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SERAFIMA & THE SHAKEDOWNS
Ride Easy(BWGiBWGAN)
Add date: 5.12.2026
Release date: 5.1.2026
Links:
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Instagram
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
In 2022, Serafima started a new band as an excuse to hang out with her friends Sam and Joe. This trio, now dubbed Serafima & The Shakedowns, became a place where Serafima could build out and explore her songs about life as a young woman in modern America.
Serafima finds influence in the likes of Johnny and June Carter Cash, Kimya Dawson, Joni Mitchell, Lily Allen, Dan Reeder, and Cake – somewhere in there among the honest and the groovy. Her lyrics hit you in the heart and stick in your head – wry, time-twisting verses as deceptively complex as her protagonists and their experiences. She won’t lie to you, but she just might tell you a story … so keep up, folks, and let’s ride along.
If Serafima’s lyrics are so honest, they burn, The Shakedowns distribute the heat, electrifying classic elements from the Golden Age of Radio, honky tonk, and Russian folk. With drummer Jules Tennyson (Biblioteka) joining in 2023, the arrival in 2025 of trumpet player Finn O’Hea, and the addition of second drummer, Ian Davidson, The Shakedowns rounded out to six piece,, with founding guitarist Sam Burrows and bassist Joe McPhee, and Serafima on vocals and rhythm guitar. Onstage, they’re a party.
“I like to say it’s hunky tonk,” Serafima says. “Because my bandmates are all hunks”.
The Shakedowns have shared stages with country artist Vincent Neil Emerson, Portland cosmic country champions Rose City Band, folksinger Kassi Valazza, rising San Francisco soul and jazz singer Mae Powell, Seattle/New Orleans singer-songwriter Chris Acker, psych rock outfit The Groovy Nobody, enigmatic songwriter and shredder, Lee Baggett, and many more.
Their previous release was a lathe-cut single, “Modern Girl Blues”, backed with “Rock Show”, the latter a slow number about those nights you just don’t feel like making it out – and an ode to the person who makes sure you do, anyway.
On Ride Easy, the band’s full-length debut, the title track “Ride Easy” lays bare Serafima’s philosophy for good and untroubled living – “Ride easy / don’t work so hard / ask him to dance / and don’t worry about your heart / It’s tough and strong / look what it does for you / it’ll get you through/ whatever you need it to.” “Bad Kitty” is a mischievous apology for “bad” behavior – a list of wrongs committed, and a promise that “maybe tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow… I’ll be better.”
“Shivers” is an ode to Seattle, Queen of the Pacific – a cloud-soaked rumination that finds the song’s lonely voice wondering, as Serafima explains, “is there anyone out there? My friends have left the city, and I’ve heard I’m supposed to have a guardian angel – but where is she?” She laughs. “Maybe she’s hiding behind the marine layer.”
And “The Slender Rowan” is an arrangement of the traditional Russian folk song. As The Shakedowns lay it down with молодцева́тость, Serafima sings in fluent Russian.
With Shakedowns Aaron Khawaja (Dean Johnson, Cat Clyde, Sons of Rainier) on piano and Rhodes, and Jay Kardong (Son Volt, Jay Farrar Trio, Sera Cahoone, Band of Horses, Matt Costa) on pedal steel, Ride Easy finds the band a magnificent seven trying to make sense of a modern girl’s reality on ten punchy and irresistible tracks. What makes a good friend? When does ambition turn to desperation? How much is too much of a good thing? How do we move through the day when longing, disenchantment, profound loneliness, and isolation are always tugging at our sleeves? What do you say when he says I love you – and you’re just trying to make out in his car?
While tasty drums and steady-chickin’ rhythm guitar hold each song to the silver thread at its core, the other players spin, swell, and rise up in the mix in turn – melodic bass, country-fried guitar leads, hook-laden trumpet, gossamer pedal steel, and sparkly honky-tonk keys. It feels like a circus, a carnival, a house party. Serafima’s vision is for everyone to be soloing, all the time.
That made improvisational rock producer and bassist Dan Horne (Cass McCombs, Beachwood Sparks, Mapache, Allah Las, Mikaela Davis, Circles Around the Sun, Grateful Shred) a natural fit to bring the album’s joyous sound to multidimensional life, recording to tape at his UHF Studio in Los Angeles.
Engineer Ian Davidson did some additional recording work at his studio in Seattle.
What’s clear is that this music is a celebration – of people, their friendships, and all their flaws. Serafima sings for everyone who works hard for their sparkle. With raw and heartfelt lyrics and a timeless sound, these songs find humor in life’s struggle, where we laugh along with the bad times and celebrate the good. Ride Easy catches this band as they’re about to roll onto the scene. So pack a bag, get down to the street, and stick out your thumb - they’re on their way. And they’re coming to pick you up.
