And then there were three. L-R: John Murphy, Gary Klebe and Jeff Murphy.


little sandpaper-ish growl. It’s like when you suck on one of those sourball candies – the outer coating is all sweet sugar, but the more you suck on the candy the more the tart, burning sensation of the inside coat comes through, and soon you’re being hit by a combination of sensations, and it’s hard to say whether it’s the sweet or the sour that makes you want more and more of the thing.


Although brilliant pop songwriting, and a dedication to their singular melodic vision, are the driving forces behind Shoes’ recorded history, the real story around the band has to do with camaraderie. They have three members who all write well and have golden-throated voices; and while that embarrassment of riches would be problematic for most acts (think ego struggles and “creative differences”), for Shoes it’s a source of power. The three members in question are two brothers – Jeff and John Murphy – and their close mutual friend Gary Klebe. They came of age as musicians together, and to this day, 35 years after they first got out a 4-track and recorded music together, they are still close compatriots.


That interpersonal solidarity is on display in the promotional video Shoes shot for their song ‘Too Late,’ one of the many gems from Present Tense and one of four Shoes videos that aired on MTV during its earliest days. The song is one of Gary Klebe’s, and in the video Klebe takes the lead vocal as the band mimes the song on stage in what looks like a classic Midnight Special setting. Klebe appears as an unassuming guy, an unlikely pop star if there ever was one, as he stoically


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and shyly performs his perfect pop song. There are two different points during the song when Klebe steals a furtive glance over at Jeff and John Murphy momentarily, and in both cases a little smile spontaneously forms on his face for just a flicker of a moment. It’s a touching thing to see. It reminds you that at the base of this classic powerpop band is the bond between two brothers and their lifelong buddy.


“We didn’t play a live gig until April 8th, 1976! So all of that


recording served as our learning tool to write, play, sing and record.”


Jeff Murphy


When asked if having three creative forces in the band has ever created a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario, Jeff Murphy emphatically states that the opposite is true. “Shoes started out as friends and we’ve been very democratic in every step we’ve taken. If we ever stop being friends, the band is over. But we remain good friends and we’re very vigilant about making sure that all three of us get equal say in what’s done. It’s very important to us to keep parity in our work. It’s like a three-man sack race: If we win, we all win; if we fall, we all fall. There will always be some form of discussion and debate when there are multiple opinions


offered, but we do our best to be considerate of each other’s ideas. Although, sometimes when we’re putting together a song, the biggest problem is that there are so many good ideas that we have to decide which good ideas to leave out.


“We all have a Midwestern work ethic and have been lucky to find two other guys that have the same determination and musical direction. It’s tough to keep a band together for 35 years! But stylistically, I think we all have slightly different approaches that complement each other. We influence and inspire each other’s work.”


It was around ’74/75 when the guys decided to put a pop act together, drummer Skip Meyer rounding out their unit. They recorded a couple of albums’ worth of tracks, on which they cut their teeth and sought their collective tune-making voice. They kept those first batches of output mostly to themselves, but when they compiled the cache of tunes that made up the album Black Vinyl Shoes in ’77, they felt they had hit a point where they were ready to take this homemade music out to the people. They created their own label, Black Vinyl Records, pressed up as many copies of the record as they could, and began a grassroots publicity effort where they sent copies to prominent music critics and tried to get shops to carry it wherever they could.


Jeff Murphy: “John had always wanted a band, despite the fact that neither he nor I played any instruments. Back then, everybody wanted to be in a band! But it wasn’t until after High School that we


Photo courtesy of Jeff Murphy


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