Silverstein

03.01.2008 | KYS-Cam | 2 Comments

The 2008 Vans Boys Of Summer Tour marks the third time those crazy canucks in Silverstein will be making the journey to our fair country.

Front man Shane Told was nice enough to answer these questions...

Interview w/ Shane Told (Vocals) of Silverstein

By Cameron Chambers

Hey, how are you Shane? 

I’m doing really good thanks man. I’m so sorry about the delays and running behind time today… 

Not a problem Shane, I’m sure you’re under the pump with interviews. 

Well, there’s a few but its no big deal.  

You guys are at the tail end of a European tour, how have the shows been going? 

They’ve been going great man… really good!  

You know, initially, when we came out for the first time, our growth was as fast as the US or Canada or even Australia… it took a bit longer for people to get into it over here. 

This is really the first time where we’ve seen the same level of excitement that we’ve seen in other places… especially while we’re here doing these German shows! They’ve all been sold out… I don’t know how many tickets that means we’ve sold but it’s totally crazy! I don’t know what’s happened but these European dates have been incredible! 

What other bands have taken part in this tour? 

Bless The Fall and The Vincent Black Shadow. Bless The Fall are a really young band… they’re good kids and they’re a great band. 

The Vincent Black Shadow are from Vancouver, Canada. They’re something different… they’ve got a girl singer and they’re not playing the typical kind of music that you’d expect to hear from a band that’s on tour with us.  

Well, there's no rest for the wicked because you're starting the Boys Of Summer on January 5^th. Are you guys excited to be coming back to Australia? 

Man… we are so excited! Like you said, there’s no rest for the wicked. We haven’t really had much of a rest in 2007 and people are like, well… “take a break now”. Our response to that is that we’re having a two week break over Christmas and people are like “only two weeks for the whole year”!? 

When it comes to touring Australia it’s not really touring… I feel like it’s a vacation when we go there! It’s my favourite place in the world… it’s just so amazing. We’re really excited! 
 
This is probably the most diverse Boys Of Summer line up yet, are you familiar with any of the other bands that are playing? 

I’m definitely familiar with Set Your Goals! I know Deez Nuts because of I Killed The Prom Queen and you know… those are the only two bands I’ve checked out… but I’m sure it will be cool!  

How do your previous Australian tours stand up against the shows back home, and in Europe and the US? 

To be honest, they were incredible! You know, we never expected it. 

The first time we came out was in 2005… was it 2005? 

Sure was. 

We never expected so many people to know the words and the songs… and then to come back in 2006 and everything had doubled in size, it was just amazing! 

Now I’m so excited to come back for the third time and do this big headline tour and just have a blast! 

Winding the clock back five or so years, mixed bills were the norm and kids were stoked to be seeing different kinds of bands each night. Do you think fans are more narrow minded these days and tend to stick to what they know? 

Yeah, a little bit. I was just hanging out with Bill (our bass player) and we were looking at a message board from our hometown, and people were posting flyers from ’96 and ’97, the shows that I was attending when I was a kid… 

Anyway, the shows had punk bands playing with metal bands and there were ska bands on the bill. It was super diverse, you know!? 

I like all different sorts of bands. I love metal, ska and punk bands and no one puts together tours like that anymore. 

Someone tried it in the US… I think it was Mastodon and Against Me! They did a tour… and Cursive were on the tour as well and yeah, they did have some of the same fans but overall I don’t think the tour did that well.  

It was really cool that they took a chance like that, but at the same time… I mean, even the tour that we’re on right now with The Vincent Black Shadow being a different band to us, kids aren’t as open to it as I would have been.  
 
Your Cross Canada tour kicks off at the end of January and is another tour that has a really unique line up. Do you guys still have a say in what bands you take on tour or is that left to the label? 

No, no. We have one hundred percent say in the bands that we want. That’s something we wouldn’t let go of. If we’re headlining a tour then it’s all the bands we want! 

Protest The Hero are friends of ours and have been for a long time. They’re great people and a really talented band. Ill Scarlett are totally blowing up and they bring a bit of diversity to the tour… they’ve got a bit of reggae music going on. I think people will be cool with all of that. The DevilWears Prada are super heavy too! 

