Silverstein

author TL date 04/06/08

Last time Silverstein was in Denmark we decided to talk to their support band BlessTheFall instead, so naturally, when they came back less than 6 months later, we had to go for the headliners. Having encountered trouble calling a Canadian phonenumber in Denmark, my interview had already been postponed one and a half hour, so I ended up sitting down with half the band in the kebab place across the street from Vega. Having helped the guys find out what dishes on the menu were vegetarian, I got to sit down and have a chat about violent lyricism, emo and Danish band Mew - enjoy:

RF.net: Welcome to the interview! Please introduce yourselves!
Josh: I\'m Josh, I play guitar

Shane: I\'m Shane, I sing

Paul: And I\'m Paul and I play the drums

RF.net: So how are things in Silverstein at the moment?
Josh: Good!

Shane: Pretty good you know.. We\'re enjoying our second European tour in quite a short time.. We were just here not too long ago (Ed: December 07) and the weather is much better now and we really like it, just to walk around here and have a good time. It\'s much nicer to be here when you have a lot of sunlight.

Josh: I think to be honest that I\'m having the most fun over here that I\'ve ever had while being here so..

RF.net: Yes, you are in fact back here very soon, considering how most bands from across the pond take years between their visits to Europe and especially Denmark - So how come you\'re coming back so quickly?
Josh: We like to get around I guess..

Paul: I think it\'s a dedication to really breaking that Scandinavian market, and especially here in Copenhagen, it\'s our third time here now and we think there\'s something special going on here, so we reckon there\'s no reason not to come back here and try to help it grow.

Shane: Yeah the people here are awesome and it\'s always a pleasure to come around and enjoy playing music and being at a show together.

RF.net: Last time you were around, you brought support with you from the other side of the ocean, namely Vincent Black Shadow and BlessTheFall, and on this current tour you\'re supported by two European bands, Lapko and Today Forever - How come this change in approach?
Shane: Well it was hard for us to work out logistically to bring a band over, simply because of how difficult it is to take equipment with you on a plane, so because of that we decided to have our friends from Today Forever supporting us - they\'re from Germany and they\'re a great band and some great people that we really get along with. We really want to help them out as well, so if we can tour with them around Europe that\'s just cool.

RF.net: I want to talk a little about your lyrics, because they seem to be a little violent in nature, with a lot of stabbing and poisoning going on in some songs, so I\'d like to know what kinds of things inspire you to write songs like that?
Shane: I don\'t know. I\'m not a violent person myself and I don\'t often use violence. I guess It\'s just describing a feeling that\'s inside of you in a more physical way. I think we\'ve done that way of expressing feelings on the first two records and it\'s worked really well, and on the new record we\'ve moved a bit away from it. I think a lot of our fans expected us to stick with it and that some got disappointed because of it, but for me it\'s about where I am and what\'s going on in my life and about finding the best way to make people understand about it.

RF.net: If we talk about your albums, between the first two it seemed that there was quite a jump in style, from a more noisy and chaotic one, to a more organic one, and then between Discovering The Waterfront and Arrivals And Departures, the change seemed much less radical - Can you describe to us how the change has been to you musically?
Shane: I think you\'re right. When we wrote that first album it was over the span of like, 3 years and some of the songs on it were some of the first songs we ever wrote together. They were kind of all over the place in terms of style and then on Discovering The Waterfront we kind of found our sound a little bit. Then on Arrivals And Departures we just branched that out a little bit more. Sometimes people don\'t think that though, they think the new one\'s different. The first record, I like it but it\'s not my favourite, however I feel that Discovering came out really well and we\'ve just tried to continue that on Arrivals.

RF.net: I guess what people really want to know is what to expect now then, on an upcoming Silverstein album - Do you have any idea about what\'s going to happen on that yet?
Shane: Well - I mean.. Yeah, we\'ve always got ideas and lot\'s of plans, and some of them are stupid but we talk about them anyway. So far we\'ve made three records in the same way, just getting in there, writing the songs, not really talking about the direction but just doing it. Maybe this time we\'ll do something a little more deliberate but I don\'t know yet. I think it\'s okay to expect it to be different, nothing drastic but definetely something where you can see that we might have gone about things in a different way.

