Shawn Hess: The Voice of Laramie
Photo by: Mike Vanata | Western AF
Written by: Daisy Innes
Photo by: Jason Alfaro | Right Eye Media
Behind the bar of Laramie, Wyoming’s Ruffed Up Duck Saloon is likely Shawn Hess. The downtown joint is a safe haven for independent music and one of the few places in town to hear good music most nights of the week. Hess, a country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, looks the part, dressed in full denim, most of the time. He knows nearly everyone who comes in and easily juggles serving beers and fixing soundboards. “People don’t realise that we hear everything,” Hess says of his sometimes invisible role behind the bar. “Even if we’re not supposed to – a lot of wild things.”
It takes a listener to be a good storyteller. Hess has lived in Laramie for fifteen years and though he regularly tours, he’s always happy to return home. “It’s the only place I can imagine myself living,” he says.
Hess’ latest album, Wild Onion is laced with images of the simplicity that outlines life out west. It’s a contemplative, acoustic-forward record that savors that romanticized gentleness of Wyoming, not a place stuck in time, but rather simply one living at a slower pace. With notions of 1950s and 1960s classic country and flecks of the steel-infused edge of 1970s California country-rock bands, Hess has crafted something unique and situated it within his own Wyoming world.
For some, the solitude that characterizes the state might be dull. There’s a certain mindset you need to be able to find the beauty in being alone. Laramie, however, offers the best of both worlds. Nestled in the southeast of Wyoming and a mere thirty minutes from the Colorado border, the city is home to 30,000 people and the state’s only public university. Drive ten minutes out of town though, and you’re in the heart of the American West, surrounded by the prairies that have served as backdrops for countless works of Western art.
“I didn’t set out to write country music, it’s just what happened here, I’ve settled more into myself and found my voice.”
“I didn’t set out to write country music, it’s just what happened here, I’ve settled more into myself and found my voice,” Hess says. “When you’re surrounded by nothingness, you’ve got to bring things to you.”
Photo by: Silas Wotkyns
There’s a magnitude in that nothingness, though. It could be that age-old American possibility in the endless landscape that helps writers like Hess find their words in what he calls “magical pockets within vast wide-open spaces.” Traversing Wyoming on foot made Hess appreciate the vast space, and turn from a self-described kid in a pearl-snap shirt playing in a psych band, to writing impressively introspective country music. Seeing it all and carrying a remarkable collection of country music under his leather belt, he developed an age-old, often acoustic sound.
There’s a noticeable growth in Hess’ catalogue from the embellished tropes of the mythic west on his debut album, World Away to a more personal approach to storytelling on his latest release. “There’s no pew, no preacher down the aisle/ No walls that could hold in all of this love anyway,” he sings on “Walls”, convincingly making the claim that the Western landscape is worthy of worship.
In a place like Laramie, that spirituality makes sense. The downtown is framed by the mountains and bordered by the railroad, colours of the prairies are blown across the canvas by those notorious Wyoming winds, its identity can’t be confined and the people that call it home, they don’t want to try to confine it. It’s no coincidence that a place with an abundance of space encourages introspection; wander out into the nothingness to seek out your own voice, then head back to town to a group of people that have chosen to listen.
A move to Laramie from Cheyenne offered Hess the kind of community that only somewhere with purpose and a geographic isolation can. Now, doing his part for ‘Laradise,’ as it’s affectionately known, means bringing artists and good local music to the Duck. No one ends up in Laramie by accident – it nurtures and cultivates the stories of those who choose to make it home, offering paths towards the prairies but leaving a neon light to signal where familiarity is.
“I claim Wyoming as a whole as home,” Hess says. “But my voice is Laramie.”
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