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Three Sheets to the Wind, a 2019 performance, launched his own wine brand, Steely Can Wine. (Photos courtesy of Steely Can Wine.)
Jack Shannon has a word of tongue-in-cheek advice for venture capitalists looking for their next investment.
“VCs should really pay more attention to the bands that hang around after their shows,” Shannon said with a laugh. “Because the creative juices for stupid business ideas are flowing at that time.”
It was at one of the after-shows that Shannon and five bandmates from local cruise-rock cover band Three Sheets to the Wind hatched the idea for their latest venture, Steely Can Wine.
The new wine brand sells bottled wines online with names that pay homage to Steely Dan and other soft-rock bands of the 1970s and ’80s.
The brand is unrelated to Steely Dan, and belongs to Shannon and five other members of Three Sheets for the Wind: Greg Brooks, Marshall Norton, Micah Berry, Jay Calabro, Jesse Kuhl, and the band’s former drummer Adam Stockton.
The group launched Three Sheets to the Wind in 2009, like Steely Can Wine, as a joke.
“We said, ‘Hey, let’s put this cruise rock list together and wear blazers and sunglasses,'” Shannon says. “We thought it would be a bit of a laugh.”
But over the years, Three Sheets to the Wind has played in 15 states, often at gigs in the mid-Atlantic. Shannon, the entertainment manager by day, said they play 25 to 50 gigs a year, including weddings, fundraisers and other shows.
After a stop in Pennsylvania last year — the Steely Vans they traveled on their tour bus with — one member of the group pondered what to call a cruise-rock-inspired wine.
“We started throwing ideas around and laughing at each other,” Norton said.
The company started with three types of wine: Chardonnay, red blend and rose.
The idea of a Ship Rock wine brand especially resonated with Brooks, who works by day in Ashland-based wine and beer supply.
“What I do at work, I get wine. I buy wine in bulk, and sell to customers and create brands for hotel and restaurant groups,” said Brooks.
The band teamed up with a California winery last summer to provide experimental wines, and Steely Can wines are sold at a handful of local shops and restaurants, such as Barrel Thief and Cuba Cuba.
“We did this to gauge demand and we sold out of those very quickly,” Brooks said. “That kind of set the wheels in motion to get some more species and take it more seriously.”
Between playing shows and working their day jobs, the band completed the branding and concept for Steely Can Wine this year. The first three offerings are Rosé Darling, Kid Chardonnay and Deacon Red Blend. The wines are in approximately 13 ounce cans.
They store the wine in the same 1,000-square-foot space off Hamilton Street in the Westwood area where they practice and sell primarily through SteelyCan.com. Brooks said they are delivering it themselves within a 15-mile radius around the city and eventually want to expand their offerings.
While the band was founded as a joke, Brooks says that they take Steely Khan’s production quality as seriously as they do the music they play.
“It’s a very good wine. It’s not just a gimmick. We’re not throwing some junk in the can,” he said.
Shannon added: “We all still think it’s fun to play this soft rock music. We take the music very seriously, but the difference between us and a lot of other groups of friends is that if something is funny enough, we really follow it.
“We’ll get the ABC license and the bank account and make it legal. It’s just one more joke in our friendship story.”
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