Shervin Lainez
Hard to believe, but back in the ’80s, if you were a musician, there was a serious stigma attached to letting your song be used in a commercial: You’d be accused of “selling out.” These days, of course, bands know it’s one of the best ways to get your music heard — and nobody knows that better than the Washington, D.C.-based trio SHAED.
Last October, the group’s song, “Trampoline,” was chosen to soundtrack Apple’s MacBook Air commercial. As a result, the song blew up big time, not just in the U.S. but around the world.
“We were, like, the number-one Shazam song in Japan for like two weeks,” recalls SHAED multi-instrumentalist Max Ernst. “And Hong Kong, and, like, just all over the world.”
“It was incredible to see all of these people reaching out to us, saying they’d seen the commercial and how they’d fallen in love with the song and the music,” Max adds. “So, I really don’t think there were any drawbacks from it.”
Stateside, “Trampoline” hit #1 on Billboard‘s Alternative Rock chart, and now its crossed over to become a big pop hit. SHAED frontwoman Chelsea Lee says she, Max and the trio’s third member — her husband, Spencer, Max’s twin brother — couldn’t be more thrilled about what the Apple ad did for them.
“I mean, one billion percent, totally, like, so incredibly happy that we got the commercial,” Chelsea tells ABC Radio. “Because people that would not normally have heard any of our music now are hearing it internationally all over the world. And the visibility of a MacBook commercial is…you can’t even buy that kind of exposure. It’s nuts!”
SHAED launches a headlining tour starting September 30 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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