SILVERTIDE
by Keavin Wiggins
Are you old enough to remember the days
when rock was king and bands with riff happy guitars and big choruses could
fill stadiums? Yeah, the good old days! These days, we don’t hear too many
bands that capture that same energy and it's easy to forget what rock used
to be like. The great news is there is one band out of Philly who are ready
to lead the charge and bring rock back to the forefront where it belongs.
I’m talking about Silvertide, a group that has their eyes on 2003 as the
year rock truly returns and we are excited to give you one of your first
looks at this exciting group!
First Looks is a new series here at iconoMUSIC
where we will look at new bands that show a lot of promise. Silvertide
is the perfect band to kick this serious off with. They definitely know
how to rock, as their Digital EP shows. We were able to catch up
with lead vocalist Walt Lafty while the band was in Los Angeles recording
their J Records debut and Walt let us in on what Silvertide is all about
and what they hope the future will bring for them and the rock scene in
general. Check out the interview and then head over to the band’s
official website and download the Digital EP and see why we are so excited
to feature this band here at iconoMUSIC and kick this series off with Silvertide!
IconoMUSIC: The first obvious question,
where did your name come from?
Walt: We sang down at Ocean City,
down by the Jersey shore and we had kind of like a bonfire thing going
on, just drinking beers and whatever. We were right in the middle of finding
out our name and all that, and one of our friends was there and said, “I
love the silvertide, like the moon reflecting off the water.” We were just
kind of like, that another idea, we wrote it down and eventually it just
kind of stuck.
iconoMUSIC: Can you tell us a
little bit about how the band was formed?
Walt: Basically it was like three
little steps. Nick the lead guitarist and Kevin the drummer they played
together since freshman year in high school. Mark the rhythm guitarist
and myself went to a different school like ten minutes away. Me and Mark
played like acoustic and stuff like that, just coffee houses and they did
the same, only electric. And a buddy of mine turned around and said, “hey,
I’m opening up another open mic night thing and I want you guys to go check
it out." This place called Buck County Music Studio. So we went up there
and we played, and they played. We saw each other and we’re like, “ah a
singer and a rhythm guitarist and a lead guitar player and a drummer.”
We got together and wrote like three songs during our first jam. It was
cool. Then we like went through a couple bass players until we finally
found Brian, who is our bass player now; the permanent guy. He was going
to the University of the Arts in Philly for Jazz and we were like, “oh
man, come jam with us.” It really worked out and he stayed in the group.
iconoMUSIC: In your bio, it says you
officially formed in Jan 2001?
Walt: Yeah.
iconoMUSIC: Things seem to be happening
really quick for you guys.
Walt: Yeah, it has.
iconoMUSIC: How did you get the attention
of J Records?
Walt: Basically, we have a pretty
crazy fun live show and there was one point in Philly where we were playing
five nights a week in a place where there are not a lot of rock bands.
It’s like R&B and stuff like that. So we were playing all these show,
like all the time and it kind of built and built and built. One of the
things that helped us out was we opened up for Aerosmith when we were six
months as a band. Like two hours before the show we got a call, actually
our manager called and was like, “If you’re not doing nothing, how would
you like to open up for Aerosmith?” We were like why not! We played that
and got a lot of press from it. Then a lot of labels started coming down.
At first it was like one or two labels and then it ended up being a s***load
of them. And James Diener the A&R guy, he’s a really big rock head
and we were like talking to him and everyone else, they were really cool
and everything, but they didn’t seem like they really loved rock, you know?
iconoMUSIC: Yeah.
Walt: They were like, we sign all
these different kinds of bands. And James just kind of hit it right on
the money, he turned us on to some new music. Just like gave us some CD’s
and s***, stuff to listen to and told us his vision for us. It was very
much along the same thing we had in mind. We were like "wow, this guys
is really cool" and we had this gut feeling and you just go with your gut
and we went with J. Of course you have Clive Davis and he’s the man.
iconoMUSIC: I was going to ask you about
that because Clive back in the early days with Janis Joplin and CBS but
after that he’s more known for the R&B type stuff and Barry Manilow
and not so much for rock. And you just said their A&R guy is into rock
but J Records so far has been more of the R&B side of things.
Walt: Yeah, James, I’m sure that’s
not his main thing. I’m sure he has got like a bunch of other responsibilities
as an A&R guys, but that is what he loves[rock]. I don’t know what
other bands he has signed on to J Records as of right now, I just know
that he loves rock so much. Even if you walk into his office, there are
guitars all over the place, rock CD’s you know.
iconoMUSIC: Do you think it is
a real advantage for you guys being one of the only rock bands on the label
and you get more focus or a disadvantage because they are used to promoting
bands with other formats?
Walt: They definitely help us out.
Even though it’s like a major record label, it’s kind of like a small family.
I can pick up the phone and get pretty much anybody during a business hour;
I can get them on the phone within like 2 minutes.
iconoMUSIC: Wow, that’s unheard of.
Walt: Yeah, it’s really unheard
of. You know, I have a couple of friends that say all that stuff it's just
amazing.
iconoMUSIC: Yeah, I didn’t know
cuz I know a band that was signed to Arista back in the 90’s and it was
sort of a similar situation with them being a rock band and promoted like
a top 40 band. This is a new deal for Clive, so I didn’t know. – Has there
been any major surprises for you guys? You know expectations about the
music business that turned out totally different than what you expected?
Walt: We really didn’t have any
expectations, to be quite honest, we just kind of played and we didn’t
really realize anything was going on because it honestly went so f***in’
fast that we just kind of woke up and we were like, “holy s***, we’re a
signed band!” It’s still kind of, we’re out living in LA working on everything
for the album so we can get it out and it’s like kind of weird, you don’t
think it’s really happening but it’s happening. It really hard to explain,
we really didn’t have any expectations. We had thoughts of what it would
be like and all that, we were like “oh, you gonna be able to play music
like all the time and not have to do anything else but play music.” Which
is cool, which is awesome being able to do what you love to do all the
time.
iconoMUSIC: Yeah, not many people
get that chance.
Walt: Yeah, not at all.
iconoMUSIC: You mentioned you guys are
out here in LA recording, that’s where I’m at…
Walt: Cool, we’re staying at [sorry
can’t let that out of the bag]
iconoMUSIC: You guys make it out to
the Rainbow or places like that.
Walt: Yeah, a couple of nights we
made it out there. It awful that you can’t smoke in bars out there!
iconoMUSIC: Yeah, that shocks
a lot of people when they come out here.
Walt: Bummer! (laughs)
iconoMUSIC: Speaking of the record,
I don’t know many of the details about it. Who is producing it?
Walt: We’re working with Oliver
Leiber. We met a s***load of producers and every aspect of it, from his
personality and we knew he was the right guy for the job. From the fact
that he has like a million guitars hanging up all over his house, millions
of heads and half stacks. He’s really awesome, he’s covered in tattoos,
got a motorcycle, so he had kind of the right vibe and we thought, we’re
gonna fit in pretty well here.
iconoMUSIC: Right on! So how far
along is the album?
Walt: We still in the very beginning
stages [this interview was conducted in early November 2002]. We’re still
working on writing a couple extra songs before we really focus on pre-production
and stuff like that. We should be starting on that literally in a few weeks.
Click here to read
the rest of the interview
.... |
