Shiny Toy Guns

Someone sent me a link to a Shiny Toy Guns video several months ago, and I was hooked. While teetering on extremes between techno, pop, and rock, their vibe stuck its hook into my psyche and hasn’t let go, forming a unique Shiny Toy Guns lobe in my brain that only its music can satisfy. It was fun doing another face-to-face interview, this one in one of the locker rooms in the arena where the Texas Longhorns prep for basketball games, complete with a marker board for coaching strategies to get mapped out. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I already sort of knew these musicians in Shiny Toy Guns, but I’ll let you possibly make the same discoveries as you read on.

(Synthesizer player/programmer Jeremy Dawson picks up recent issue of HM and glances at it, feign shouts “Paramore!” in a low whisper.)

Okay, so David Bowie, Peter Murphy and Pete…
(Still glancing at magazine cover) Cornerstone!? HM – this is a Christian magazine, right?

Uh-huh.
Oh, awesome, man! We played Cornerstone… I’m sorry, I haven’t seen that name in years. Chad and I used to be on a small Christian dance label run by Scott Blackwell.

Yeah. N-Soul, right?
Yeah, N-Soul. And we played Cornerstone about five years in a row. We played Creation and one in New Hampshire…

What was the name of the band?
Cloud To Ground.

Oh yeah! I reviewed you guys in the magazine.
Really? Shiny Toy Guns is basically Cloud To Ground reformed as a rock band.

Wow. It’s a great sound. I love the mixture of styles.
With Shiny Toy Guns?

Yeah. I actually liked Cloud To Ground, too.
That was us being teenagers trying desperately to run equipment. That’s some scary music on those cds, man. So funny.

Shiny Toy Guns - Finish this feature by Doug Van Pelt in the new HM Magazine. Available now, Issue 130 can be found at select stores or for a reduced subscription rate.

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