Meet Silver.

When they’re rocking, you’ll rock and when they’re crooning, you’ll wish they were crooning at you. Silver’s Pat, Brent and John are Southern boys from Raleigh making a name for themselves with great melodies, powerful lyrics, and a “now or never” attitude. Check out our interview with the group to learn about how they get their big sound, the hardest part about this whole “rock band” gig and how the recession may have actually given them their big break!

1. How and when did you three first come together as Silver?

Pat and I (Brent) have known each other since high school and were roommates at NC State University. We chose to finish out our degrees in 2005 (Finance for Pat, Architecture for myself) and went off in our chosen professions briefly. We played music through work, but nothing serious came out of it until we met John (Enzor) and things got a little more rigid. We found ourselves focused more on writing certain songs with a certain sound, and eventually the down economy led to a quick start for us in the late summer of 2008. I lost my job at an architecture firm, Pat left his job and John was abruptly laid off, as well. So here we are, all unemployed and thinking to ourselves, “well, it is now or never.”

2. Gotta love that attitude! How has being from the Triangle area of North Carolina shaped your sound?

The sound definitely has a regional feel. It’s a great question. We are often told that we have a certain British affected sound. A lot of our influences come from over the pond, but the roots of the music are definitely seeded with a southern background. We experiment with lots of synths and guitars and crazy computer software, but lyrically I think we always have this southern subconscious that sits underneath the big guitars and the little hooks of each song. The sound is big at times, but the songs always seem to talk about everyday life, stuff we all go through, the good and the bad, which seems to be a grassroots southern type of thing.

3. Who are some of your biggest musical influences?

Wow. It’s a hard question because it’s ever changing. In the last few years it has been bands like Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, Radiohead, Muse, Mute Math. But we all grew up on stuff like Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd, Queen – all the old classic stuff. So that sits in there pretty heavy. I’m pretty big into the new wave electronic stuff – M83, Air, Bloc Party, The Killers, Joy Division, old U2 – it helps influence experimentation.



4. What is your favorite Triangle area venue and why?

We’ll have to give props to the Pour House Music Hall in downtown Raleigh. They treat us so well over there and have one of the best sound guys in the business, Jack Cain (maybe the East Coast – ?). He loves to mix our sound in there so it makes the entire night fun. A must visit venue for sure. Good local music, decent cover and dozens of taps. Good times always greet us when we walk in that place.

5. Some of your recorded songs, like Frictioneering, sound really big. How do the three of you reproduce your sound in a live show?

It’s tricky to be sure. In one word really: samplers. We end up making lots of loops and rehearse endlessly to them. That is where the experimentation and laptops come in handy. But the basic premise is a lot of loops running behind us while we play. I trigger a lot of that behind the drum kit. But we’ve also structured the songs in such a way that parts come in and out of the songs. For example, during the verse there may be no guitar at all. Drums and bass might drive the song until the guitar drops in and builds into a chorus. It can make a song much more dramatic. It’s a challenge because we have to do a good bit of planning, writing and looping at the beginning of the process, but the end result live is usually fantastic.

6. You seem fairly active on Twitter. Has your relationship with fans been changed by social networking sites?

Twitter has been good to us. We caught it right when it came along, and it has definitely given us more of a connection with fans locally, regionally and even nationally. People will tweet to us saying how they loved our album or bought it on iTunes. Things we’d never hear or see before.

But I think the biggest thing is that people can feel they are more invested in a band, and that in turn helps to motivate us. It’s definitely much easier to connect with a large number of people fairly quickly and it gets people involved. Fans can be with us in a rehearsal or come along with us on a tour on the road. People see that Silver is a real band run by real people and they become invested in it. It makes what we do a lot easier.

7. Do you have any new recordings in the works? And if so, do you see the Silver sound evolving in any particular direction?



Actually we have a good bit of new material we hope to put into some kind of digital form this winter. Our last album +/- was more of a concept record. Though our new stuff has a similar sound, there is definitely some experimentation with time signatures and the themes within each song lyrically. Pat has really challenged himself lyrically and the band as well. It’s paid off for sure. The sound is most certainly big and very high energy.

8. What is the songwriting process typically like within Silver?

It often starts with a small idea: a guitar riff, a hummed melody, a drum pattern. Pat seems to write a good batch of the lyrics on his own and I seem to come up with the big ideas. John holds it all together. He provides a lot of structure to these crazy ideas and concepts that come out of our heads. But once we have some concept, the three of us just get into a room and listen to the parts. Eventually (usually painfully something comes about. Every once in awhile you’ll play something together and it’s just pure harmony. Those are the wonderful, but spare moments as a band. It’s usually really hard work. We crank out dozens of ideas and edit them to bits. The great part about our generation is the technology. We can record a rough demo, hear the song and really become editors of those ideas. It helps speed up the process.

9. People often think being in a working band is all fun. What is the hardest part no one knows about?

The networking: the Myspacing, the Facebooking, the Twittering, the Flickering, the Youtubing. As a band you are constantly on those sites connecting with fans, club owners, other bands in other cities, A+R reps. You have to constantly be making connections. And we are musicians, not marketing or network reps so it’s a challenge for us. It’s another job in and of itself and it’s not always so fiscally rewarding. You spend good amount of your time and money in those areas and often don’t see much come out of it until sometime much later.

10. What advice would you give to a band just starting out and trying to get noticed in a large college town?

Don’t be afraid to talk to people and ask questions: to club owners, to your fans, to other bands in your town and around your region. It’s the best way to learn about yourself and about your growth as a band. And be relentless with it. Booking shows is hard. Connecting with fans is hard. Selling your music and even giving it away can be really hard, but if you’re passionate about it and you have a good product in your hands (your music), people will take notice of that. And that will begin to turn heads.

Some excellent parting words there! If you want to learn more about Pat, Brent and John, be sure to check out the Silver Web site and look for them on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Thanks, guys!


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