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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 9:06:32 GMT -5
Walt Lafty Of SilvertideInterview by Nightwatcher April 1, 2006One of the most exciting new bands to come onto the largely stagnant hard rock scene in recent memory is undoubtedly Philadelphia's Silvertide. Taking their musical cues from classic raunch n' roll such as Aerosmith, AC/DC and GN'R, combined with a sense of light and heaviness gleaned from Zeppelin, adding a vocal delivery which has been compared to Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes, the band is certainly a breath of much needed fresh air. The accolades the band has garnered, which have been pouring in even before the band released an album, have been incredible indeed. The esteemed U.K. Classic Rock Magazine recently proclaimed the band's debut release 'Show And Tell,' "One of the best albums of the year in 2005," and NME raved "This Ain't Rock It's Marble." High praise indeed from the notoriously fickle, at times hard to please (but at times highly justified) English press. Praise which, based on the evidence presented not only on record, but also in their high energy live performances, is certainly well deserved. For while the band is young, they certainly have the right combination of talent, attitude and drive needed to become successful, having logged in an amazing 29 months straight touring, opening up for Van Halen, Aerosmith, Motley Crue, Velvet Revolver, Godsmack, Shinedown and even Kid Rock. Impressive, even for a young band, it shows that this band is doing things the old fashioned way by touring their asses off, building their audience gig by rockin' gig.
One of the key elements of their sound is vocalist Walt Lafty, who with lead guitarist Nick Perri form an alliance not unlike, say, Aerosmith's Tyler and Perry, or even The Stones' Jagger and Richards, carrying on the fine tradition of hard rock's dynamic vocal/guitar duos into the new millenium. Recently I had the opportunity to catch up with Lafty as he relaxed during a long needed rest period at his parents' home in Philly, where the topics discussed ranged from their highly anticipated, as yet untitled, follow up album to the fantastic 'Show And Tell,' the band's experiences touring around the world, their philosophy on music and what's to come for one of the brightest hopes for the hard rockin' world today.
Special thanks To Brad Reubens and Rikki Rampage for coordinating, and a BIG thanks to Walt for doing this interview for Rock N Roll Universe!
Rock N Roll Universe : First off, thank you for taking the time out to talk with us, we really appreciate it... Walt Lafty : You're welcome, no problem man! RNRU : You guys are in the studio now recording the new album. How's the progress going so far? WL : Not at this particular moment. We're actually writing songs and picking producers. We're kind of on our own studio time really. RNRU : Do you have anybody in mind to produce the album yet? WL : Oh man, we have a ton of people. It's really hard to narrow it down. It's really who's available. It's getting to that point. I originally wanted Rob Cavallo, he wanted to do it, but he's kind of tied in with Warner Brothers. He's an A&R guy there as well. The politics, it's kind of hard to get around that. He just did the Green Day record, so he's living off the success of that right now. He's normally doing Warner Brothers films..movies, soundtracks. We were talking to David Bendes. We actually know him from awhile ago, and the band got along with him really well. He was an A&R guy at RCA a couple of years ago. RNRU : So right now you're still in the writing stage? WL : Yeah, we have like 25 songs written, and we're shooting for about 15, 20 more. RNRU : Any titles for any of the songs that you can give us at this point? WL : We have a bunch of titles thrown around, but none of them are concrete at this point. For the record, originally one was 'The Pros and Cons Of Murder,' but the band said that I was insane and they wouldn't call the record that .(Laughs) Then, the next idea was 'Kill The Coyotes,' but we don't think the label's going to go for that one.(Laughs) A picture of a dead coyote...I don't know. (Laughs) I'm the extreme guy. I'm always "It's NEVER too extreme, you can always go over the top!" I try to push the envelope, then I get slammed down to reality. RNRU : So the band's a democracy... WL : Yeah, a total democracy, it's not a Chinese democracy like Axl Rose. RNRU : Well, speaking of that, everyone else has one, any predictions on when Axl's going to release that album? WL : Oh, I don't know, I heard that song, it was alright. My dad f*cking loves that song, the new Guns N' Roses song. The one that was on the radio recently. They were playing it on our station 93 MMR. "Better" I think it was. He loves it, I didn't really like it. It was okay, definitely not worth taking 13 years. I was expecting gold. RNRU : What can fans expect from the sound of the new album? Will it be in the same vein as 'Show And Tell' or will there be any differences? WL : Well, strangely enough, our rhythm section got even tighter than on the first record. That's just from my bass player and drummer just playing together now for 4, 5 years. They're finally getting to the point where they're starting to feel comfortable with stuff. Whereas before, we were kind of young. We were a band for a year, we got signed, went to L.A., did the record. We were just like "Holy crap." We just wrote a bunch of songs, played them a bunch of times and said "Oh that one." Like anything bands grow over time. It's a bit heavier on some of the stuff, and a bit lighter on some. It's going to have much more of a spectrum I know that. RNRU : Has the process of writing the songs changed from the first album? WL : We've never really had a process. Unfortunately we never came up with a system. Everybody just writes songs, we throw them on the table and say, "Hey, let's just do them all electric after we arrange them acoustically." Then we go into a studio, this place called Wrong Street, hash it out there, scream our lungs out. Then get the proper arrangements on electric. Then we demo them all, and after we have 30 songs we say, "Hey, what's the best 10?" It's really a crazy, weird thing. Every band we've ever toured with doesn't write that way. But that's what makes us Silvertide. RNRU : You write 99% of the lyrics, Walt. Where do you usually get your inspiration lyrically? WL : All over the place. Some stuff's just from things I grew up on. Other things from... sometimes I'll just sit in diners at 3 o'clock in the morning and listen to people's conversations, as weird as that is. I'll just sit there and chain smoke, drink a lot of coffee, eat some cake for 3 or 4 hours. People say really interesting things. You live in a bubble sometimes being in a band, because you hang out with the same people all the time, hear the same jokes all the time, So you need to get outside of that realm. To me, that's very important. Other times it's just a poem or something, a random thought. Or the other guys will say, "Hey, I thought of this idea, listen to this." Then I'll take what they have and try to make it into something that feels more me. RNRU : Do you keep journals for that, to write things down right away so you don't lose ideas? WL : Yeah, I'm a pack rat, and I'm at my parents' house right now because that's where we keep our trailer. I have boxes and boxes in their attic. Since I was 15, lyric books, scrap pieces of paper. At my apartment it's the same thing, it's all over the place. It's a bad habit that way. I write things on pizza boxes sometimes. Actually "Blue Jeans" from the last record was written on a pizza box. RNRU : You've got to get it down when inspiration strikes or you lose it... WL : Yeah, it's like half the time the battle is finding a pen. I have ADHD really bad, Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder, but I refuse to take medication for it. I took it once in my life, and it makes you feel really numb. You tend to pay attention to people more, and I just don't like that. (Laughs) I just refuse to take it, and with that comes a really bad side, because you tend to toss between ideas every 3 seconds. So if I don't write it down immediately, half the time I'm looking at pieces of paper a month later going, "What the f*ck is this? How the hell did I get this?"