Here’s our second recommendation for this cool new series. This week’s Lockdown Artist Discovery: Luke James Shaffer. This talented young man has been on my Spotify Playlists for a couple years now and he keeps surprising me with super catchy tunes!

To be honest, I don’t quite remember how I discovered him. It must have been through Twitter though (I know it wasn’t through his American Idol). Around this time, I’ve found many many cool artists through Twitter (Metaxas was one of them btw).

Luke James Shaffer – Singer/Songwriter with a heart-warming voice

Luke has been actively singing and recording for quite a while now. I remember his first full-length album “Brooklyn Love” coming out almost 10 years ago. Back then I helped fund it through Kickstarter and was so happy to actually get a physical copy in the mail. It’s been listened to many many times while driving (the only place I still had a CD drive haha). Luke has come a long way since then. His style hasn’t changed that much in my opinion, it’s always been a mix of Americana and Folk and lots of guitars. I’ve always loved the way he kind of pushes the guitar tracks into the foreground.

While his style or his vocals haven’t changed much, there still is a distinct difference in his earlier music. Not sure I can really pinpoint it, I’m not really a pro when it comes to the technical things or musical lingo, but his newer songs do seem more “sophisticated”. Probably not the right word, but I hope you get it when you listen to the different songs (Brooklyn Love should still be up on Luke’s Bandcamp Profile).

I like how he’s also tried some new things while still staying true to himself and keeping his catchy tunes and using his distinctive voice the same way. His song “So Far” was one of those songs in my opinion. A bit more on the pop side with some different beats than usual. But still, you can totally tell it’s him. Love it! His latest EP “Luke James Shaffer Vol. 2” came out last year, right after the pandemic hit. Go check it out:  

From American Idol Contestant to one of my Favorite Loopers

Apart from all his great original songs (that will definitely get stuck in your head for days) this week’s Lockdown Artist Discovery: Luke James Shaffer is amazing at looping and creating incredible live versions of his songs and covers. While for some people the setting up of all the loops might seem boring, that’s what amazes me the most. He recently covered the major TikTok hit “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo:

Luke puts out new covers pretty regularly, which is really cool! There’s always new songs to discover. So make sure you go give him a follow on YouTube.

 © Derek Baker

Ønalark and other News

Yep, this might sound like a weird name, but the music is pretty cool! This is Luke’s new project he just started with long time co-writer Dan Strauch. Their second release “Wait” was just released on Feb 21st and I’m excited to see what comes next! Go have a listen 👇

Other than that, we’re excited to say, there’s more new-ish stuff coming out soon. Luke has an acoustic version of his song “Slide” coming out on March 19th with producer Jake Vicious of Vault Studio. The original version came out back in 2019 but at the moment isn’t available online. Luke did promise us, that both the original as well as the acoustic version will be available online in March.

Lockdown Artist Discovery: Luke James Shaffer – Live Dates

Obviously, no live dates at the moment… Covid and stuff. But pre-pandemic, he did go around play some gigs here and there. I really hope that once the world opens up again, he’ll be playing more shows and maybe even make it over to Europe for a show or two. Luke, you know, I’m happy to help out and organize gigs here 😉

So until then, all we can do is listen to all the wonderful music he has out, support him (and all other artists – they are all struggling during this time too!) however we can and then cross our fingers for live shows to come back soon. So for now I’ll just leave you with this video of him performing “Last First Kiss” at a Sofar Session:

Go Give Luke James Shaffer A Follow!

If you want to keep up with Jake’s career and his music, make sure to go give him a follow on all his socials:

Website: Luke James Shaffer
Instagram: Luke James Shaffer
Facebook: Luke James Shaffer
Twitter: Luke James Shaffer
YouTube: Luke James Shaffer
Spotify: Luke James Shaffer

You can also support him on Patreon, as you can imagine, artists that can’t perform only have limited options to pay their bills.

About the Lockdown Artist Discovery Series

For those of you just joining the party, this series has been created by a bunch of Swiss Music Bloggers. We want to make these challenging times a bit easier for you, by introducing you to some of our favorite artists, that you may or may not know.

Every Sunday 2 new articles will be posted. Make sure to go check out the other blogs that are participating in this series:

Music and Events published: Marius Bear and Tim Freitag
Erenblogs published: Daniel Donskoy and Haevn
Planetsarah.ch published: Wild Youth
Yours truly published: Jake Isaac