D: I think as well, part of that honesty is being honest with
What I also love about your songs is they are a bit
what we’re influenced by in terms of music. So with this
more coy than a lot of your contemporaries - do you
album people have pointed to all of the influences - I have
feel you’ve gained a better understanding of what you
my own litmus test to see whether I should finish reading
wanted to say from doing this?
the review or not. That’s part of it as well, there’s a lot of different influences and there’s not one where we’re going
D: Myself yeah, I feel like it’s helped me process ideas.
to go “that doesn’t really fit into Silverbacks”.
I don’t think I’m a very good communicator of things in my head, as in I don’t think I communicate them
Your unified musicianship really cleverly embodies
very intelligently. When I speak I don’t feel like I can
the subtleties of your narrative - while doing so much
communicate what I think are good ideas in my head
that it evokes the constantly juxtaposing nature of the
to my mouth, but I can write them and record them
society we’re trying to navigate. Would you say you
through a song. Then I think the more ambiguity you give
are able to express yourselves just as much within the
something, first of all you are less likely to leave yourself
instrumentation as in the themes of your lyricism?
open to criticism, because there’s loads of little doors you can escape through and say “actually I was talking about
D: Well I’d say probably more so in the music than the
this”, and I think it just makes things more interesting.
lyrics, just in myself when I’m listening to music - I very
Nothing is black and white, and I think from my own
rarely come out of a song and think those are great lyrics,
taste, my favourite films, books, music, all of them, it’s
I’ll firstly think that’s great music, it’s the music that
when there are a few characters in the story, not just one
makes me think a certain way. Lyrics generally are far
of them that you are rooting for.
more likely to turn me off a song than turn me onto one. Now that the record is out, what would you say you’ve
So most of the time, 80% to 90% it’s the music first.
personally taken from making it? G: I think because we have three guitarists as well, we have to think about the music a lot more, because we
G: For me, at the end of the day we’ve released something
don’t just want three guitars chunking in the background.
we’re proud of as a group of friends, it’s something we
If we’re going to use the three guitars we want them to
can stand over and say we did this together. I think that
be used properly, not just for the sake of having them.
we had that perseverance in us, you know we’re not
So i think it kind of puts a bit of discipline on it, because
spring chickens and releasing your debut album standard,
we don’t just want three guitars wall-of-sound on it at all
but I think the fact we stuck with it and we got it out,
times, we want them to play in and out of each other.
because there was plenty of points where we could’ve got completely disheartened and just had enough, and the fact
Peadar: We almost never play the same thing together at
we stuck through with it is what I like to take from it.
the same time. D: Yeah I think like Gary said, in its essence the key G: I think when Peadar, Killian and Dan are thinking
part of it that we can take away from it is we’ve made
about the guitar parts, it can sometimes make it a little
something that we are all happy and proud of - and it was
bit more intricate and complex, but we think the value of
done within a tight group of friends. The main thing to
having three guitars is to get nice values that interact with
take away from it is we haven’t killed each other.
one another, so it’s a big thing. Emma’s bass lines are quite intricate as well, it’s very rare anyone chugs along for the sake of it. Everything has a purpose and it’s very much an intricate thing.
Silverbacks
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