John Shakespear Music

On Spend Your Youth, his first full-length record, the Nashville-based, Boston-bred songwriter captures the experience of coming of age in a time of national division and social unease. With a poet’s eye for detail and a persevering warmth that transcends national and political boundaries, Shakespear’s lushly orchestrated indie-folk songs question what it means to find personal happiness and identity in a fraught, complicated world.

Shakespear is releasing his debut full-length record, Spend Your Youth, on May 10. Produced, recorded, and mixed by Devon Dawson (Local Natives) with additional mixing from Greg Giorgio (The National, Sharon van Etten, Kurt Vile), it's a coming-of-age record tinged by the times.

As the child of an Argentine immigrant and a Boston-Irish mother, as a doubting boy in a Catholic choir school, and as an aspiring artist in the business-oriented world of the Ivy League, he has always been between identities and worlds. Before moving to Nashville in 2017, he developed a robust following in Boston’s diverse DIY music scene, both as a solo artist and a member of several bands, including local indie stalwart Atlas Lab, and performed with acts such as Henry Jamison, Lewis Del Mar, and Busty and the Bass. Amidst regional praise for his first two EPs, Shakespear toured all of New England and Canada before taking his songs nation-wide in a beat-up Honda Element.