a real estate company.

And so there's there are a lot of things going on. But, yeah, it's it's something that. that we're trying to be very intentional about, but we haven't mastered yet. We're still working on. That's a very healthy and honest response. Yeah, certainly a journey and just a very uncharted territory. You all have entered in too quickly,

but from my perspective, you're doing an amazing job, and it's really precious just to watch the two of you as a father and daughter just making this beautiful, music together. And you recently had the opportunity to share your music on a big stage in front of a live socially distance audience and also in front of many people who are tuning in online. Can you tell me a little bit about how that whole concert experience came to be? Well, we had two concerts. We had a virtual one that was our own. And then we had one with a couple other artists at an arena.

And both of those were really different, but also really amazing experiences, because I feel like it really helped us grow as people and as performers. Just to perform in front of people and to feed off of that response live is like a completely different experience. And it was so fun. It's so different than sitting at your kitchen table with a. camera in front of you because you're actually singing for real people live. Yeah, I mean, our first concert concert was virtual, but it was cool.

We had a screen in front of us so we could see comments like live during our concert and we can kind of interact with the fans that way. That was so fun to do a whole, you know, hour plus long concert of just our music with, you know, just us and the other musicians on stage. It was terrifying, but so exciting and so. fun to do and it was just it was a total high at the end of that concert. I couldn't sleep. But then the arena concert was that was something else. That was amazing. That was the first time we tried these things that they call in-eers. If you've seen like artists on stage and they have

the big things in their ears, it was the first time we tried it. So there was a lot of firsts for that arena show. The in-eers were a different experience. You couldn't hear the audience as well with those in. But it's still cool because you can see their faces and you can feel their energy. And I love that. Yeah, I really enjoyed that. But we were on the Kelly Clarkson show backstage, like 20 minutes before we walked on stage. So wild.

It was crazy. Yeah, and Nelly was there, like the rapper. Wow. He did some last minute advice from them before we went on stage. And that, I mean, sometimes we're just, we just look at each other. We're like, who even are we? You know, honestly. So crazy.

And Savannah, for that concert, you were the only female on stage, correct? Yeah, that, yeah, I was the only girl on stage, which was so intimidating if I'm being on it. Because I knew that my voice would, like, yeah, I would carry because it's high, you know. Yeah, so that was definitely really scary. But you killed it. She did so amazing. You wouldn't know it from watching the concert. Savannah just looked like she belonged. Thank you. With her confidence. And it was so fun to see. She killed it.

Thank you. It takes a lot of courage to stand on a stage full of, yeah, all these male tenor voices and say, okay, I'm going to do this. Yeah. I was like, they're all just like have those really strong voices and like, I don't know, I just felt so, it's like kind of small on stage, my voice and everything. But it was fun. It really was super. Yeah, you did an amazing job.

Yeah, so cool. Well, the New York Times just did an awesome write-up about you guys, which was included in their story, 20 albums that put a new spin on the holidays. And they wrote about your recent Christmas album. They say their rendition of Mary Did You Know is poignant and elegantly spacious, almost nerdy in its conviction. And I heard the bells on Christmas Day has an unlikely echo of extremes more than words throughout Savannah sings with airy sweep and matte booms like a drill sergeant. Unthankful father and daughter harmonize into billowy bliss. Wow, that's quite the quite the write-up from the news. New York Times. So let's take a minute to listen to just a clip of your rendition of Mary

Did You Know off of your latest album, Merry Little Christmas. Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk, Mary did, that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters. Did you know has come to make you know? This child that you've delivered will soon deliver. Mary, did you know? That song is so absolutely gorgeous. The New York Times, their comments were also, they discussed a little bit just about the innocence of your music, which I'm so glad that they brought that up,

because there is just this beautiful, really class to the music that you all select and that you sing together. So how do you all go about choosing the songs that you're going to sing together? Well, our arranger and piano guy, Stephen, who is a wizard. I don't know how he does what he does. But he helps us choose all of the songs. So if he has an idea, he'll kind of brainstorm with it and play with it and just see if it fits. and that's how we did a lot of our songs for the past two albums.

We would get together usually and have like the initial brainstorm session. And to us it's important that the song really resonates with us. It has a message that we want to convey. And so some of them have a deeper meaning. Some of them are just for fun. and just music that we love. And so we'll kind of go through a bunch of those different ideas. And, you know, our goal is to record more songs than we'll put on the album,

and we can kind of pick. So originally our Christmas album was just going to be a little LP or whatever they call it. Yep, EP, LP, I still know what it was mean. But a shorter album, like four songs. But we just loved the songs. And so we made it. So we went back and did more. We did all seven on the Christmas album.

