Silverstein
Interview with Shane Told
Words: Chris Henderson
Photo: Tyler Clinton

Appeared:
June 18, 2007
Jannus Landing

Before Silverstein’s sold out show at Jannus Landing (opening up for Rise Against), we caught up with lead singer Shane Told and asked him a few questions about their new album, touring, and the price of fame.

REAX: You guys have a new record on the way called "Arrivals and Departures", can you describe to me the meaning behind the album title?
Shane Told: The last four years we've been on tour and it's the first time we really had time off to be at home and it's kind of like a constant coming and going.  We've been taking planes, trains, cars, and even a boat at what time to get to these shows.   A lot of times your on tour and you see your friends in one city and you only see them for one day, you're there and then you're gone.  It's just a really hard way to live.  These people mean a lot to you but you're just never around for them.  We've also have had a lot of things come and go in terms of friends of ours passing away and even a couple of new family members in my life.  Also, relationships, I ended a seven year relationship in the middle of writing this record too.  Which has definitely come through in the lyrics.

REAX: So this a really personal record.
ST: Absolutely, absolutely!

REAX: What were some of the challenges you faced making it with all the personal stuff you were going through?
ST: It was really, really fucked up.  When we're working on music it's not very often that I will let my emotions have the better of me and take over, but it was hard.  There were times when I would be fighting with my ex-girlfriend on the phone and I would have to go to practice.  I would be thinking about it and my head wasn't right.  I had never experienced that before.  It was a challenge.  Lyrically it was like I'm writing these songs, it's exactly what I'm feeling and I feel like I'm putting myself out there a little bit too much.  Letting people in more than I wanted too, a lot more than I did in the past.

REAX: With a little more time to write this record, is there anything different that you guys did that you haven't done in the past? 
ST: We wrote more songs.  The first record we pretty much had the 10 songs we wrote, the last record we recorded 11, and going into the studio we only really had nine of them written.  This time we had 15 or 16 written and we liked all of them.  We decided not to record two of them.  We recorded 14 and decided to put 11 on the record and we have two bonus tracks and a b-side as well.  It was really difficult to decide what songs were going to make the record.  I don't think this record is too different, I think our fans will love this record and I think some people that maybe weren't into the last records will like this one a lot.  I think it's a little more natural sounding.  I don't want to use the word mature but it might be a little more mature too.

REAX: Did you personally try anything different vocally?
ST: The only thing was I tried to sing little bit more in my range.  I tried to sing with a little bit more dynamic.  Instead of having the whole song be at the top of my range, I decided sing low, high, and in between.  With the screaming I definitely tried to make them sound as brutal as I could and I definitely think they are the heaviest screams we've had on any of our recordings.

REAX: You guys just started the tour with Rise Against and Comeback Kid.  How is that going so far?
ST:  Ahh, it's going so well!  I think all the shows have been sold out so far.  We've been getting a great response, so many of our fans have been coming out.  The Rise Against fans seem to be really into our music.  People that have never heard us before are really excited to go pick up the new record.  Comeback Kid and Rise Against our friends of ours and some of the best people.

REAX: How have the crowds reacted to the new songs?
ST: Really well, you know you're always a little worried that the fans won't be into them but I think kids are going a little more crazy for the new songs than the old ones.  They've been bobbing their heads and dancing around a little bit more to the new ones.

REAX: I'm sure a lot of them have heard the new song, Sound of the Sun, on Myspace.
ST:  Oh yeah, I'm sure.  I see kids singing along to that one.

REAX: How valuable do you think it is to have sites like Myspace and Purevolume, in getting your music out there?
ST: Totally, it's unbelievable how valuable they are and how many people are on those websites.  I don't know if this is true but someone told me we broke some kind of Myspace play record for that new song.  We had something like 90,000 plays the first day.  It's been great and people have always said we've been one of those "Myspace bands", I don't really know why but I think it's a really great way to get promotion for your band.

REAX: You mentioned you've been selling out all the shows so far on tour.   Looking at the progression of the band, how does that make you feel?
ST: It's unreal man.  I don't think it has all hit me yet.  Somedays I just wake up and can't believe it.  Especially on this tour, the opening band is called "The Only Crime" and the singer used to be in "Good Riddance" which was one of my favorite bands growing up as a kid and I haven't even talked to that dude yet because I'm nervous man!  For his band to be opening for my band is just so weird to me.  To have sold more records than those bands that I grew up loving is very surreal.

REAX: Can you give me a little insight on what you guys like to do when you're not on tour or in the studio?
ST: We just like to spend time with our family, friends, and girlfriends.  We just like to relax.  Bill loves to go to shows and will go to a show pretty much every night he is home.  I kind of try to stay away from them a little bit, I get a little sick of it.  We all have our hobbies, biking, snowboarding,video games.  I'm actually pretty big into poker and playing cards.  We all have our own things going on and it's good.

REAX: You even have your own record label (Verona Records), what inspired you to start that up?
ST: We were playing an outdoor festival in our hometown and one of the opening bands I loved and I thought they were so great.  Really had a lot of potential to be an amazing band.  So I kind of took them under my wing and did what I could, paid for a lot of the stuff that they needed.  The band is "Dead and Divine" and now they have crossed Canada three times and just doing really well and I'm hoping we can bring them down to the states and do a bunch of stuff.  I decided to start a label to help them and some other bands, all local bands from Canada and the scene where I'm from.