Kansas City-based indie rock band Shiner performs at Barleycorn’s Wednesday, January 14.
Formed in Kansas City, Missouri in 1992, the group recorded several albums over the course of a decade and established itself as a leading voice in the city’s fertile music scene. When the outfit disbanded in 2003, it left behind a legacy that stretched well beyond the boundaries of the Midwest, claiming fans across the country and internationally as well. While the members busied themselves with other projects, trends in the industry changed and with renewed interest in vinyl records swelling, the group ultimately reemerged in 2012 to oversee reissues of its past releases and play a series of shows from time to time.
In 2020 the quartet emerged with a new album, “Schadenfreude,” which demonstrated that their creative spark was still burning bright. The record did well despite having been released in the early hours of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in 2025, the group emerged once again with a strong, focused new collection of songs titled “BELIEVEYOUME,” which touches on themes relating to aging, the delicate nature of personal relationships (romantic or otherwise) and even the tale of a captain who is steering his ship into treacherous territory.
Founding member Allen Epley recently spoke about the new record and the band’s history with KMUW from his home in Chicago.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Shiner came out of the Kansas City music scene at a fertile time in the ‘90s. Did that scene already exist when you started?
There was a scene. It was from the late ‘80s. I had a band from college called The Industry and I remember that there were a few original bands, not a ton. There was one band called Sin City Disciples. They were amazing. They were so mean. It was kind of a throwback. It was punk rock and so out of range of my amazingness that I had no ability to even get close to that. We had The Industry and we started to join [with] other big cover bands of the time, Perpetual Change, Sons of Rex, a couple different ones. Eventually, we started working in some of our originals in three sets of covers.
By the time it got to Shiner, Smashing Pumpkins had happened. Nirvana had happened. The first band [in Kansas City] that kicked things off was Season To Risk. Some of my guys in Shiner were in Season To Risk. I’ve stolen everyone I can throughout the whole time. When we started we were trying to do a Smashing Pumpkins/Jesus Lizard/Slint/Jawbox mash-up. There was a Chicago scene, a Louisville element, and a D.C. element that was creeping into the Kansas City sound. We were third or fourth onto that thing. It was really Season To Risk, then Molly McGuire. I got my drummer [Jason Gerken] from Molly McGuire. In fact, I’ve poached from most of those bands. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was all the money that I was able to pay them. It was so much money. We’re filthy rich.
[Laughs.]
But there were also bands like Boys Life, Giants Chair, The Get Up Kids. They far surpassed all of us in terms of their appeal and approach and everything. Those guys of grandfathers of the emo scene now. It was an active scene and almost all of these bands got signed to major labels except for Shiner. I think I was paying them all too well, so nobody needed the money from any of the labels.
You did sign with DeSoto Records out of Chicago and gained some traction before splitting up in 2003. Then you got back together around 2012. What was the impetus for that?
Vinyl. It was the reintroduction of vinyl. When we were together, a lot of labels didn’t make vinyl, couldn’t afford it. Most people didn’t have record players. It really was about getting our record “The Egg” [2001] onto vinyl. So, in 2012, we were paid a lot of money to play five shows. Each one was exorbitant amounts of money for us. There was a show at The Gramercy Theatre in New York, there was a show at Echoplex in L.A., there was a show at The Granada in Lawrence and two shows in Chicago at The Bottom Lounge that we sold out. It was a really wonderful time. We did these shows and made a bunch of money.
Every couple of years we’d reintroduce one of our records on vinyl and it gave us a reason to get back together, have a few beers and a few laughs, rediscover this music. We were not really thinking about getting back together. We really, really didn’t. We never talked about rejoining forces to make a new record until about 2018 after we’d done two or three of these reunion tours and shows that had been very successful. We said, “We should probably do this or get off the pot because we’re going to run out of reason for people to come see us.”
And we did. And then the pandemic happened, our fifth record, “Schadenfreude,” came out and was still really successful for us. It did very well. But not until this new album, “BELIEVEYOUME,” did we really get to see the full effect. So many packed rooms and the full effect of a really strong record from a band of guys who really like each other.
On the new album, you tackle some different lyrical themes, whether relationships or getting older. Is that just the product of growing as a person?
I think you so. You want to write about the things that you know and that are real to you. For instance, long-term relationships. Some people say, “Oh, that’s boring. You guys have been together for 25 years and you’re going to be together forever.” Not necessarily. You ask anybody who’s in a long-term relationship. I’m always working on [my marriage]. You don’t take anything for granted.
You have the song “Asleep In The Truck” on the new album which is about the end of a relationship. Or, rather, one person has this hope that it’s still viable and the other person is long gone. There’s that refrain of “I keep thinking that we’re still in love.” That’s a dynamic that really exists. One person checks out and the other hasn’t realized it yet and it doesn’t matter how long they’ve been together. I love the way that song works because musically we hear things one time and they seem pleasant and then they re-emerge later and they’re dark.
I’m glad you got that. At first there was almost a sense of irony to it. “If you just take the Zip Ties off my ankle, then we can just talk through this.” It goes from “We’re not simpatico” to “Oh, I’m actually being gotten rid of. She’s actually going to kill me.” It’s not where I’m at, personally, it’s a fiction but those imbalances do exist in relationships when you feel like you’re not appreciated or you’re being taken for granted.
Overall, it happened very quickly but one thing we struggled with was finding the drum beat for the verses. You’ll note that there’s not a drum beat. There’s some fills but otherwise it’s the bass, just pumping, and then my chords, very lightly. Jason kept trying to find this beat but 6/8 is tough for him. I said, “How about not playing throughout but instead just giving me some fills and some flourishes?” He said, “Ohhhh!” This huge weight was lifted.
We started off talking about the early days of the Kansas City music scene and when I think about it it’s cool because so many people from that time are still involved in the scene. They’re not just playing in bands but they own clubs or recording studios, it’s something that they were able to stick with on a professional level.
We were all kind of talking about this. There’s a lot of guys from that ‘90s scene that are still very much living this artistic life. We’re all still very involved in music and creating, even in our mid-fifties. We all feel very lucky that we do it but we also earned it.
