The Stupid Truth
Out now on the Volare Label

Fall, 2002:
The stupid truth about The Stupid Truth is that Shellye Valauskas' debut CD was destined to be a pop album.

As a solo performer, Shellye was chosen to play the CMJ festival in New York and won the New Haven Advocate readers' poll as the area's best singer-songwriter.

But the relatively simple process of recording a four-track demo was stalled while Shellye questioned what kind of recordings she really wanted to make. Eventually, she coaxed old friend Dean Falcone a local pop guru and former guitarist for New Haven legends One Hundred Faces to help her start a band. Arranging her songs for a four-piece band, and making room for Falcone's Badfinger-esque guitar solos, made perfect sense. It gave Shellye's songs the sort of fullness, warmth and instrumental experimentation which she admired in her favorite bands: The Posies, The Pernice Brothers, Crowded House, Aimee Mann and Lucinda Williams.

"It's melodic pop, if you want to call it that," Dean hedges while describing The Stupid Truth. "It's poppy, and there's a little twang to it. It's not folky really, but people have heard that in there."

This radio-friendly yet intimate CD may well be summed up by Dean's seven-year old daughter Mia's hilarious misreading of Dean Martin, a snippet which kicks off The Stupid Truth's opening song, "Keep It Safe." Mia warbles "Everybody loves somebody else." Shellye builds upon that sentiment with lines like "It's a long way down the line." And "I don't know who to blame, all I know is I don't like feeling this way." And "Am I the same as I used to be." Her optimism, openness, friendliness and her charming yet vulnerable vocal style make The Stupid Truth a happy and poppy record.

The Stupid Truth, two years in the making, is the product of visits to numerous studios—Boston's Q Division and Supersonic, Hartford's Studio .45 and Wallingford (CT)'s Joetown among them—and of a changing cast of clever local musicians. Mixed by Michael Deming (Pernice Brothers, The Lilys and Beachwood Sparks), the album features Connecticut favorites such as metal producer Joe Delaney, pop violinist Maya Rossi, Botswanas and Big Bad Johns drummer Jim Balga and folk singer Anne Marie Menta. Boston friends who helped out include Jules Verdone and Shellye's brother Ed (of The Gravel Pit and The Gentlemen).

The songs began, however, with Shellye alone in a room with her guitar. "Everything is pretty much emotion-based. I really just mess around. The melody comes first, along with the chords, and the rest of the song all happens at once. Then I give it to Dean and he shapes it, arranges all the parts." Many of the tunes date back to Shellye's solo years, though "Obvious" (an upbeat-sounding country-twinged tune with the downbeat lyric "It's plain to see you're just tired of me") was penned during the recording process and quickly added to the 10-song disc.

Playing with the latest line-up of her live band (Dean Falcone on guitar & vocals, Bruce Crowder on drums, and Michael Bingham on bass & vocals), Shellye Valauskas regularly headlines in New Haven clubs and has opened shows for Todd Rundgren, Melissa Ferrick, Ivy, Kristin Hersh, Pat Benatar, Amy Rigby, Merrie Amsterberg, Mike Viola, Shane Nicholson and Mary Lou Lord. The New Haven release party for The Stupid Truth was a sold-out success. The album is receiving airplay on college stations throughout the tri-state area, and has been heard regularly on the Local Bands! show on powerhouse rock station WPLR, 99.1 FM.

Shellye recently added a track to a tribute album honoring New Haven legends The Furors, and is lending her vocals to an upcoming release by Thin Man Music labelmates  The Manchurians.

Shellye Valauskas
The Stupid Truth (2002, The Volare label)
1. Keep It Safe
2. Blame
3. Impatiently
4. Lie #1
5. Secret
6. Catch Your Breath
7. Obvious
8. Anything
9. Coward
10. Somebody Said (You're In Over Your Head).