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
In 2022, Serafima started a new band as an excuse to hang out with her friends Sam and Joe. This trio, now dubbed Serafima & The Shakedowns, became a place where Serafima could build out and explore her songs about life as a young woman in modern America.
Serafima finds influence in the likes of Johnny and June Carter Cash, Kimya Dawson, Joni Mitchell, Lily Allen, Dan Reeder, and Cake – somewhere in there among the honest and the groovy. Her lyrics hit you in the heart and stick in your head – wry, time-twisting verses as deceptively complex as her protagonists and their experiences. She won’t lie to you, but she just might tell you a story … so keep up, folks, and let’s ride along.
If Serafima’s lyrics are so honest, they burn, The Shakedowns distribute the heat, electrifying classic elements from the Golden Age of Radio, honky tonk, and Russian folk. With drummer Jules Tennyson (Biblioteka) joining in 2023, the arrival in 2025 of trumpet player Finn O’Hea, and the addition of second drummer, Ian Davidson, The Shakedowns rounded out to six piece,, with founding guitarist Sam Burrows and bassist Joe McPhee, and Serafima on vocals and rhythm guitar. Onstage, they’re a party.
“I like to say it’s hunky tonk,” Serafima says. “Because my bandmates are all hunks”.
The Shakedowns have shared stages with country artist Vincent Neil Emerson, Portland cosmic country champions Rose City Band, folksinger Kassi Valazza, rising San Francisco soul and jazz singer Mae Powell, Seattle/New Orleans singer-songwriter Chris Acker, psych rock outfit The Groovy Nobody, enigmatic songwriter and shredder, Lee Baggett, and many more.
Their previous release was a lathe-cut single, “Modern Girl Blues”, backed with “Rock Show”, the latter a slow number about those nights you just don’t feel like making it out – and an ode to the person who makes sure you do, anyway.
On Ride Easy, the band’s full-length debut, the title track “Ride Easy” lays bare Serafima’s philosophy for good and untroubled living – “Ride easy / don’t work so hard / ask him to dance / and don’t worry about your heart / It’s tough and strong / look what it does for you / it’ll get you through/ whatever you need it to.” “Bad Kitty” is a mischievous apology for “bad” behavior – a list of wrongs committed, and a promise that “maybe tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow… I’ll be better.”
“Shivers” is an ode to Seattle, Queen of the Pacific – a cloud-soaked rumination that finds the song’s lonely voice wondering, as Serafima explains, “is there anyone out there? My friends have left the city, and I’ve heard I’m supposed to have a guardian angel – but where is she?” She laughs. “Maybe she’s hiding behind the marine layer.”
And “The Slender Rowan” is an arrangement of the traditional Russian folk song. As The Shakedowns lay it down with молодцева́тость, Serafima sings in fluent Russian.
With Shakedowns Aaron Khawaja (Dean Johnson, Cat Clyde, Sons of Rainier) on piano and Rhodes, and Jay Kardong (Son Volt, Jay Farrar Trio, Sera Cahoone, Band of Horses, Matt Costa) on pedal steel, Ride Easy finds the band a magnificent seven trying to make sense of a modern girl’s reality on ten punchy and irresistible tracks. What makes a good friend? When does ambition turn to desperation? How much is too much of a good thing? How do we move through the day when longing, disenchantment, profound loneliness, and isolation are always tugging at our sleeves? What do you say when he says I love you – and you’re just trying to make out in his car?
While tasty drums and steady-chickin’ rhythm guitar hold each song to the silver thread at its core, the other players spin, swell, and rise up in the mix in turn – melodic bass, country-fried guitar leads, hook-laden trumpet, gossamer pedal steel, and sparkly honky-tonk keys. It feels like a circus, a carnival, a house party. Serafima’s vision is for everyone to be soloing, all the time.
That made improvisational rock producer and bassist Dan Horne (Cass McCombs, Beachwood Sparks, Mapache, Allah Las, Mikaela Davis, Circles Around the Sun, Grateful Shred) a natural fit to bring the album’s joyous sound to multidimensional life, recording to tape at his UHF Studio in Los Angeles.
Engineer Ian Davidson did some additional recording work at his studio in Seattle.
What’s clear is that this music is a celebration – of people, their friendships, and all their flaws. Serafima sings for everyone who works hard for their sparkle. With raw and heartfelt lyrics and a timeless sound, these songs find humor in life’s struggle, where we laugh along with the bad times and celebrate the good. Ride Easy catches this band as they’re about to roll onto the scene. So pack a bag, get down to the street, and stick out your thumb - they’re on their way. And they’re coming to pick you up.