(Laughs) RNRU : Do you ever go back and take pieces of that for inspiration? WL : Oh, absolutely. Every writer has to do that. You never know, you could have something, write down in one moment and think it's absolute Sh*t, or as our guitar tech Kurt would say, "Shiza!" You write it down, you think it's crap, then 6 months later you're looking through a book because you're drunk and you're bored, then it's like, "Holy Sh*t, what is this?" Then you try to make something out of that. There's really no process. It's a downside, because there's nothing I can rely on. So, if I'm having a writer's block it kind of blows, because you go for a week without doing anything. If I had a system I'm sure it'd be easier, but I have a real problem conforming to any type of system, or regulations. It's like you don't always have to have a song with a bridge. Although my band would like to believe so. (Laughs) Or, our A&R guy I should say would really like to believe that every song should have a pre chorus, a chorus, a bridge, a solo section, yada yada yada. (Laughs) But that's where we come in, that's our thing. RNRU : So you basically write the lyrics then bring them to the rest of the band? WL : Yeah, and literally they'll tell me if it's Sh*t right to my face. They don't give a Sh*t, they really don't care. RNRU : From there, do you take it and form the songs from jamming? WL : Yeah, a lot of the rhythm stuff is from that. My bass player Brian is really about the feel, just being solid. So, rather than just write a song and just get it over with, and say, "Here, we're done," he'll want to contemplate the feel for a good amount of time, and hash it out with our drummer Kevin until it's really solid. It's the same thing with lyrics. They'll bring it to the rest of us, then we'll say, "Hey, that's this or that's that." It's really a well thought out process. Some things will happen, you'll get those 3 songs that will happen in moments, and that's the feeling of why you got into music. You get high off of writing something in 3 minutes. Songs like "Ain't Coming Home," are bit more simplistic. Nick Perri and I wrote that sitting around his parent's house. It was like 15 minutes. The band wouldn't change the feel, just play it solid. That was it. RNRU : Do you find it's easier to do it that way bashing it out really quick? WL : Absolutely, because then the feeling is high. Then everybody's in a positive state of mind. If it takes you 15 minutes to finish something, and then the rest is just fine tuning, there's no real thought process involved. Whereas with other stuff you kind of have to buckle down and focus on, you tend to overanalyze things. We had one song, we worked on it for 6 hours one day, which is the most we've ever done anything for one song. Usually, if you're going to work on a song for 6 hours, it's as an individual in your home with a guitar. Then you bring it to the table. It was a song that I wrote called "Without You." I had this idea, a specific feel of the way I wanted it to sound. The way I wanted the guitar tones to sound. I explained it to them and they got the idea. Well, 6 hours later it sounded like Sh*t. That was 1 bad example of why over analyzation is a terrible thing. Because if you think about it way too much, it sounds like it. It comes out through the speakers. After you do a demo of it, you'll hear it. You'll go, "Wow, that sounds just really contrived and foreign." So then we went up to this mountain house, in Potter County, it's around 100 acres, and we stayed up there for 2 weeks. We just got away from cell phones, wives, girlfriends, friends, managers, everything. We just said, "We're just going to do this for 2 weeks." Then that song "Without You," in a matter of a half hour ended up taking a totally different connection than what it was already set up to be. Now, the song to me sounds amazing. You can always say it sounds amazing to you, but the fans will be the real judge. But if I don't like it we just won't put it on there. RNRU : What are your expectations, sales wise, for the new album? What would make you happy this time around? WL : I'd be happy to go a little bit above what we did with 'Show And Tell.' Last time I think we did 150,000, I think. I would like to go probably about 200,000. We're a live band. Every band would like to say they'd like to sell 10 million records. The reality of the situation is, it doesn't really happen these days. You have special cases of course, but it doesn't really happen to many records like it did in the 90's, where the average rock band sold 3 million records. You have to really earn that these days. Which is good and bad. It's good because we're putting in all this time. We've toured more than anyone I know in the past 2 and a half years. We toured for 29 months straight I think. That's where we sell. We sell albums at the shows, when we're opening up for other bands. We have a really killer mentality where we just walk out there and give the best performance that we can give. Every single night. Because if you don't feel the music, how do you expect one 15 year old kid in the crowd to? How's he going to feel it? Or do anything with it? If you just go up there, stand still, play the f*cking songs and stare at your shoes. If you don't connect with them, and tell people what the song's about, help them relate to it, they're not going to understand. When you go that extra mile, that extra length, then people turn around... and you say, "This song is for every goddamned person that pulls you down and makes you feel like a total asshole, when they're the ones that are f*cked up." Then people go "Oh Sh*t, I've experienced that, I've had that feeling, that emotion." If that happens, then you've won. You've won that battle. You're doing it on an individual basis. As opposed to mass marketing where you just put a song on the radio and a bunch of people go buy it because it sounds catchy. RNRU : So your main goal is to come up with songs that will relate to your audience in other words.. WL : That's the main goal with anything. "Mary Jayne" off of the first record, originally the song was written strictly about pot. Then our producer, who was actually living in Philly, David Ivory, said, "Hey look man, pot's a great thing, a lot of people smoke pot. But, don't you want to get something a bit higher than that?" I said, "What the hell do you mean higher than pot? What are you talking about, heroin?" (Laughs) He said "No, think more intelligently on this one. Instead of just saying you want to sing it about just marijuana, why don't you go the extra mile and make it about something else?" Like a relationship, that's the most obvious thing you can do with anything. So, I took an experience from one of my past relationships that I kept on dragging myself into. I said, "Oh, I'll put that into it." The girl's name wasn't Mary Jayne, but that's beside the point. That's just how it worked. I have so many people that walk up to me and say, "I've had relationships like that." And there are so many kids that come up and go, "I love pot." Then you get it, you're like, "Oh Sh*t they're getting it from both angles." You're levelling on a different platform, or plateau. They're seeing it from a different point of view. It's all from your own personal experiences. What I might think is about one thing, like say that song "Turning Japanese." I always laugh, and say "That song's about mastrubation." People just look at me like I have ten heads. (Laughs) They're like, "No, it's just a poppy little song." I'm like, "No, listen, it's about a guy squinting his eyes, spanking one out." Most people don't really go that far into it. But if they were to explain that even more, then they'd grasp that, like every f*ckin' guy jerks off. If girls could they would. RNRU : Well, it works on multi levels... WL : Yeah, and you have to really feel that, because not everybody's going to think the way I'm going to think. It wouldn't be the world. It wouldn't be right if everybody thought the way that I thought. Then, we would just sit around and do nothing all day except smoke pot and write songs. RNRU : Which wouldn't be a bad thing actually... WL : It wouldn't be a bad thing at all. Everything in moderation, and everything to a certain degree. Some people just choose to not smoke pot. It doesn't mean that they're a horrible human being. Like right now I haven't smoked pot in probably about 6 months, but I drink a lot. There's actually a song going to be on the next record called "I Don't Know What I Did Last Night." It's about our buddy Geno, who got really drunk on our bus and pissed himself. So, we just wrote it about him. My drummer, Kevin, actually had the idea for the song. I just took what he had, and made it into something a bit more. That one doesn't have a double meaning. It's just about being f*cked up. You just don't know what you did last night. It's as simple as that. So you can do that too. There's no process, or any real way of doing anything. RNRU : Do you feel any pressure from the label, or even yourself for this album to be huge? WL : I'm sure the label would like me to