The diversity is cool but all of the bands still live in the same world. There will be kids that will definitely be going to the show to see us and they’ll pick up an Ill Scarlett CD or a Devil Wears Prada shirt.  

Arrivals And Departures was released in July of this year. Are you happy with how the record turned out? 

Super happy! 

The album's release was surrounded by a lot of hype, is that something you try and ignore when you're writing a record or does it motivate you to work even harder? 

Umm… good question! I don’t think I really notice to be honest. 

You say there was this hype around the record but I don’t really hear the people talking, you know? Like seriously, I don’t notice the hype at all. 

For our second record there was definitely a lot of pressure with our first record being what it was. I don’t think it’s the best recorded album… some of the songs are OK but we could’ve done a better job. With our second record we had to prove that we weren’t a fluke band. It was a tough record and that pressure made it even harder to make.  

This record was hard to make but in a different way.  

When it came to writing the songs and getting it together we were confident in what we were doing and didn’t have to think about it too much… or what people said.  
 
How have your fans reacted to your new material? 

They’ve been really into it! Every day we’re getting people coming up and saying “oh, you didn’t play this off the new record”. I expect people to say that we didn’t play some obscure song from seven years ago so they can prove they know the old stuff… to be that one kid singing along, ha ha. 

A lot of people have really been asking for the new stuff and on this tour we’re getting the best reactions from the new material. We’ve been a bit surprised by that so we’ve been working more and more new songs into the set. People are loving it! 

A lot of quote/unquote “screamo” bands released records in 2007 which were devoid of any heavy vocals because they felt it pigeon holed them (among other reasons). Was it important for you (as a band) to stick to your goals and just write whatever made you happy? 

Totally man! That’s a great question! 

It’s definitely something that I did think about a lot because when we took the time off to start writing the record we were getting heaps of emails from kids saying “don’t stop screaming”! I’m not going to mention any band names but these kids were saying that certain bands used to be their favourite and they’ve stopped screaming.  

I think a lot of bands have stopped screaming because to be honest, fucking singing and screaming isn’t easy to do! A lot of labels and fucking radio don’t want to play records with screaming either… they just don’t want it.  

Once you’ve had that success where you’ve built your fan base… those real fans who like real music… people seem to abandon it a bit. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.  

I don’t understand why some bands want to change so much. If you love what you do… I love singing and screaming. I love the diversity and I think if I just did one or the other in this band then I’d get bored! I can go on all day about this question… it’s a really great question! 

You know, when I was kid and a band I loved put out a record that sounded totally different I’d be instantly turned off. If I liked the last record then I wanted something similar to the last record. We just made the songs the way we always have. Some kids were like “oh, I was wish you switched it up” or had a little bit more of a progression. 

If you’re a fan of the band, I thought that was a little weird. It was definitely a conscience thing to keep the screaming but if there’s any songs with less screaming it was for the good of the song.  
 
A lot of music fans seem to have a really short attention span these days. Do you ever get concerned that kids may lose interest if you don't change your sound up? 

I don’t get that concerned but I think what I just said will contradict this a bit. 

Take a band like Pennywise. I’m a life long fan but they’ve made the same record seven times. People do grow up and move on so I think you have to stay with the times a little bit.  

Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s bad. There have been a lot of records in 2007 that were great and if you can take a little piece from each of them and add them to your sound… well, there’s nothing wrong with that! 

In a way, the kids these days don’t have that short attention spans. When I was a kid I refused to listen to a song that was longer than three minutes, because we were such punk rock kids, ha ha.  

What do you have planned once your Canadian tour winds up in February? 

We’re going to the US for a headline tour! 

Are you taking any other bands with you? 

Yep! The Devil Wears Prada, Protest The Hero… and A Day To Remember! 

If Silverstein could go on tour with any three bands – dead or alive – who would it be and why? 

Are these bands bigger than us? 

Whoever you want man. 

That’s a tough question. A band from my hometown called Grade. They were a huge influence on us and I’d love to play some shows with them! 

Definitely Lifetime! They got back together recently and they’re one of my favourite bands.  

Don’t know for a third… maybe… I’m drawing a blank so let’s go with The Beatles! They can headline I guess, ha ha.  

That's all we have time for Shane, is there anything else you want to say? 

Nope, that’s all man!