Silverstein: 20 Years On, Silverstein Still Know How To Get the Crowd Moving!
SILVERSTEIN is a band that have 20 years of creating classic emo songs and albums, hailing from Burlington Ontario in Canada. In that time, they’ve now released 10 albums and toured with SIMPLE PLAN, AVRIL LAVIGNE, and even on Warped Tour for a couple of years during its run. Recently, the band have played a few shows in the UK with another classic emo group, HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS, in promotion for their tenth album, A Beautiful Place To Drown. Before the album was released, vocalist Shane Told tells Distorted Sound about keeping the band’s sound fresh every new album and where the album’s title came from.
“We had all these songs we had all these lyrics and all these realities, conceptual ideas, but we really weren’t sure how to come up with a title that was all-encompassing” Shane begins. “Paul Marc [Rousseau, guitars] was kind of thinking about how on the title type use water or water-related, and somehow he came up with A Beautiful Place To Drown.” The phrase comes from a sign at Virginia Beach with names of those who died at that beach with a picture of the Grim Reaper. “We’re like, ‘Whoa, that’s pretty dark’. So we decided that was perfect.”
SILVERSTEIN’s new album has the distinctive element of having five songs featuring different artists across music, from the pop-punk vocals of SIMPLE PLAN’s Pierre Bouvier to hip hop artist Princess Nokia. The album also features UNDEROATH’s Aaron Gillespie, Caleb Shomo of BEARTOOTH, and a guitar solo from INTERVALS’ Aaron Marshall. “All features have been really organic like going on my phone and sending text messages somebody helps you back like ‘yeah yeah like come down’.” Shane further explains, “all the people who said yes to features are always our first choice and it was really really cool this time because everybody killed it and it’s all with people we have really long-lasting friendships with.”
He continued on to say, “Caleb was one of our best friends and Pierre from SIMPLE PLAN I’ve known him for like 15 years and same with Aaron from UNDEROATH and then the other two features were a little bit different, a little bit outside the box. Princess Nokia was quite a very different world but she’s actually a SILVERSTEIN fan, she’s kind of talking about us online a little bit and we invited her to our New York show a couple years ago, and met her and she was so lovely and we just started talking about maybe collaborating at some point”
Touring recently with HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS, AS CITIES BURN, and CAPSTAN, including a few nights in London, the band were able to bring their 20th-anniversary show to the UK. “We did two shows in O2 Academy and they were both sold out,” Shane illustrates. “That was pretty cool and a pretty great way to start off this big 20 year anniversary tour that we’re doing all over the world this year. The UK is a place we’ve been going for a very long time so it’s cool that people are still excited about it.” He went on to discuss places he would like to take SILVERSTEIN next, suggesting places like South Africa and Greece. “We’ve never been to India, never been to South Africa. And I really want to go to Greece as well, we’ve never played Greece and my cousin was there and it’s so beautiful. Part of why we love this band so much is all the other places it has taken us. You know, all over the world and all the different people we’ve met and cultures we’ve seen and all that.”
Another point of discussion was the progression of their albums over the 20 years they’ve been a band. “The more albums you write, the more music you have to come up with more ideas, that’s more lyrics. And you know, it does not get easier.” Shane says. “I think in terms of staying current or relevant or not whatever word you want to use, I think for us and this record, A Beautiful Place To Drown, we’ve kind of taken the biggest step progression wise. Whether it’s putting more time to write, or more studio time, we’re just making sure that we’re really focusing on you know, writing the best new music we can and recording it the best we can.”
So, how excited were the band before A Beautiful Place To Drown was released? Simply, very excited, as Shane put it. “You make a record, and then you have to wait so long for the thing to come out. So, I’m really excited about what people are going to say and what they think about all these songs you haven’t released yet.” He goes on further to say, when discussing about promoting the album on their tour, “It’s really cool that we’re able to do both those sides of it and not just have to focus on the old days. We’re not just focused on the new record, we’re able to kind of do both at once. So, you know, people can expect this, wherever they live, We’ll be coming through to play classics but also play some new jams, so we’re excited just to keep going.”
A Beautiful Place to Drown is out now via UNFD.
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