write the next 'Abbey Road' or something. Every record label would want that I guess. They definitely pursue that. Our A&R guy definitely pushes us to extreme lengths. He's a guy that cares. It sometimes sucks, but you have to realize the only reason he does it... it's like a parent telling their kid, "Do your f*ckin' homework so you can get a scholarship." If he hears a song and he thinks it has potential, he's going to say, "Work at it more, it's not there yet, but it's almost there." Sometimes I'll disagree with him, sometimes I'll agree with him. Sometimes he's right, sometimes I'm right. It's really about having that respect and understanding. He's a really intellectual guy. I don't judge him that way, I just kind of go, "Well, you sit in an office and listen to music all the time. You're a music CRITIC, but you're not a musician. He can play, but you can't always take everyone's opinions. It's really hard to do that. Then you're constantly living a double standard. Then you're pulling, and I would be an A&R guy if I'm always like, "Hey, what do you think?" (Laughs) Sometimes it just comes down to what YOU think, and going back to your original question, the pressure on yourself I think is actually more harsh to any musician than label pressure. Especially in our case. We're starting out, the first record was the romantic thing, we're going to be successful, sell 10 million records. Then you tour, and you meet a trillion other bands. And they're all in the same boat as you. All fighting for the same prize, to be heard. Then you realize, "Wow, we're really just fish in a pool, in this giant ocean just swimming around hoping to God that something happens and clicks." I don't know, the pressure you put on yourself after you've done that, after you've toured that amount of time, had your first record out and had some minor success on radio. We had 3 songs on radio that were singles, and 8 songs that actually got played on the radio that weren't singles. That's the majority of our record. Most people would look at that as, "Well, you didn't sell a million records." That's the way a label looks at it. What's the numbers? Then my dad chimed in and said, "Guess what? I've driven 90 miles out of Philadelphia at the most my entire life, and you've seen the world. You've seen Japan, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, all of the U.S. And you've had a total of 9 songs off of a record with 11 songs actually get played on the radio. You have people all over the United States and all over the world that have your symbol tattooed on them. I would say you're a success." That's the way you have to constantly look at it. It's an optimistic way of looking at it. I know that doesn't go along with the "grunge" era thing, where everything is sad and depressing. But, we're not that kind of band. RNRU : When do you anticipate the new album coming out? WL : We're pushing for July. If that's going to actually happen, I have no goddamn clue. You know probably as much as I do about how much things get pushed back and dates get shifted all the time. Our first record got pushed back by about 4 months or something. It got pushed back 3 different times, according to my bass player Brian. He knows a lot more about stuff like that than I do. Dude, he's amazing. We'll be in the van driving somewhere and we'll be going, "Hey you guys remember that gig where this happened?" And he'll go "Yeah, May 12th, 2003, we were playing in North Carolina at such and such venue. Loading was at this time, and the hotel was 3 blocks away." And you're like, "What the hell?" (Laughs) And he can drink so much, and you're just amazed at how he can have a memory like that. I probably drink less than he does, but I don't have half the brain cells for memory. RNRU : I do good to remember yesterday... WL : You know how many times I wake up and go, "What did I do yesterday?" And I didn't even drink or anything. It's really odd. (Laughs) RNRU : Once the album's finished, do you have any plans already for going on tour? WL : The minute we're done recording, we're going to go on tour. We have to come back for mixing and mastering obviously, but that's usually pretty quick. Expensive, but quick. We're a road band. We don't really belong at home. (Laughs)
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 9:07:47 GMT -5
RNRU : Speaking of that, you've done a massive amount of touring, and recently you toured Europe with Santana, taking Steven Tyler's place because he couldn't make it due to previous commitments. How did that situation come about, and what was that experience like for you?
WL : You want to talk about pressure? (Laughs) Fuck. We came home, and we were only home for like 2 days. Then we were going to go back out on tour. We came back just to recharge our batteries. I was in Target or something with my wife shopping for trashbags, and regular shit for the apartment. We're out there, and our manager Brad called me up and goes, "Hey blah blah blah," and he starts talking and I said, "Dude, you're breaking up, I'll call you back." I called him back about an hour later, because I'm thinking it's like 9 o'clock at night, no rush, nothing important. He goes, "You have 36 hours to learn this song, and you have to go sing it up at The Hammerstein tomorrow, or the next day. I'm like, "What?" He said, "I'll just send an Mp3 to you." I said, "Dude, I don't even have internet access." So, I had to go to Mark, our rhythm guitar player's house. He had DSL or something, so he sent it to him and I picked it up. So, I'm on my dad's little moped scooter, driving over there, and at this point it's like 2 o'clock in the morning. I grab it, come back, start listening to it, and I'm like, "Fuck man, I've got to learn this thing?" I learn it, and go up there, and you're so used to relying on your band for the past 5 years. Then, you're playing with drummers like Dennis Chambers, and guitar players like Santana. You're like, "Jesus Christ, these guys probably think I'm like some ant piece of shit." (Laughs) So, I do it the first night, at Hammerstein, and I didn't get one word right out of the whole song. I used to improv with rock bands all over, so I started making up words. (Laughs) You just scream them really loud, and nobody knows what the hell you're saying anyway. I got away with it, then Santana's manager comes up to me and says, "You've got to learn the words, you're going to go over to Germany and Italy." I'm like, "What the hell... " I didn't even know I was doing that until the last minute. As soon as the manager walks out of the room, Carlos goes, and he's the coolest guy, "You did fine, don't even worry about the words, just hit the notes and you'll be fine." So, I got an iPod, put it on there, listened to it over and over again. Next thing I knew I was on a private jet flying out of Germany to Spain. Sitting next to Carlos Santana. I'm like, "YES, Mr. Santana."(Laughs)
RNRU : Did you and Carlos ever discuss you perhaps appearing on an upcoming Santana album?
WL : We talked about different types of things. Mostly we were talking about spirituality. He's a very spiritual cat. He was talking about life and philosophy, so I was really wrapped up into that. You're flying on a 3 hour flight, and you're sitting directly across from this man who's sold millions upon millions of records, and is a legend in his own right. A living legend. So, I'm kind of listening to every friggin' word he says. Hanging onto each word. We talked a little bit about...he said if we did anything and wanted him to play on it, he would like to play on some hard rock stuff, because he doesn't always do that. He's actually a fantastic blues player.
RNRU : Well, he started out as The Santana Blues Band...
WL : Yeah, I saw him play during sound check, I think it was in Italy, and they just started riffing on this blues thing, and holy shit! He's got a fantastic tone, it's a very smooth sound, it warms your entire body. Very calming. I'm used to all the rock, like my friends from here, The Union Dead, stuff like that where it's like attack mode. The Union Dead is actually a really good example, they're like a punk band, and their sound is like, "Holy shit, I just got hit by something over the head." His, you're like, "Wow." You can groove, it feels good, and you just want to relax and enjoy the moment. Totally different type of thing. It was a spiritual experience. It was amazing, and I was playing on all these TV shows. I sang on a station in Germany, that got aired to like 13 million people or something. Then as I'm walking through the airport the next day everybody and their mother was saying, "I saw you on 'Vettendas' last night," in broken English. I was just amazed at the power of TV, what that does in a situation like that.
