silverstein - smiling in their sleep

Hailing from Burlington, Ontario, the five members of Silverstein have created a following of both youngsters and mature listeners who support them throughout their musical ventures. Shane Told, the band’s vocalist, was kind enough to sit down and chat with me during his tour with guests Escape the Fate, Alesana, and Chiodos. His lively and pleasant nature made for a smooth conversation.
What is the basis of the band name?
That was a long time ago now. I still remember though. It was the year 2000. We started playing music and it was a side project. So we didn’t really know if it was going to last. I didn’t really think it was going to be a serious band. Just something fun. Something different. Then finally we decided we would make a go of it and we would play a show. So we needed a name. It was one of those dumb moments where you are in the practice space and you are looking for some kind of inspiration. And a few weeks before I had picked up this book to sing out of and then one day I picked up a Shel Silverstein book and I started singing out of it. He had just died two months before and then to forward to two weeks before the show, I looked and saw this Silverstein book that I had been reading out of earlier. And I said, “What about Silverstein?” And they were all like, “Yeah, that’s a pretty good name I guess.” And we just went with it.
Who are your musical influences – both musically and otherwise?
Influences are a weird thing. I mean obviously there are musical influences, but we’re five people. So there are bands that inspire me, but they aren’t necessarily bands that inspire our band musically. The Get Up Kids were probably the reason we started Silverstein. Then there’s also like Mineral and Promise Ring. Personally, the Beatles were always a huge influence, too. Billy Joel…I always just liked really great songwriters.
Do you pull from other avenues of life?
I don’t know. Not really. A lot of my main influences are musical and a lot of that has to do with how people are and their ethics. Somebody like Fat Mike from NOFX. He’s always someone I looked up to because he is honest about what he does and what he stands for. Music industry wise, he’s not concerned with what people are going to say about him, so I’ve always looked up to him.
How has music been present in your life aside from the band aspect?
I’ve always been a fan of music. It’s always been something that has been in the background of everything I have ever done. Even when I was three years old I can remember listening to Michael Jackson and Kiss and those bands. Putting on their records and how I would hang out with my family those records were always on in the background. I just associated that music with a good time. It’s always been important to me. As I got older, I found that no matter what happened music was always there for me. Through the good times and the bad times, music will always be there. I think a lot of people that listen to our band feel that same way. Maybe that’s the reason there is a connection there.
What are your thoughts on the current music scene and how do you feel Silverstein fitting in?
I don’t know. If you had asked me that question a couple years ago I would have had a different answer. A lot of bands now are doing things differently than I grew up doing them. A lot of people are worried about their image and that is coming ahead of a lot of other factors in the music. Which is something that Silverstein never thought about until we were a big band. When we realized that some of these things were important. But we never really thought about what we were going to wear on stage or backdrops. IT’s kind of changing the face of it. Punk rock is less punk rock now – it’s more of a major label thing. It kind of bums me out in some ways, but you know whatever. I think musically a lot of bands have really stepped it up and progress – a lot of people can play now. But there is less focus on songwriting. I don’t know where we are viewed compared to these other bands that we sometimes tour with. It’s always hard to be on the inside looking out. I think in some ways we do things like them but ethics wise we’re quite a bit different.
Can you describe your songwriting process?
It’s different every time. I play guitar and write some of the songs all the way through myself and then show everyone the parts. Then other songs, we’ll get in the room and someone will come up with a riff and we’ll grow from there. Put words with it and write it that way.
Do you have a favorite track from your material? Either to play live or to listen to?
That’s hard, you know. It’s kind of like picking a favorite child. There are definitely one’s that I like less. I’m pretty happy with all of them. There are some that are more fun to play live than others, like “Smile in Your Sleep” and “My Heroine” are two that kids really go crazy for live, so those are fun to play.
What do you consider to be your greatest musical achievement thus far?
That’s a hard question. It’s not like I’m writing symphonies. When you’re writing a three in a half minute song, can that be a great musical achievement. Or is a great musical achievement doing an entire a tour. I guess it could be an album. It’s really hard to say. I wish I had a straight answer for that. I think a lot of it is the progression that we’ve made as musicians. Coming from eight years ago when we started the band to now. How much better of a band we are, how much better of a show we have. I think that would be our greatest music achievement – our live show.
How do you feel that your musical outlook has changed over the years of being a band and touring?
I think I have become a lot more open minded about music. When we first started the band, I was pretty much only listening to punk rock, double-time fast music. And then a friend of mine, this girl I liked, made me a mix tape with “emo” bands on it. Which I’m sure nowadays they wouldn’t be considered emo bands. Bands like I mentioned earlier: Promise Ring, Saves the Day, The Get-Up Kids. I listened to it over and over again. I was like this is not fast punk rock, but I like it just as much. And it touched me. I really wanted to explore more of that side of the punk rock scene. So I did. And over the last eight years…
[door opens to green room slowly.
Shane: That was weird. Me: Yeah, that was odd. Shane: Is this venue haunted? Lauren: I think I saw someone push the door open. Shane: Oh you saw someone? Sorry, I watched this show about ghosts and now I’m all freaked out. You know when you watch that late at night and then you go to bed afraid you are going to see something out the corner of your eye.
Shane gets up and closes door]
But anyway…I’ve grown a lot over the years. I used to hate bands with keyboards in them. Absolutely hated them. I don’t know why I felt that way, I guess it was my punk rock background. I always hated when bands would use dance music kind of tones and now I’m like way into that. I guess I’ve just gotten older and way more accepting.
Do you have a favorite aspect of tour?
Touring isn’t very much fun except for the show part. The level we’re at now with a bus and everything is a lot better. A lot more comfortable. And there’s a lot less to worry about. We get a good night’s sleep every night and don’t have to drive. Back in the day we slugged it out in the van for a long time. I don’t know how I got through a lot of those weeks and months of shows. But you know, if it weren’t for those shows. Having the worst day ever, you get up on stage and the kids are there and there are excited about what you do. That is inspiring and makes you able to go on. All the sacrifices you make and being away from home. Tour sucks, but playing the shows is good.
Regrets?
I think if you look back at anyone’s life, over the last eight years, they have things that they would do differently. Personally, looking back at my past relationships there are things that I would have done differently. I made mistakes of course. I definitely have regrets in that since. But musically I feel pretty confident with everything we’ve done. We’ve been lucky and we’ve had fun with it. But the main thing I try to do every day is to look ahead and not regret. You don’t want to be living in regret at any moment.
Any upcoming projects?
Well, we’re doing a new album. We’ve almost done it. We’ve written all the music. I’m starting to get my notebook ready. I’m writing down lyrics. We’re going to be recording that right after Thanksgiving. Hopefully that will be done by the end of January and will come out by April. The new stuff is coming out great; we’re becoming more open minded with our music. I think we’re going to be doing some things differently.
Final comments?
Thanks for the interview and your time and everything. Yeah.

