Under The Radar With Silverstein (Burlington): 16 Years Later & Still Going Strong

*If you would like to have you or your band considered for Under The Radar, email Daly @ ryan.daly@timminsradio.rogers.com with the subject “Under The Radar”*

With appearances at Heart Of Gold Fest, Sound Of Music Festival, Amnesia Rockfest, and an upcoming European Tour; it’s looking to be a busy summer for Silverstein as they add more shows to the thousands already under their belts. The band’s vocalist, Shane Told, was kind enough to come on Under The Radar to talk about how their set has evolved over their 16 years as a band, picking songs when you’ve written hundreds, bands we wish didn’t stop making music, and the difference between a bands studio persona and their live persona. There’s also a lot more but you’ll have to scroll down and enjoy the interview!

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Daly: I’ve Noticed Silverstein’s been promoting Heart of Gold fest quite a bit on their social media pages. So are you guys coming up to Timmins and just blowing the roof off, ready to party?

Shane: Ya, blow the roof off / party is basically what we always do. We haven’t been to Timmins in a long time, I don’t want to say it’s been ten years but maybe ten years. We had an opportunity to come up and play for the fine people of Timmins and the surrounding towns. It’s a great bill they put together, a very cool festival so we’re just stoked to be a part of it.

Daly: Being a band for 16 years now is amazing. Besides the new songs, how has the Silverstein live show evolved or changed over the years?

Shane: I think we’ve taken it a lot more seriously. It’s kind of weird when you start out as a band, and you have just a few songs – I remember the first show we played I think we had five songs. So you play the five songs and that’s it, you just figure out the order of them.

You don’t really think about what actually putting on a show is or transitions between songs. And then that’s sort of something that starts to happen as you put out more and more albums and more and more songs, you can play songs into other songs, or you can change and make different versions. Your Band becomes almost two entities. You have the band you are on the records and then you have the band that you are live. I think it’s important for bands to understand that there are those two very different personas and you have to kind of embrace that.

So I think once we figured that out we got a lot better not just at our craft and playing well but also in being able to put on a show. At the end of the day it’s entertainment, that’s what we’re there to do. People want to see things, they’re there to be entertained so you have to remember that part.

Daly:  When it comes to the set list Silverstein has amassed quite a catalog over the years, and played landmark albums such as Discovering The Waterfront in it’s entirety. How do you pick and choose which songs to play during your set?

Shane: Ya, it’s difficult man. I mean we just put out our 7^th album last year [I Am Alive In Everything I Touch]. We’ve been very consistent, we’ve put out a record every two years since 2003, every odd year we put out an album. And we’ve even done extra stuff on top of that like the Short Songs record.

Daly: That is one of my favourite records by the way.

[The interview sidelines a bit into a discussion about how awesome Short Songs is and their reason for recording it – If you want to hear it, check out the full podcast below!]

Shane: But anyways, back to picking the set list. Ya, I think we must have over 100 songs. I haven’t taken the time to count it. But it gets harder and harder to pick the songs. You got to play the hits. You got to play some of the classics songs. But one thing that’s important to us is because we’re a full time band and we’re almost always on the road, probably 8 months a year, we’re playing a lot of the same cities all the time.

Daly: So you don’t want to do the same show twice?

Shane: That’s exactly what I’m saying, that’s exactly my point. We go through and play like New York, or Toronto or wherever, places we play a lot, and it’s the same people. Why would you play [them] the same set? I see bands do it all the time and it’s very important for us to switch it up. We go back and relearn old songs and we switch it up so that even the most super fan that’s seen us – there’s fans that have seen us 100, 200 times, they’ll drive everywhere to see us – and I want those people to be surprised. That’s something we take a lot of time on and is really important to us.

Daly: This is a bit of a long question but going back to your Victory [Records] era. I read, and I can’t remember where, that you helped Aiden get signed to Victory. Which I always found interesting because Aiden was my first, let’s say “real” concert. So I guess I have you to thank for that.

But I bring it up because Aiden, as a group, are not making music anymore. Which is a bummer. Are there any other bands you’ve met over your 16 years that have either broke up or stopped and you find it to be a bummer?

Shane: Oh, so many! So many, so many bands. You’re putting me a bit on the spot thinking of them all and I’m going to forget some of the ones that were the most special. But Aiden was an interesting story.

We met wiL [Francis] in Seattle, he came out to our show and we needed a place to stay. This is back before we could afford a hotel so we would just sleep on whoever’s floor. We slept at his house, and he’s like, “Ya I’m in a band by the way”. He played us their first record, Our Gangs Dark Oath, and I was like, “Dude this is pretty good man”. He was just like, “Yaaaaa…”. And it’s funny because you know that guy as such an outgoing, crazy guy. But I remember him then just being the most mild mannered, sweet guy. You know, a soft spoken guy. So he said, “Ya, I dunno..”. And I said I’ll definitely show this to Victory, and I did and the rest is history.

There’s another band. Spitalfield, was a band that we played a lot of shows with. I always thought they were going to be like the next Jimmy Eat World or something. But sometimes it’s hard to keep it together and it doesn’t always work out.

Shane: Music is subjective, there’s no science to it. On paper you could be the best band, and play the best, and you could have the best looking lead singer, and you know whatever it is. And it could still not work out.

I always thought that band, Augustana, I never understood why they weren’t the biggest band in the world. Amazing band, amazing songs, so it doesn’t always make sense. And that’s fine. To me that’s kind of what makes it – I don’t want to say interesting because that’s a boring word – but that’s what keeps you on your toes and that’s what keeps it exciting.

Daly: So there’s Heart Of Gold fest in Timmins, Sound Of Music Festival in Burlington, Amnesia Rockfest…Then it’s off to tour Europe for Silverstein. I saw a post the other day that said you guys have big plans for the rest of 2016. Can you give us a hint as to what’s happening?

Shane: Ya we have a lot of touring we’re doing, some exciting stuff. We originally thought that since we went so hard in 2015, and actually through 2016 we’ve gone pretty hard, [so] we thought we’d slow down. But it turns out we are not slowing down, and we are playing more and more shows and doing some really really cool stuff that, obviously I can’t talk about because nothing’s announced. But it’s coming. Also we’re going to start gearing up for LP #8…Which is crazy to think about that.

Daly: Already?

Shane: Well ya, we haven’t started into it yet, there hasn’t been one note written. BUT – we were figuring out the time frame and we should be slated for 2017 release for a new album. [Consistently putting out a new album every two years]

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We left a LOT for the podcast. If you want to hear the full, uncut interview listen below or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!

https://soundcloud.com/dalyry/under-the-radar-silverstein-burlington

Shane told also has a great podcast called Lead Singer Syndrome, interviewing all your favourite band’s lead singers – check it out! 

SILVERSTEIN:

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Thank you for listening. Come back each Friday for new music you SHOULD be paying attention to. For more music and arbitrary thoughts follow me on Twitter @DalyRy or visit me on Facebook.