RNRU : Did you feel nervous or have any sort of stage fright knowing you were being broadcast to that many people?
WL : No, I don't get stage fright. I never got stage fright from the time that I started playing music. I was a drummer for 5 years, so I got used to playing onstage without being up in the front. Then I just got so used to it. My parents are very musical, very artistic, and they pushed me in that ever since I was a kid.
RNRU : So, they were very supportive of you musically obviously...
WL : Yeah, they let me move back home after I couldn't pay my rent about 5 years ago when I said, "Hey, I'm quitting my full time job with benefits to be in this rock band and sing." They said, "Hey, move back in, go ahead."
RNRU : Also, speaking of touring, you guys did a series of dates opening for Van Halen back in 2004 on the first leg of their "reunion" tour. What was that like? Did Edward or any of the members of the band have any advice for you?
WL : Yeah, we didn't even have a record out then. Sammy just said have fun with it. He kept on telling us that the whole month and a half. He just kept on insisting, he's like, "You just have to have fun with it. You just have to constantly remind yourself that it's a good thing, and you're in a good position. You're in a great situation and you have the world at your fingertips." He was always focusing on the positive side of that, really forcing that down our throats. Just have fun with it. Even then we were touring in a van all the time. Sleeping in it, pissing in it, eating in it, everything. He just said, "Remember this. You're going to look back on this in 30 years. Whether you're hugely successful or not, you're going to be like, 'Wow, I got a free ticket around the world and it was a great time.' " Eddie was all about just having a good time. I didn't get one serious conversation with Eddie Van Halen the entire tour. He was mostly just a bundle of fun to be around. He was just confident, "Hey, let's have a drink, a toast, let's have this." He was a really, really fun guy.
RNRU : What shape was he in at that time? It seems like he's kind of in bad shape these days...
WL : I know he had 18 surgeries on his tongue to get out the mouth cancer. That's a bummer, I'm sure, but he survived it. I heard he had a hip replacement, but he didn't tell me that. Just to be up there, and to try and do that again, for whatever motives or reasons you have to be on that stage. Whether it's for the money, or for the music itself, or for the sheer joy of living that experience over and over again. Because nothing gets close to being onstage. Whatever his motives were, he loved it. You could see that, after all the years. What's even weirder was, I just went down with my wife about a month and a half ago to see Lynyrd Skynyrd at The Borgata in New Jersey. We had a buddy of ours who gave us some free tickets so we went down. Let me just say, I never had anything to do with that band. I had a couple of their records, I dug their stuff a bit, but when they play "Freebird" you still get chills up your spine. That, to me, was a good feeling. That you can have all these things go wrong, you can have members of your band die. You can have horrible, horrible tragedies, and still in 30, 40 years you can still make the song feel that good. There's something to be said about that.
RNRU : Sammy Hagar has been quoted as saying that Silvertide is the best new band he's heard in quite some time. How does that make you feel when someone of that stature says things like that about the band?
WL : It's good, because we don't have to say it. (Laughs) It's good, we've been lucky enough to play in front of people like Slash and Sammy, and they've all said very nice things about us. We're always very appreciative of that. Especially when it's someone like that. We had NME Magazine give us a really great quote. They said, "This ain't rock, it's marble." Our label just used that forever as the quote of why people should listen to our band. Most people don't pay attention to quotes, but it's cool to hang up in my apartment. Like, "Yeah, that guy said this about me." It's a great feeling.
RNRU : Last summer the band also toured with MÖTLEY CRÜE on their 'Carnival Of Sins' tour. Were you a fan of theirs before going on tour with them?
WL : You know what, I knew the songs from on the radio. Our lead guitar player Nick, he was kind of into them for a long time. Man, that tour was just nuts. That was an insane tour. I had a blast, and was definitely a fan afterwards. I was really impressed by the stage show, and the energy put out. That day, from day 1, we showed up the first day, and there were 4 huge gallon and a half bottles of Jack, and they said, "Welcome To MÖTLEY CRÜE Silvertide." We were like, "Oh great." (Laughs) I don't remember a lot of stuff from the tour, but I did have a lot of fun. (Laughs)
RNRU : Walt, your vocal style has been compared at times by some to Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes. Do you yourself feel that there's any validity to that?
WL : I have no idea. I listened to 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and I wanted to play Judas when I was a kid. That's the most that I can get to it, is soul. But, I don't really know. Sometimes I get that, but I get the weirdest things on the road. You know how people are. That comparison is the most overbearing, the one that always comes in I guess. They're a good band, so it's cool. It could be worse, and not that it's a bad thing, but it could be, "Hey, you sound like Iggy Pop." Oh great. (Laughs) That's not what I was going FOR, but great. I've gotten some weird ones. I had one person come up to me after the show and say I sounded like Michael Stipe and I almost spit my beer out. So, that was pretty funny. I sound NOTHING like Michael Stipe. People are just crackheads, I swear. (Laughs) I swear people just say things just for the sake of saying them. They go, "Hey, you sound like that," and you're like, "Do you even know who that is?" Or did you see it on a billboard on the way to the concert?
RNRU : Who were your vocal influences when you started out?
WL : Well, mainly a lot of folk music. Weird stuff like Simon & Garfunkel. The Beatles, they were a big one just because my dad was really into The Beatles from the time I was a kid. Earth, Wind & Fire, who were another great band. It wasn't a lot of rock stuff until I got around 16. I grew up on a lot of amazing music like Steely Dan. My dad constantly had vinyl around, so he was always throwing them on. Then, eventually I got to about 15, and I found out about Led Zeppelin, and all the different bands that are out there. Then I finally got into the newer stuff like Nirvana. I'm pretty well rounded and well versed in that kind of stuff. I like Ella Fitzgerald, that's another great one. Amazing, amazing singer.
RNRU : What drew you to traditional hard rock? You grew up in Philadelphia during the 90's when grunge and alternative were all the rage. What drew you to bands like Zeppelin, Guns N' Roses or Aerosmith styled music versus going for say a Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains type sound?
WL : Actually I never really got into Aerosmith until we opened up for them. I'd heard their songs on the radio a trillion times, and everybody rocked out to Aerosmith when they were a kid whether they wanted to or not. You heard it on the radio and just went "Holy shit." Even like Queen. You hear "Bohemian Rhapsody" and you start shaking your head like you're in 'Wayne's World.' I really don't know how it actually ended up happening. I was actually in a band before Silvertide, and it was a band where I just screamed. It was like a hardcore band. Then I met my rhythm guitar player, Mark Melchiorre. He drove around in a Volkswagen bus, a camper. He went to my high school, and I thought, "That's pretty cool." I just thought he did a lot of drugs. So I said, "Hey man, we should hang out." Then I found out he never did drugs in his life. I was like "What? You look like the biggest stoner that I've ever met in my life, and you've never done them, ever?" He said, "No, I don't do that, I might have a beer occasionally but that's about it." He was really into folk music, and The Grateful Dead, Phish, Remy Zero... a lot of really weird bands that I'd never gotten into. I started hanging out with him, then we started playing coffeehouses playing folk music. Being that as a kid that's all I heard. Every Christmas, you know how you hear Christmas music? Well, growing up we didn't really listen to a lot of Christmas music. We listened to Simon & Garfunkel's 'Greatest Hits.' From the time that the Christmas season started til the end past New Year's. My mom would put in Simon & Garfunkel, and that was her Christmas music. It was kind of her own tradition. That, and she would always play The Stones.