Music is often referred to as the universal language, but the meaning of song lyrics can easily be lost in translation. There must be a strong image to further represent the music and the musicians behind the instruments. Orange jumpsuits and a new wave soundtrack may just be the visual that is needed to lodge the name Polysics in the heads of modern-day American music listeners. The Japanese band is comprised of Hiro on vocals, guitar, and programming, Kayo on synthesizer and vocals, Fumi on bass, Yano on drums, and the energy of the audience.
With a wide foundation of musical influences ranging from, as Hiro offers, “not only a techno, hard rock, punk, and other music” Polysics primary influence is the new wave of the early eighties. Those bands that are most integral to the Polysics are Devo and Kraftwerk. The varied influences have “become one and then we have Polysics.” The band’s knowledge of the current music scene is fairly limited, not only by geographical and language barriers, but the lack of inspiration from modern day music. They hope to add a new dimension to music: “real new wave music that you can actually feel…evolutionized from past to present.” Not only have they brought an original and fortified new wave genre to America, but they have also “brought a lot of seaweed.”
A favorite track among the band members, aside from “every song” is “Moog is Love”, a track that brings the newly matured sound of Polysics to those listening. “If ‘Moog Is Love’ can break through, it would trigger people to know about Polysics,” Fumi interjects. The songs are started by Hiro, who comes up with a “rough idea on his guitar and computer”. After about a quarter of the song is completed, the skeleton of the song is taken to the rest of the band in the studio. The other members then put in the remaining music and sounds to the “core” that Hiro has created. The key component to the process is figuring out at which moment there is to be audience participation: when to jump, when to sing along, and various other physical personifications of the music. They “always have the audience in mind when writing [their] music.”
Music is the focal point in the lives of these four individuals. Fumi’s father was a guitarist, so the music was also around her in some form or another. When Hiro was ten, his father presented him with a guitar and “that is how [he] met music.” That guitar and a fondness for “animation songs” bred his love of music. Hiro says that “Polysics is who we are. There is never a time when we are not being Polysics.” Such dedication to the music and to their words is the dazzling facet that will not allow Polysics to be lost in the muddle of translation.