But yeah, it's just kind of a, what resonates with us is kind of how we choose the songs. Yeah. Well, and it definitely seems to resonate with so many others, people all over America, all over the world. And I think part of that of what people love about your music, is the connection that you all just naturally have as a father and daughter. One of my favorite things watching your videos, I don't know if this is intentional or if you all just naturally do this, but when you turn and smile at one another, it's like the sweetest thing. Like, oh, it's just so precious to see the two of you making music together.

So how has this process affected your relationship as father and daughter? It's been good for us. We definitely spend a whole lot more time together than we did before. I feel like we've learned a lot more about each other. And I feel like we've been able to gain a better friendship and relationship, I think. Yeah, we do have some disagreements because both of us have like opinions on the music because we both care so much. I think it's been... But I'm usually right.

Of course. Yeah. But we do, this is what I love, though, because Savannah is, you know, we're headed into this industry where people, if you're not careful, we'll try to mold you into the image that they want. And so I love that Savannah has a voice and opinion. And I love that we can butt heads on that sometimes. and she can argue her point and why she feels that way, and then I can tell her why I'm right. Yeah, but I also feel like it's gotten us closer because we both feel more comfortable of sharing how we feel and, like, our opinions.

So I think it's definitely been a good thing in the end. Yeah. No, that's so beautiful. It's so good just to see that working process now, essentially, in a way, as colleagues, like you're having to figure out, okay, we're making this thing together. How do we make it something that we're both really proud of and really excited to share with the fans? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's been fun. We're business partners. So what is next to you all? You've released two singles, released two albums. What's next for 2021?

We hope to release a couple more albums. So we want to do like one normal, or tier we don't really know yet. And then we would love to do more Christmas music. So we're just kind of taking it as we go. We'd love to do shows. Like hopefully that can, you know, hopefully 2021 looks a little different than 2020 because connecting with our fans, you know, in person would be really special for us to be able to go out and sing for our fans where they are.

We'd love to travel a little bit and meet some people from around the world. That would be really cool. Yeah, but if that can't happen or doesn't happen, we just love, I think my favorite part of all this is just in the creating of the music. That is so fun. It is really magical. Like when we get a song, we start working with it, and we're working our parts, and to go into the studio, which, you know, we had never been in a real studio before we started any of this. And the process is so fun. And then, you know, it's a lot of work, but you get it back and you can hear. hear the end result and it's just magical. It's just, and I love the music creation process. And so we're just excited to make some more music next year. And we, you know, it's kind of the way the

world is right now is we'll just take it as it comes. But we'd love to put out some more music albums and hopefully performances. Yeah. Well, we're excited to look out for those. And so our audience, I know they can find your music on YouTube, Spotify, they can order your albums, but tell us, like, how can we follow you on social media? And then if we want to be a part of your, of actually supporting your music, how can we do that? Yeah, so on social media, if you just look for Matt and Savannah, now we've made it really difficult because I, my name is spelled with one T. And so I was never able to buy a souvenir as a kid with my name on it. And so I said, Savannah, it's only fair that we spell Savannah without an H at the end.

And so it's Matt and Savannah. Matt, we want to use Savannah with no age on all the social media platforms, right? I think we're on all of them. And then there's Matt and Savannah Music.com. And you can go there to get all the music or to a CD, whatever you want. And then what is the? The shop in. Shoppham.com. So you can go there and look into how you can support our music and actually take part in the process of making music with us. And that's fun. We do a lot of behind the scenes and live question and answer chats that we do monthly just to check in with everybody and let them know what's happening and what's coming up. And so it's fun. Yeah, the shopfam.com.

Awesome. Guys, thank you both so much. Just enjoy having you on the show. And I'm so excited just to keep following you all, following your music and your work. And hopefully have you back on again soon with new updates. So thank you so much for your time today. Oh, thank you.

And we would love it anytime you just let us know. Thank you so much. You bet. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and please encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening.

We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. We're going to be off for the next two days, but Rachel and I will be back with you all on Monday to kick off the top five of 2020. A week of looking back on the year and sharing your and our favorite podcast interviews from 2020. Enjoy your holiday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.