I started playing with Mark, and I just went back to that kind of stuff. Very light, very folky, very pretty sounding. We had played for a good year, won a bunch of talent shows. We would just sit still on a stool and just play, that was it. I had already met Nick, my lead guitar player, years before when he was around 15 years old. He walked in on another band, we were looking for a lead guitar player. He said, "I'm going to be in a band with you. The rest of these guys suck," and he said it right to their face. The rest of the guys were 40 years old, and I was like 16. He just said, "The rest of these guys suck, I'm going to be in a band with you." Flash forward, Mark and I are playing in coffeehouses. We hear about this new coffeehouse that just opened up, and our buddy's running it, Brett Halley, and he said, "I'm running this coffeehouse and I want you to come up and play a few things. You guys have some people who come out to see you, bring them up to my coffeehouse, mine is better." I'm like, "Alright, whatever." The first week we get lost and can't find the place, he got all pissed at us. The second week, we find it, we get there, and Nick, our lead guitar player now, is playing with Kevin, our drummer, and this bass player by the name of Chris Smith. They were a 3 piece, and Nick sang, "White Wedding" by Billy Idol, and it was the most horrible rendition of it I've ever heard in my life. Nick cannot sing. Now he can a little bit, but he could not sing at all back then. I said, "Wow. he's an amazing guitarist, but not a good singer". He just came up to me and said, "You're a shitty guitar player, but you're a great singer." (Laughs) He said, "We should get together." But at that time Mark didn't even own an electric guitar. He only played folk music. So he just had an acoustic. Nick said, "It doesn't matter, tell him to bring the acoustic." I said "Fine, but I'm not joining unless he joins."
So, the first night we went to a rehearsal, about a week later, January 11th or 17th, I'm not sure, but we sat down, started playing and we wrote 5 songs the first night. We thought they were great. We ended up scratching them all later on, but we thought they were great. For 5 songs in a couple of hours, we were amazed. Then the bass player got really fucked up on drugs and stopped showing up at gigs. We were getting more gigs and he stopped showing up. Brian actually grew up with Mark, a couple of doors down, and Brian was going to school for jazz bass at the university. Upright bass. We had to convince him to join our band because he was playing in several bands at the time. We were like, "You're not going to make money, you're not going to make dick compared to what you're making now." He was doing jazz gigs making cash. It wasn't great cash, but it was enough to get himself through college and pay his rent. Eventually he came out to see us, watched the show, then started to think about it. He said finally, "Yeah, I'll join." Then from that point on, we started building up a following. Actually the first gig, which was when we opened for Aerosmith, our bass player at the time was so fucked up he didn't show up, and Brian was kind of filling in as a favor originally. We were trying to convince him to join the band. We're just like, "C'mon, just join, please please, please." He said, "I'm in college, I have this going on." Eventually we did the Aerosmith gig, then finally he said, "Fine, I'll join." That was pretty much it. Then he quit school. (Laughs) Then Kevin, our drummer quit high school and Nick dropped out of high school. We're known for ruining people's lives. That's our biggest claim to fame at this point. Our producer, when we were doing our record, his girfriend left him. Now they're together again, happily with a kid. But they broke up because we were demanding too much of his time. We are the relationship ruiners. (Laughs)
RNRU : So, if you want to get rid of someone, just hang out with you...
WL : Just hang out with us for a month and it'll be taken care of, like "Dirty Deeds."
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 9:08:55 GMT -5
RNRU : But what was it that drew you to the bands like Zeppelin, and I know you guys are big Jeff Beck fans....what was it about that particular music that drew you in?
WL : I was smoking a lot of pot. I was about 15, and I was hanging around with some weird kids, and a lot of them were older than me. I always hung around with a lot of older people growing up. Because a lot of the younger kids just didn't really care about music as much as I did. I would literally sit listening to a radio station all day durng the summer when I didn't have school with a tape recorder, with my hand on record. Waiting for a song to come on that I knew that they'd play that day. When you love music that much that you're willing to spend an entire day for ONE song. Now, I can go on the internet these days and just yank it off really quick, and pay my 99 cents when I'm done. It's so much easier. For a big music fan like myself, it's a lot easier for me to get anything that I want, and I do it all the time. I spend more money on friggin' CD's, Mp3's, and all this shit, than I could ever spend on alcohol, or even a house probably before I die. It's just the way that it is. When you're a fan, that's what you do. I ran out of racks on the wall in my apartment. They're just piled up. I'm a movie fan too, I'll just buy a movie for no reason, like, "That cover looks cool." (Laughs)
RNRU : Did you ever feel like the odd men out coming out and playing this style of music when you first started in Philadelphia?
WL : Yeah, there was nobody really playing that. Now there's quite a few bands actually playing that in Philly, and all over the place. There's a great band called Oliver Black, from Canada, and I think their album is out, or coming out. They're amazing, chick singer, an amazing, amazing rock band. There's a lot of bands now, but when we were doing it, there really wasn't anybody doing it. That kind of made it difficult. I used to go to extreme lengths to get people to come to our shows. I would light myself on fire on stage. I would smash the drum kit to oblivion. I would just do so much over the top stuff so that people would go, "I can't believe I missed that, I'm going next week." Eventually that paid off.
RNRU : Well, lighting yourself on fire would definitely make an impression...
WL : I just thought, you have an hour. There's 4 bands playing on the stage tonight, and you have 1 hour to convince these people to come back and tell their friends next week. Plus, most of our members at that time were 16 years old. So, it was hard enough to get a bar gig. They don't want any liability. Actually, our first gig ever as a band with our old bass player got raided by the cops. Half the people lost their licenses that were in the crowd because all of them were underage. I got fired from my job the next day because I didn't show up. All my friends got arrested. A bunch of them I haven't talked to since. They were so pissed at me because I got out.
RNRU : Where do you feel that Silvertide fits into the music scene of today?
WL : The music scene of today? There's no such thing as a scene. I don't really think there is. There hasn't been in a long time. It's just so confusing. You have bands that want to be Blink 182, that want to be Tool, that want to be everything under the sun than what they are. Then you go see them live, and it doesn't really sound like them on the record. When you sound worse than your record, that is a problem. There's a difference. You can sound worse and have a lot of energy, and that'll make up for it. Or you can sound better and have no energy, then it's like I might as well just listen to the record. There's a really fine line. A lot of these people just don't know at all what they are, and what their definition is. It takes time for any band. It takes you years to develop your sound. We've been a band for 5 years. Our sound won't be completely developed for another record or two. That's just the way that it goes. People forget that. That's why there is no scene. Because nobody wants to help out. Bands used to write together. It wasn't about songwriting, publishing, and who was going to make money. It was about the songs. It was about the songs, about a scene. People come up and say, "Oh, we've got a scene going on in our city." Then you go play there, check out all the bars while you're there for 3 days, and there's dick going on. Every band sounds completely like some other band. You have no clue what's going on, it's confusing.
RNRU : They're all just trying to get discovered and have the next hit record...