the secret handshake

Led up the stairs to the backstage of the El Corazon in Seattle by the Secret Handshake’s tour manager, Mike Henry, I am surprised to find Luis Dubuc, the Secret Handshake in the flesh, huddled in the corner of his dressing room watching Family Matters on his laptop: a fitting introduction to this electronic, lap-top rocking MySpace-buzz sensation. It’s hard to hear Luis’ answers over the opening band’s sound check. According to Luis, this has been a normal occurrence throughout the tour and is certainly not out of the ordinary. So the self-standing air conditioning unit in the green room is turned off and the door shut which helps quiet things and the interview goes on.

A creative and self-sufficient entity, Luis’ musical project The Secret Handshake, was named after a story written in the musician’s youth. The storyline of the juvenile comic book has since been forgotten and convoluted, but it lives on as the namesake of this Triple Crown records artist. The pronunciation being difficult for some, it was a simple way to avoid calling the band Luis or something similar. The music stems from a collection of influences, most being the music of the eighties and nineties. As Luis says “any artist from that time period was awesome and influenced me.” Fair enough, as long as the Secret Handshake doesn’t become a one-hit wonder lost in the re-runs of VH1.

The set of a Secret Handshake show varies from tour to tour: sometimes there’s a full band, sometimes it’s just Luis and his laptop, and sometimes other musicians sit in and add larger elements to the songs. “There’s not too much of a difference [sound-wise] but it’s more fun to do a full band set…the full band rocks a little more and the audience gets more into it.” But in actuality, the audience is into the set no matter the line-up. When Luis says to throw their hands up, their hands go up. When Luis asks the audience to sing along to a new song, they do their best to sing along with as much gusto as they can muster.

The current music scene has been overwhelmed by the use and creation of MySpace – whether that’s a good or bad development is left up to individual interpretation. The buzz factor that it creates must be acknowledged, as it allows bands a somewhat instantaneous popularity that doesn’t last long. Luis realizes this and admits that he relied on MySpace to connect and reach out to those that might be interested in his music, but “with just MySpace popularity you can’t really do anything…you have to get out there and tour.” And that is just what Luis has done, even when the turnouts weren’t quite as big as he would have liked because “the bands that work hard will be noticed.” Because touring is such an odd routine, a band never quite knows what to expect, but playing a good show “makes you giddy” and it can really improve the general morale of the crew while on tour. So while Luis is heading from town to town make sure you make every show the best it can be “just like a midnight movie.”

mornings in seattle

rachel insists that listening to your heart is a choice.
that it's a choice to toss out the logical or the routine ways of over thinking everything.
but even then it's easier said than done.
as is everything.
it's easier to hide behind a decent vocabulary and the songs of others
it's easier to not let anyone in and to rebuild and reinforce the walls around you.

but it's certainly the lonely route.
because minus a few there is no one that truly knows you.
or who you will truly allow to know you.
so swallow your pride and your unspoken fears.
accept it for what it is.
and let yourself get carried up in the moment.

war stories - yep

war stories interview QandA

War Stories – Interview with Evan (singer)

Me: Hey Evan. How's it going?

