Why Sarah Shook Loves Milwaukee (and the Cactus Club)

by

Milwaukee has become a happy spot for the road warriors in Sarah Shook and the Disarmers.

During the North Carolina band’s last visit to town at the Cactus Club in July 2019, from the stage, Shook declared Milwaukee “an oasis” after spending dozens of nights on the road. They return Friday to Milwaukee and the Cactus Club with Dallas’ Joshua Ray Walker.

While they have played at various venues over the past few years in Milwaukee, the Cactus Club especially feels like home, says Shook. “There’s a magic about Cactus Club that I would just attribute to the people who work there,” they say. “It has that special super divey feeling that you can just walk in, and you feel the history of the room.”

Shook says they consider several members of the staff personal friends.

Celebrating Sobriety

One thing Shook won’t be doing with bar staff this time is knocking back any shots or other alcohol. Shook is about to celebrate three years of sobriety after “drinking pretty damn hard for years.”

“It’s kind of that Catch 22 when you’ve convinced yourself when you’re doing this thing because it helps to manage your anxiety and your stress, and all told is really something that’s exacerbating the issue,” they say. “It was preventing me from facing a lot of the trauma of my past and dealing with it so that I can be in super sober recovery mode, which is how I feel I am right now, which is pretty awesome.”

Alcohol, Shook says, was negatively affecting every aspect of their life, personally and professionally. “I feel like everything got better after I quit drinking,” they say.

One area that has been more difficult for Shook to adjust to is performing on stage without the help of alcohol or drugs. Shook says they never intended to become a person who performed before hundreds of people. “I’m very introverted,” they say. “I didn’t really want to do this job. That was never a career plan for me.”

Taking the Band Seriously

Guitarist Eric Peterson, who is sidelined from the band currently while he deals with arm issues, pushed Shook in 2015 to take the Disarmers more seriously after a previous band they had been in—Sarah Shook and the Devil—broke up. Essentially, Peterson wanted to know if they were going to be a band that just plays shows occasionally or one that records, tours, has merchandise, etc., so that he could adjust his expectations accordingly, Shook explains.

“I’m not ambitious,” Shook says. “I had no idea that that was something he even wanted. Having realized that it was something important to him, I was like let’s make it happen.”

And they did. The Disarmers have gone onto to release three albums, tour across the United States and around the world and gain a substantial following.

It has been hard to get used to performing at that level again completely sober, Shook says.

“It’s gotten easier with time. It’s kind of like exercising a muscle,” they say. “You just keep doing it, and you figure out ways to improve upon every performance, which is really helpful. That’s one of the things I like about sobriety, there’s a level of clarity that’s there where you can be more objective and constructively critical of your own performance for the sake of bettering yourself.”

New Label, New Album

Another major change for Shook and the Disarmers’ is a new record label, Thirty Tigers, for their latest album, Nightroamer, after two acclaimed records on Bloodshot Records. The Chicago label closed last year after dealing with the fallout from several controversies.

Legendary country producer and musician Pete Anderson produced Nightroamer, which is less rowdy and more midtempo than previous Disarmer efforts but features excellent songwriting again and another batch of strong songs, including “Please Be a Stranger” and “If It’s Poison.”

The band had done a lot of preproduction of the songs before going into the studio with Anderson and had a good idea of what they wanted, Shook says.

“By and large, Pete didn’t make that many changes to what we had,” the say. “His role was mainly just adding little flourishes and finishing touches here and there.”

Nightroamer is not the only album you’ll hear from Shook in 2022. While dealing with pandemic-related delays during the recording of the album, Shook wrote, recorded and engineered a solo album that will come out this fall on Kill Rock Stars. Shook credits recording the solo album—and therapy—with helping her making it through the early part of her sobriety.

“It’s a lot more in the vein of indie rock and pop,” Shook says.

But country and punk rock are still cornerstones for the Disarmers, Shook says. They have been writing songs recently for the next Disarmers’ record.

“Most of them are pretty country, sort in the vein of our first release, Sidelong, and I’m pretty excited about it,” Shook says.

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers and Joshua Ray Walker are performing at 7 p.m. Friday, June 24 at the Cactus Club, 2496 S. Wentworth Ave.