Keith Mack and Ed Shockley ask “What Happened?”
For locals in the Cape Region, Keith Mack and Ed Shockley likely don’t need an introduction.
The duo have been musical institutions in the area for the majority of the 21st century, whether playing together, solo or in other bands. However, the pair also have a long history together, playing in the early 1990s in a band called Cries. It was during that time Mack and Shockley wrote song demos that were never released publicly ... until now. Mack and Shockley’s new album “What Happened” with those songs is set to release Friday, July 29.
“We both lived in New York City at the time,” Mack said. “Ed and I signed on with the record company and got paid to write songs for a year. We wrote about 25, 30 songs. We just never got to record them. We had done demos for the record company. Ed programmed a drum machine. We’ve had these songs for a long time, and we just finally got to record them during COVID times.”
While the pair wanted to record their songs professionally for some time, Shockley said their busy live playing schedules always prevented them from doing it. But with not much else to do when COVID shut down live music, the duo decided the time was right.
“We had time,” Shockley said.
Mack and Shockley both said they knew the songs well – they had been playing them in their individual live sets for years – but they wanted to record them in the spirit of their original demos.
“We were a lot younger,” Mack said with a laugh. “We thought we were going to have a record out. We were listening to different music back then.”
While they have played with other artists and with each other in different settings, Shockley said playing with Mack is very comfortable. On the rerecorded versions, Shockley said he was thrilled to get to play drums again.
“We’re close friends, so it's easy for us to work together,” he said. “We did this for the joy of it.”
“Usually one of us will bring an idea to the other person and see if we want to finish it, and we will,” Mack added.
A native of Rehoboth Beach, Mack began his musical odyssey in 1982, when he moved to New York City and joined the group Scandal, which had two huge hits in the mid-1980s with “Goodbye To You” and “The Warrior,” the latter of which became the theme song for the recent Netflix series “Glow.” The group broke up in 1985, but reunited in the 2000s and continues to tour and play. He’s also played guitar for artists such as Joe Cocker and Cyndi Lauper.
Shockley moved to New York City in 1983 after his group in Delaware, Jack of Diamonds, broke up. He said Mack was one of the only people he knew up there and had encouraged him to come.
In the early 2000s, the pair took different tracks back to Delaware. Shockley moved back first, to Wilmington, before coming south to Lewes. Mack had gone from New York City to Los Angeles before coming back to Rehoboth in 2002.
“I thought I was going to miss it more than I ended up,” Mack said of coming from New York City to Delaware. “I was ready to come back. New York is a fun place to be when you’re young. Things changed. The music industry changed. The game hadn’t just changed; the game was gone.”
Of course, coastal Delaware has changed a lot since they came back, which for Mack and Shockley has been more good than bad. While the traffic is worse, the duo love that there are more places to play than ever and more people to play for.
“If you could play solo or in a duo, you could play 14 times a week if you wanted to,” Shockley said.
“I’ve done that,” Mack interjects. “I’m not up for doing that anymore. I played seven times last week. That’s enough.”
For now, Mack and Shockley are promoting their album, which, as multi-instrumentalists, they’re not always comfortable with, but they are happy that their songs have been released to the world.
“This is something very different than anything we’ve ever done, as far as the dynamic of it. It’s just nice to share the music you’ve written,” Mack said.
Shockley added, “It was a lot of fun for Keith and I to do this together. We’ll put it out there and see what happens.”
To hear the first single, “I Wanna Feel Alright,” and to preorder the album for download, go to keithmack.net.