WL : Everybody's trying too fast. That's the problem. You have to find your own sound before you have that big hit. That's why I was saying before, I hope we sell 200,000 records. That will be fine. That'll give us more of a fan base than we have, and we'll be growing. Labels come and go, people come and go, band members come and go. It's all about putting the time in, then eventually coming up with, "That's our sound, that's it". There's people who say, "We knew what we wanted from day one." Well, if you knew what you wanted from day one, then guess what? You're a fuckin' genius. You're the best human being in the world, you know what you're doing, you have your shit all together, but you probably sound like another band.
RNRU : Most bands are looking to be the "flavor of the moment," they're just following trends...
WL : Why would you want to be the flavor of the moment? Why would you want that? I've never understood that. It's really cool to be popular in high school, but what about afterwards? 10 years later it doesn't mean dick when you're working in a shoe store. If you're happy, and you're doing what you want to do, that's great. It's a strange world. (Laughs)
RNRU : Do you feel that the label is going to allow you to grow like that?
WL : They've been pretty cool with it so far. What band gets signed for millions of dollars, only sells 150,000 records and doesn't get dropped? Our A&R guy is very much into the development of bands. James Diener, he'll hear it and he'll go, "Okay, you're almost there." Now, he wants the hits just like anybody. But he's not going to force them down your throat. He's going to push you to do better. But he's not going to just slam you down.
RNRU : In the last couple of years, you've toured with Van Halen, Aerosmith, Velvet Revolver, Motley Crue, Shinedown, Alter Bridge, Alice Cooper, even Kid Rock. You went over and toured Japan a couple of times, and did some shows in the U.K. What's been the most memorable touring experience for you?
WL : Japan. It was just very, very unique. Probably the most unique culture that we've ever been around. You go to England, it's really cool, and you have a great time. They kind of speak the same language. You go to Spain, it's not even close to the same language, you can suck up some of the culture, but we didn't go that far into it. In Japan we went to 5 different cities in a matter of a week. This guy over there, he was like a BMG rep over there, and he took care of us the whole time. He got us to eat their kind of food, all that. Very hospitable.
RNRU : What's the biggest difference between audiences overseas and here in the U.S.?
WL : Overseas, for the most part, if you're an American band they're going to embrace you. As long as you have decent songs. They're more open minded. They're more willing to go out, just listen to something and not be prejudiced towards it. They want to like you. Over here, everybody's a goddamned musician. Whether they're a shitty one or impressive... I don't know. There's a different type of story in the States. In the States, you have to slowly prove yourself over time. Over there, they're more accepting to, "Okay, this is your band, we like this song, we like that song, and we want to come to your show and sing along."
RNRU : What's the best part, and also the worst part about being out on the road so much?
WL : The best part is that you have no responsibility when you're out on the road. You have a bus that takes you everywhere that you want to go. You can just pretty much drink and do whatever you want and not have to answer to anybody. When you do get in trouble, you have lawyers to get you out of it. When you're at home, you have to worry about the reality of life. My wife just got in a horrible car accident. She's fine, but the car's totalled. Now we have no car. So, it's back to reality.
RNRU : Is it hard for you to come back and adjust after being on the road so much?
WL : Oh, always. Even if it's just for 2 days. When you're touring, especially in the U.S., you're walking into a diner at 3 o'clock in the morning with 9 guys, and you're getting dirty looks from every friggin' Southerner in the bar. You have to just watch your back. Then you come back to your hometown, where people know you... you're constantly looking over your shoulder on the road, at home you don't have to do that, but you're still in that mentality for some reason. So, people start to think that you're some sort of a hardass or something. You're really not trying to be that way, you just have your guard up. I mean, nobody wants to be jumped in a bar in the middle of Alabama. So, you've got to look over your shoulder. Then, when you get back home, you're still in that state of mind, and people take it the wrong way.
RNRU : When Silvertide comes to someone's town, what can people expect in your live performances? Now, I'd like to give you a chance to state your case here. Why should someone come and spend their hard earned cash to see the band?
WL : Well one, their hard earned cash won't cost them that much at one of our concerts, because our shows are pretty damn cheap. So it's not that much of an investment for a good time. The second reason would be, you give us 4 songs, and we'll have you drunk. Or wanting to be. That's definitely a good reason I would say. Third, we're a rock band. There's always going to be girls around. So, if you're a guy, your chances of getting laid are going to be much more increased at our show than if you go to a hardcore show. Because get in a mosh pit and punch each other in the face, I'm sure girls will really find that attractive. (Laughs) Come to our show, and people will pass around joints, drink and you'll be buying girls shots, and they'll be buying you shots. Hopefully, you'll find someone to take you home for the night.
RNRU : What do you want people to take away from a Silvertide performance after seeing the band?
WL : There's so many things that people take away from it, I'll leave that up to them. Let them decide, because some people just won't like it no matter what. That's their taste, and some people will love it and they'll be fans for life. We don't get those kind of fans that are kind of like, "Whatever." We have fans that drive 36 hours to see us. We have fans that fly to see us play shows. We just played a show the other night, a surprise gig on 24 hours notice, at a really small bar in Philly because we wanted to play new songs, and we were really bored, sitting around. We called out manager and said, "Look, we're playing this show, call the radio station, we're just going to let them know." We packed the place out, and we had fans from our street team literally fly out from all over the place to see us. That's the kind of fans that we have. That to us is the big difference. We don't have the fans that say, "Oh, they're coming, I'll see them next time." We don't get a lot of casual fans. We usually get a lot of hard core fans. That says a lot to me about our potential, and where we're heading.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 30, 2006 9:09:11 GMT -5
RNRU : Based on the response you've been getting on tour, do you feel that the music scene is ripe for a resurgence of ass kicking, traditional hard rock? WL : I would say so. You see more bands popping up like that all over the place. More kids too, you go into J.C. Penney and see what kind of t shirts they're selling now. Go into Sears... They're selling AC/DC shirts. They're selling Led Zeppelin t shirts. The Doors. Nobody's going to remember half the bands that are around these days. They're going to remember MÖTLEY CRÜE. That's about it. That's the difference. The younger kids are like, "You know what? We go to these shows and we're not impressed." You have a great lighting rig. What does that say? You know, we don't even have a lighting rig. I don't even use a wireless mic. I have a wire and I go all over the place. The whole point is you use the bare minimum for what you need to get out there. You use the cheapest elements that you can get. But make sure it's still good. A lot of our amps are a mixture. My bass player plays a 70's SVT cab. But, my lead guitar player plays on this custom amp out of Seattle, it's hand wired. He went through 15 amps in a couple of years. Most guitar players do not put in that much time. They go, "Give me a Mesa Boogie," then they plug it in and go "Great." That's their sound. He searched for his sound. My rhythm guitar player searched for his sound. He splits like an AC30 Vox divided by 13, which is like a boutique L.A. amp. It took him a long time to find that sound. Many, many years to find that sound. We give a shit. We might be a bunch of young idiots, we might be drunks, we might not give a shit about most stuff. I might not even pay my bills on time. What I give a shit about is music. RNRU : Flash forward 5 years from today. Where do you see the band going, and where would you like to be in that time? WL : I'd really like to be at least at the minimum headlining theaters... 