It’s crazy to know that 2021 will be coming to an end on Friday. Champagne glasses will be raised, the ball will drop and 2022 will arrive with a collective hope for better times ahead. Along with these things, you can’t ring in New Year’s Eve without a party and there’s going to be a few happening all over Rhode Island. At The Parlour on 1119 North Main St. in Providence, local garage rock act Ravi Shavi will be headlining a wild time. The band is fronted by vocalist and guitarist Rafay Rashid who also grew up in Warwick.

Rashid and I had a chat ahead of the festivities about his proudest moment of this year, collaborating with other musicians to fulfill creative ambitions and his first solo album he’ll be releasing soon.
Rob Duguay: Looking back on 2021, what would you say was your proudest moment of this year for you as a musician?

Rafay Rashid: I would say probably playing the Busking Stage at the Newport Folk Festival on my birthday, it was pretty nice. Another moment that’s close to that is co-producing my bandmate Nick Politelli’s debut solo album “Examiner” with one of our musical heroes Keith Zariello of The Shivers in the summer of 2021. That should be out at some point next year.

RD: Awesome. How was the experience of performing at the Newport Folk Festival for you? How did you get the opportunity? Was it through the organizers or someone else?

RR: Jay Sweet, the producer of Folk Fest, ended up hearing some of my upcoming solo record and got me on the line-up. I’ve made friends with some of the organizers through Deer Tick and just being so close with the guys in that band and having that connection definitely helped.

RD: Back in October, Ravi Shavi released their latest album Special Hazards on vinyl. With supply chains all over the world being messed up because of COVID-19 and things taking longer to be delivered than usual, was it difficult to get these pressings in a certain amount of time? Did you have to do a lot of waiting to get the physical copies?

RR: We were basically just waiting on word from the record label at Almost Ready Records on when the vinyls would be done. Apparently, it took that long but luckily we were able to share that album digitally last year and it was actually kind of nice to have two releases in a way. I think some bands got to experience that as well by having release shows a year after they put out an album because of the pandemic. In some ways you can try to find the positives of having two occasions for one album, which I think is nice.

RD: I can see that. Outside of Ravi Shavi, you also have the solo project Rodney Dangerous, Happiness with Ian O’Neil, Christopher & Dennis Ryan from Deer Tick and you’ve posted recently on social media about collaborating with Dusty Rooney from XR-Tabs and Alec K. Redfearn. What do you like the most about working with different musicians and doing these different projects? Do you like to explore different artistic sides of yourself?

RR: I really feel like I can’t explore the scope of my interests alone, if that makes any sense. I feel like I need other people to bounce my own creativity off of and bring it into new possibilities and new places in general. I also don’t feel comfortable sitting still in one place for too long either sonically or literally in a room. To me, it feels like the more people I can collaborate with the better and in Providence there’s certainly no shortage of fruitful collaborators.

RD: Absolutely, you’re totally spot on. There’s a lot of talented musicians, as you know, in the city. What are Ravi Shavi’s plans or your plans for 2022?

RR: Along with Nick’s album that’s coming out, I have a solo album in the works that I sort of mentioned earlier. For the first time, I’m going to be releasing music under my name and there are some exciting plans coming together for that. Other than that, it’s kind of tough to plan for next year honestly but that album will be released for sure. It’s the most honest and vulnerable record I’ve made yet.