Evan: Doing well. Driving in traffic. Besides driving in traffic, other than that I'm good.

Me: Do you want to try for when you're not in traffic?

Evan: Nah. I think I'm going to be in it for a while. So let's get this started.

Me: Okay. Well, let's start with how the band got together.

Evan: How the band got together. Well I can start by saying that Reid and myself met about seven years ago at a resort where we both worked. We worked in a restaurant there. At that point in time, Reid and I were both playing in previous bands and right around that same time we ended up leaving our different bands. I started playing material on my own and then one day at work, I approached Reid with it and gave him a very rough recording of some of the stuff I was doing. He really dug it and from there we met up at his house. He was living at a house in Temecula…it was this shed in the yard. We met up in the shed and jammed and collaborated on some of the stuff. We worked on some of the stuff that I had written at the time, which was very few. From there we just pieced a band together. We rehearsed in the beginning at Cal State San Marco, where Reid was going to the college at the time. He was part of the recording arts program so had access to these rooms to practice in with a piano, a drum set, basically everything we needed. That was where we first started practicing. And after six months of practicing, we cut a demo. And then we created a buzz among the record labels and shortly after the buzz was started we ended up signing with Columbia. Let me know if I'm going too fast. We kind of went to how the band got together to Columbia. Stop me if I get on a tangent.

Me: Okay. Tangents are good.

Evan: (laughs) So yeah, we got on Columbia. Got on national tours. Recorded a record. Before the record was released and halfway through our tour with Kasabian, we got dropped in the middle of that tour. We got a phone call from our management that said Columbia had dropped the band and was not going to put out the record. So, that was that and I informed the guys. And decided that we were going to continue to write music and be a working band. Do it independently. That's what we've been doing ever since. Now we have a record that actually came out on August 19^th. Yeah, that brings us up to date.

Me: What did you learn from that experience with Columbia?

Evan: I learned a lot. Not only that had to do with the music industry but in dealing with people in general. You have to be very, very careful of whom you trust and in what hands you place your career. So basically…probably the greatest lesson learned, is that there is a way to do what you want to do and share what you want to share without compromising. That wasn't possible with the major label. There were a ton of people looking over my shoulder in the studio that were saying do this and do that. Working with a big name producer, which was great but at the same time it gave the label piece of mind knowing who was producing the record. We know our songs well enough to where we knew how we wanted them to sound. We had a vision. But there were some hoops that we had to jump through that weren't really necessary. Basically lesson learned was that you don't need to compromise your musical and personal integrity to make a record.

Me: Can you describe your song writing process?

Evan: Yeah. Definitely. It usually starts with just an acoustic guitar. I've been writing a lot just with the acoustic guitar. And then I bring the chord progression, the melody to Reid. He's real great at the additions to the song…any lead guitar parts, any hooks, anything like that. So that's one way is just starting with the acoustic guitar and then I bring it to Reid. Another thing that has been really effectively lately is that Reid has been playing the piano a lot more. So he'll come up with the chord progressions on the piano and bring them to me. When you start to write with the piano, it just has a different feel. So writing with the piano adds different emotions behind the feel of the song. Songwriting always starts between Reid and myself and either a piano or a guitar. We write that way hoping that the song can end on its own with just one instrument. So that if we strip it down to just acoustic, it's still a great song, rather than having to have any production value to it.

Me: Do you have a favorite song from your material? And if so, why is that your favorite?

Evan: Okay. Let's see. I have a favorite song off the record. We'll talk about these, because no one has ever heard the other songs we're writing. There's this track called "What Does God See" on the record that I feel really captures what we do. It really sums up everything we do as a band. And to have that all come together on one song is very rewarding. Because you can never expect that. You like certain songs for certain reasons at a certain time. But I find myself playing "What Would God Do" whether it's in the rehearsal room or at a show and it always feels good to play. Regardless of how shitty or good the sound is, the song always feels good. It also has that through-provoking, epic feel to it, too. It's always subject to change, but for now that's my favorite song that we play.