2,000, 3,000 seat theaters. I would like to sell 10 million records like I said before, but you never know these days. I don't really know, we kind of just leave that up in the air. I'm going to be playing music for the rest of my life. I'm pretty confident that everyone in my band will be doing the same thing. Whether they're in this band or not. As long as we can keep on playing music, that's all I'm looking forward to in about 5 years. It'd be great to still be working this, because we love it and we've built so much upon it. But you always have to look at the realistic side that things happen and shit changes. The realistic side is that the odds are against us. They always are. They're against every band that decides, "Hey, we're going to stop being a local band, and we're going to pack up and go somewhere else." The odds are stacked against you. It's how you tackle those odds, how you make a difference, and how you really try to pursue what you want and your dreams. How confidently you walk in that direction. If you don't walk confidently towards what you want, then you're more susceptible to people knocking you over and sending you in a different direction. RNRU : Do you feel that music is more of a disposable commodity these days, with downloading etc? WL : Oh absolutely. It's not just downloading, people try to point a finger at everything. If something happens they go, "Well, it's that person or that thing's fault." That's not the way that it is. You can't point to one thing. It's a bunch of contributing factors that add up over a long period of time. If people weren't so greedy, and after one thing, which is money, then guess what? Art would prevail. Music would prevail. All these different things would come out over time. Think of all the major artists, even painters. Think of how many painters were truly successful in the time that they were alive. Most of them are successful after they're dead. Because then they have a huge plethora of material sitting there all over the globe, they have their heirs who are just too stupid, and they just sell them off. People take it, and they go, "Wow, this is amazing, this is incredible." Well, why wasn't it incredible 100 years ago? Or 40 years ago? Why, because now it's mass marketed? That's what makes it incredible, that you see it. You look at it, and you can say, "Wow, that is something that I would hang up in my home." I can't get the original because it costs 10 million, but I'll get a reprint for 5 dollars at the local music store or whatever. It's all there, it's always there. Music is always there. Rock music will always be there. Rap music will always be there. Jazz will always be there. It just sits there. At different periods of time, things get noticed because the right situation happens. There is no system, no matter what any record label tells anybody. There's no math on how to break a band. It's all up to the band and the people. People will decide. If in 10 years, like you said looking at 5 years, my band went nowhere, and my band had no help whatsoever, there was nothing going on, if we stopped having songs on the radio at this period, well, that's because we weren't good enough. That's just what it comes down to. You just have to live with that. It wasn't the right time, the right moment, it wasn't the right type of songs, and the people just didn't get it. If people get it, they'll get it. It'll spread like wildfire. I got Nirvana's 'Bleach' handed to me on a tape cassette, way before anybody really knew who Nirvana was. Because kids dug it. Kids were just making copies of it and tossing it to their friends. That's how most of the bands that you hear about... For instance, I'm a huge fan of this band called The Flaming Lips. They're a really weird band, and half of the people in my band can't stand them. They just think I'm nuts for listening to them. I got turned on to them by my cousin, who's a drummer who said "Listen to this, you might dig it." The first time I heard it, I fucking hated it. Afterwards, I was like this is the worst electronic music I've ever heard in my life. Then, one day I was walking into a music store, in L.A., I think it was Virgin Records, and they're playing this piano version of 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.' And I went,"What is that sound?" That guy's voice, it's not the greatest voice in the world, but there's something about it that I like. And, it was all from hearsay. I heard it, and I loved it. Now, I would never hear that song on the radio. That was just one person in the music store that probably said, "Hey, I like this band, I'm going to put it on today." I just happened to be there at that moment. It was the right moment, it was the right time, it was the right sound. It's on an individual basis. If you have something that connects with a bunch of people, they'll find out about it. You always have to connect with people. Whether it's an actual sound of the band that connects with people, or the lyrics, the singer, there's a connection. There's something that has to happen there and no label can reproduce that. No amount of money in the world can reproduce that. You might be able to pull it off with pop music, but no way can you pull it off with a rock band. Rock bands either flop or they take off. RNRU : Is there any chance of seeing a Silvertide DVD in the near future? WL : We actually did one awhile ago. Then we looked at it and said that it was shit. So, we just didn't put it out. We're going to do our own. Me and my rhythm guitar player are very much into photography, videography, things like that. We bought a $4,000 video camera, and we're taping everything we do. We're just going to compile it all, and put it out ourselves. RNRU : With or without label involvement? WL : Eventually, once we have our finished product, then we have to go to them because we have to license songs and things like that. It's weird how you have to license your own songs. But, if we rely on someone else to do it, they're going to show what they think we are. If we rely on ourselves, then we can show what we are. A bunch of us are a bunch of geeks. In all reality we're a bunch of friggin' dorks who fell into a really good position. We just do what we do. People always take the pictures and you look like such a hardass in the picture. That's 'cause the photographer's saying, "You're fucking ugly." (Laughs) RNRU : If we were to take a peek into your CD player, or iPod, what would someone find there? WL : Well, last night on my iPod, I was listening to The Dead Milkmen. A song by them called "Bitchin' Camaro." It's pretty funny. In my CD player right now, I'm listening to Death Cab For Cutie. The new record. There's an amazing acoustic song on there that I heard. I really like the words, the guy's an amazing lyricist. The books I'm reading right now : Kon- Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. There's one for ya. RNRU : What has been your most 'Spinal Tap' moment so far? WL : Oh, man, there's so many. We've had the gotten lost backstage thing. When we were opening for Van Halen, we couldn't find our way to anywhere. That's because we ventured off on the third floor or something, and we were in the janitorial department or something. (Laughs) We're walking around, then they're calling us, telling us, "They've got to get down here, they've got to go on in about 20 minutes." And we couldn't find our way out. That was pretty good. We always crash our van. All the time. No matter what, stuff always goes wrong with it. Tires are always blowing on it. You know how you have the spare tire underneath the van? Ours dropped out because it rotted. It fell out when we were driving like 80 mph. We thought we killed somebody. We had to pull over and get it. The transmission blew in the Mojave Desert. It was during a windstorm, and the passenger door blew open the other way and ruined the whole door. Then the alternator went an hour later. So, we got stuck for like 4 days in this really weird town. My lead guitar player thinks that Illinois is the capital of Chicago. (Laughs) That was pretty good. We always play pranks on each other all the time, usually in foreign countries it's better. So, when we have a translator, I'll ask the translator how to say something really vulgar. Then I'll tell somebody in my band who's a little naive that it means something else. Like once, we were in Spain, and I asked the lady how to say, "Do you have a towel? I just came in my pants." I told Nick that it meant, "Do you have any non-dairy creamer for my coffee?" He said it to the waitress, and she just stormed away. Another time we told my drummer in Japan that 'chin -chin' meant cheers, it really means penis. So, we're at this meeting with all the BMG staff, the president, everybody. We're all drinking beers, and he taps on the glass, raises it up and says "chin-chin." Everyone's jaws dropped. I thought it was the funniest thing ever.