RF.net: Do you ever see yourself doing a record that\'s drastically different from what you\'re doing now though? Maybe without any screaming at all, or simply just more mellow in sound?

Shane: Well maybe, but the thing is that we\'ve done this band for such a long time now and worked so much on it and I think the reason it works is because of how our music is. If we just played mellow shit all the time I think we\'d get bored of it and if we only played heavy stuff all the time I think we\'d get bored of that too. We\'ve had a punk rock song on one record and a lot of bands couldn\'t do that because it would be too out there for them, and other people wouldn\'t do something super mellow as well. I think the reason that we still like doing what we do is that we allow ourselves to do something different when we feel like it, but for now however, we\'re pretty happy about what we are doing.

RF.net: When we talked to you last time ago, over two years ago when you were supporting Simple Plan, we asked you if you were okay with being associated with the whole emo/screamo movement and you told us that you were basically okay with it because you knew where the term originated from. Now two years down the road, are you still okay with it?
Shane: It\'s definetely changed over the years, and it\'s getting more and more diluded, with more and more bands falling under that same category even though they don\'t sound alike. Right now it seems like the bands that are coming out are almost like \"emo metal\" - they come out over the top fashion-wise and they have the attitude and then when they play they\'re pretty much just a metal band. I think that\'s confusing people even more and I think it\'s become more of a fashion than a sound. It\'s something I somehow don\'t really want to worry myself over, I just kind of go with the punches.

RF.net: Seeing that last time you said you at least knew where the term originated from, do you then have some bandnames you\'d like to recommend to fans who wants to check out the roots?

Shane: Yeah, definetely like Mineral, Knapsack, The Get Up Kids, Braid.. Early Jimmy Eat World.. That\'s kind of where we come from.. That and hardcore bands, and that\'s kind of what we\'re trying to mend together.

RF.net: Do you think musically that it\'s still growing or do you feel that it\'s started to decline?

Shane: Hmm.. I generally think music right now is as good as it\'s ever been but talking about a specific movement is really difficult, keeping track of what bands are doing what. In general though, things are really good right now both creatively and with the technology of today I think it\'s a great time for music. I\'m really into the fact that a band can record a really good record for less money now and put it out and sell it on the internet without having to worry about labels or stuff like that. These are all positives for art. I think the best bands are getting well known now, where 10 years ago it wasn\'t the best bands that got known, rather bands that would sell well.

RF.net: I was reading in a newspaper today that some labels were looking into signing artists to only do singles, simply because people seem to be more into buying singles online than albums. What do you guys think of that?
Paul: Wow..

Shane: Really? That just doesn\'t seem to make sense..

Paul: Well back in the day bands released singles all the time you know. The album would come out later on and would be more like a compilation of the singles. I guess it could make sense in an economical perspective, but to us we\'re about making an album and making things flow and creating a full package and we\'re not writing singles, we\'re writing albums..

Shane: Yeah it\'s never like we sit down and try to write a \"hit song\".. I mean sure then you can buy one of those off the internet for 5.99 or whatever but... Then what? Is that all you want? All you want is a 5.99 song? It makes sense in a business perspective as well that if you put a band in a studio, you might as well make them record more songs so that later on, you can put out another song, so it seems stupid to only want to have them do a single.

RF.net: Okay, that\'s all the serious questions I had, to end things on a lighter note then, off the top of your heads, what are your favourite songs at the moment?
Josh: \"Hey Jude\" by The Beatles.

Paul: I really like \"Love In The Club\" by Usher

Josh: Yeah that one\'s been stuck in my head too along with that Umbrella song.

Shane: Rick Astley, \"Never Gonna Give You Up\"

Paul: We celebrate his entire catalogue!

Josh: How about anything off \"Slaughter Of The Soul\" by At The Gates

Shane: Yeah we love that record.. We also love a Danish band called Mew? Can\'t wait for their new record - Could you imagine if Mew signed a deal where they only put out singles? Wouldn\'t that be horrible?

RF.net: Yeah it would. I don\'t know about the album since their bassist left to do a band with his wife (Ed: The Storm) that critically speaking flopped quite horribly..

Paul: Well when we saw them a year ago, they were already playing with their new bassist..

Shane: I thought that the band was pretty much the singer dude, the other guitar player and the drummer.

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