Me: What are your thoughts on the current music scene? And what do you hope to contribute.

Evan: I hope to contribute honest music. That's all…I mean I can't really get any more detailed because music can be so complex. You can want to say so much and the listener might not get what you're trying to say. So all we can do as a band is write honest, heartfelt music. And hope that it's a breath of fresh air. That's what we try to contribute. My thoughts on the current music scene…to be honest, I think there are a lot of bands who are bands for the wrong reasons. And that's fine…I have a deep respect for anyone that gets up on stage and shares their music, but to go deeper than that I feel that a lot of bands are there to party and not share their art. I think that there's a ton of great bands that do a great job, but on the same hand it's obvious to me when I see a band up there for the wrong reasons. And I could be wrong, but those are my thoughts on it.

Me: What do you consider to be your greatest musical achievement thus far?

Evan: My greatest musical achievement.

Me: Yes.

Evan: Hmmm. Well, I had a girl write me an e-mail one time and she said that she had lost someone that was very close to her. (Evan: Sorry, I just had to honk at this guy. Shouts "Yo!" into traffic. This guy is backing up into me. Me: Well, he should not do that. Evan: And his reverse lights are on and he's still backing up. But we're at a red light right now. You almost just got me into an accident, Lauren. Me: (laughs) Certainly didn't mean to. Evan: (laughing) Anyway, enough about my car wreck. Although, it would have been super mellow. ) Anyway, this girl wrote me an e-mail and she had just lost someone. No, she didn't just lose someone, but she had just found that her brother was diagnosed with cancer and he was just a kid. And she had a ton of feelings coming from the news that her brother was terminally ill. And she wrote me this page long e-mail saying that she found our current record very therapeutic and that she had used our record as therapy. And she found it to be a great tool to get her through that tragic of a time. So when I hear that the music that we are creating is affecting lives to that degree, to make someone want to keep living….that's the ultimate reward. I could not sell another record in my whole entire life and feel good about what we do. Because we literally helped someone firsthand with a very tragic situation. I would say that is my great musical achievement at this point.

Me: Do you have any regrets as a band?

Evan: Ummm. Let's see. I don't perceive them as regrets, I have some things that I would do differently now that I've learned from the experience with the label and all that stuff. But at the same time I would have never learned if I hadn't gone through it. So as far as regretting anything, no. But, like I said earlier in our conversation, just being very aware of who is guiding your band and to be careful with the people that you trust.

Me: Upcoming projects and tours in the works?

Evan: Upcoming project is basically just continuing War Stories. We are going to do an acoustic EP. Hopefully around Christmas time and the first of the year we'll be working with that. So we're excited about that. And we don't have any tours set in stone. We've been playing a lot locally between San Diego and Los Angeles. It just costs so much damn money to be on the road. SO it's hard for a band in our position to be on the road without any tour support. But that's where I hope to be, so hopefully this record will help put us there.

Me: Well, I hope so, too. Any final comments?

Evan: I don't think so. Unless you're looking for something that I didn't give to you.

Me: Nope. It's been a great conversation. Thank you.

Evan: Cool. Thank you.

a long day

so after you finish reading sartre's naseau...everything seems to exist a little differently.
even yourself.
so here i sit - and i feel the need to be industrious, but I am left wondering what the point would be. precisely.

so i have symphony practice tonight. and maybe a photoshoot within the next day or so. and several interviews on thursday - secret handshake and mercy mercedes. yep.

:)

washington

Just moved up this way.

It's lovely. I mean - the ocean is my backyard!! How much better can it get.

So - here I sit in Gig Harbor.

I worked the Bumbershoot festival all weekend which stalled for time on the job hunting front.
And futurgarb is amazing - so be sure to check them out.

I will write more when more has happened. :)