(Laughs) RNRU : Are there any bands in the current hard rock scene that you're really into? WL : Shinedown. We've been friends with them for so long now. We toured with them for over 9 months. They're a great band. Every time I see them, they just came to town about 3 weeks ago, and we just stopped in to say "Hi." They just get better and better everytime. They're just a very devoted band. Love them. Their drummer Barry is a great human being. Everybody in that band is a great human being. Brent, their singer, is an awesome guy. Great lyricist, great singer. I remember when we first started playing with them, he was a great performer then, then after about 9 or 10 months of touring, he was jumping off of balconies. Just doing crazy shit. I just have a lot of respect for that. Most bands that we tour with for an extended period of time keep their show the same. We keep on trying to up it. It's always been like a dance between us and the band we're opening for. We always try to up them one, we want to see if they're competitive or not. It's kind of a fun way of challenging them. I'm so skinny that I can pretty much go anywhere. He just upped his game. He's had concerts where he completely smoked me as a frontman. I'm pretty confident walking on a stage, of how I'm just going to demolish the show. But, I never know with them. I always have an immense amount of respect for Brent for that. Constantly he's at the top of his game. He'll watch the entire show from the side of the stage just so he can up me. Then the next night, I'll up him. Then he'll up me again. It's constantly going back and forth. RNRU : You push each other... WL : Yeah, and I like that a lot. There's tons of bands, and I'm not going to get into the negative side and mention them. But there's many bands that we play with where they won't talk to us, they don't like us, they hate the fact that we go on every time and try to just demolish the stage. That's our job. We're the openers. We're there to give them a run for their money. They look at it as, "You're our guest." That's not the way that it is. When I'm headlining one day, I want bands that are going to come on tour, and I'm going to hand pick them. It's not going to be this bullshit thing where management sets it up. I'm going to say, "They want to open up for us, send us live footage from their show." If they have a killer fuckin' show, I don't even care if they're talented musicians. If they have a killer performance, and they're just nailing it, then I'm going to say, "Hey that's the band." You want a challenge. If you don't have a challenge, what's the point of being alive? Just to kind of float through? Some bands, they just don't understand that. RNRU : There are a lot of bands that just rest on their laurels, after they reach a certain level of success they don't put out the energy anymore... WL : That's sad, very sad. People are paying good money at that point. Right now you can get into see us for anywhere from... we had a sold out concert, 1,000 people in St. Louis, for a $1 a ticket. And I put on the best fuckin' show that I put on in probably a year at that point. And it was $1 a ticket. People came up to me that whole night afterwards, because we ended up drinking there until around 4 or 5 a.m., the bar was cool enough to let people hang out. The concept, "I can't believe I paid $1 for this show! You played for an hour and forty minutes, played the best shit, and you ran around the whole time." That to me is a compliment. It's like they feel like they got $150 front row tickets, when they only paid 99 cents. That's where it's at. Bands make their money off the merch, the t shirts, stuff like that. If you're going to make that much money in one night off of something, make it worthwhile. Earn your fuckin' paycheck. RNRU : That's a great attitude to have, it'd be nice if a lot more bands felt that way... WL : Well, some of them do. There's many of them out there that do. That's the good point. It's just a lot of these bands, again, are the ones who are trying to prove themselves. They're trying to rise to the top. Again, there's that transition period, once you're successful. Once you've gotten to that point where you've sold enough records. If we sell 10 million records, and someone in my band is not putting their all out on stage, they're gone. They know that already. And that's not my call, that's the whole band. That's the democracy thing. If you're not putting your all, get the fuck out, because there's a million people that would want to take your place in a heartbeat. You have to know where we came from to really understand that. All of our parents have blue collar jobs, my parents work their asses off to make like $50,000 a year. I can make that in one night if i'm in the right position. That's the truth of it. If I were to just take that for granted, that'd be slapping my father, and his father before him in the face. RNRU : A lot of people don't make as much money in a lifetime than some bands make off of one tour... WL : Look at U2. The stats just came out on them in Rolling Stone. Wow. The Stones... there's always a bunch of them that kind of prevail over everyone else. They earn their paychecks. There's a reason why people call The Stones "The Greatest Rock Band Of All Time." I saw a DVD of them, and I saw them at the Super Bowl, and they weren't even that tight at The Super Bowl, but you know what? They still put forth the energy. They work it. Mick Jagger's all over that goddamned stage, you can't pin him down for a second. You do what you can with what you have. RNRU : Can you see yourself being Jagger's age and still doing what you're doing now? WL : (Laughs) I jump off of friggin' Marshall full stacks and shit. I don't know. I hope so. If I can't, you'll hear of me dying in a blaze of glory, driving off of a building, lit on fire with a bottle of Jack on a motorcycle. I'm just the extremist though. You've got to talk to the rest of the guys in the band for that. They kind of take care of their bodies a little bit better than I take care of mine. They have good eating habits, things like that. I fully intend on taking it to the extreme. I know I'm going to have a cane by 45. (Laughs) Nick broke his leg in about 3 different places a couple of months ago on tour. Just from jumping up and down and shit. Then, I had to up my show even more, because he was sitting on a fucking chair. Now he can stand again, thank God, but you just have to do what you have to do. It sucked for him, but he refused to cancel the tour. I said, "Dude, we can just go home, relax your leg for a couple months, work on new material. We've been on the road for 27 months or something like that at this point. It's not that big of a deal. I'm sure management and the fans will understand." He said, "Why? What's the point? We're touring, it's fine, I'll fucking sit down, and play my heart out. I won't be able to move much, but I'll play my heart out." I said, "Alright, cool. That's your call to make, not mine." RNRU : Everyone, from critics, writers and even your fans have their own description of what Silvertide sounds like. If you were to encounter someone who's never heard Silvertide before, how would you describe the band's sound? WL : The Black Crowes on crystal meth. I've heard that one, so I'm just repeating it. I don't know, it's just... live, it's a high energy rock show. There's no rules. Absolutely no rules. Some songs will get extended. There's only one rule that we have. We end with "Ain't Comin' Home" every night. Even the song itself, the way we play it, that's even up in the air. Sometimes we'll play it really fast, sometimes we'll play it slow. Or, sometimes we'll start the whole song off with just guitars instead of drums. We kind of really manipulate the arrangements a lot. But that's just for our own sake. The lyrics still stay the same, the melodies stay the same. We tend to manipulate the arrangements a bit so we can feel like we're doing something a little bit different every night, still remaining unique. This way, for the hardcore fans, they always come out and bootleg shows, it gives them something to go home and listen to that's a little bit different from the night before. RNRU : How do you feel about people coming out, taping and bootlegging your shows? WL : Oh, I don't give a shit. Whatever. We're either going to suck, or be good that night. It's a 50/50 chance. If anything it gets us more fans. I refuse to tape our shows and sell them. I have this really weird thing with like what's live is live, and the record is the record. Anything out of our hands is out of our hands. Bootlegging again is out of your hands. No matter what you do you can't stop it, so just ignore it. RNRU : Do you feel like you have a lot of longevity with this band? WL : We know we do. We've put the time in, and we'll continue to put the time in. None of us have houses. Some of the people still live with their parents. After 5 years of being on the road, you'd think that we would do that. But most of our money gets sunk back into the actual company. A lot of our money that we get from publishing goes right back into touring. We're not looking to make a quick buck off of it right now. We're looking to be able to play songs for the rest of our lives RNRU : Is there anything else you'd like to say to all the fans out there? WL : Just thanks for sticking with us this whole time. We just hope you dig the new record when it comes out, that's pretty much about it. For more information on Silvertide go to www.silvertidemusic.com
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