Start Listening To: Silverbacks
It’s more than a ‘Fad’, Silverbacks come back to get us fixated on ‘Archive Material’.
Silverbacks have been rolling the ball separately for a bit everywhere from Newbridge, Drogheda to Brussels but when it arrived in Dublin that did them real good. There’s no better scope for imagination than strolling with your mates through the climatic city’s streets, dreaming contemporary alien-went-boogying sci-fi fantasy and getting an album out of it. After the success of their debut disc, ‘Fad’, a tongue-in-cheek guitar-based concept, bridging Parquet Courts and The Strokes, Silverbacks are ready to strike again.
While cheering on Power Rangers to fight Omnicron, they dug out old weapons and repurposed it into a second album, ‘Archive Material’. Expect quick death by rock ‘n’ roll, sharp stanzas and dancing fever.
Can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
Kilian: Howdy doody, we are a band called Silverbacks. We are from Newbridge, Drogheda and Brussels. We have three guitarists in the band … so expect guitars!
How did it all start?
Daniel: Kilian and I are brothers, we jammed together growing up in the garage at home in Belgium, I later moved to Ireland for college and met Peadar there in a music tech class.
Kilian: I followed Daniel to Ireland a couple years later to also study Music in the very same college, where I met Emma.
Gary: I met the whole gang at a Wilco gig!
If you were to describe your sound to someone who’d never heard you before, what would you say?
Emma: A sprinkle of riffs, some rock’n’roll, some boogie, some pop, some chicken stock, some jigs, some noise, a few bay leaves and some funny lyrics.
Kilian: And a dollop of brown sauce
How do you produce your music?
Gary: Kilian, Daniel and Emma will usually get some demos going. We’ll then take them to the practice rooms and start working out how we want to approach the song. The demos usually start taking a new form then as we bounce ideas off each other. We then hit the studio with Dan Fox of Gilla Band to lay the tracks down.
How are you feeling about the release of your new album Archive Material?
Emma: Very excited, I sing a good bit more on this album than the debut Fad so I am hoping this one lands just as well!
Kilian: It feels great - the Fad release was delayed a good few times but everything has been going really smoothly so far with this release.
Where did you get the name for the album?
Daniel: Archive Material as a track title came first. But we felt it worked well as an album title too. The idea being that anyone seeking to make sense of what life was like during a global pandemic years from now, could potentially rely on this archived material.
Kilian: We also heard a friend say that it didn’t work as an album title because it made them think it was a compilation of reserve tracks - this made us like it even more.
What inspires your music?
Daniel: A lot of the lyrics are inspired by movies, books and Internet deep dives, but the songs can sum up life experiences too. As is with this album, lots of the themes reflect on how mad a year and a half it has been!.
Can you tell us something interesting about your band that has nothing to do with music?
Emma: The entire band is right-handed, 3/5ths are fluent in French and we are pretty sure Gary has one of the largest collections of Reggae 7”s in Ireland.
What was it like working with Full Time Hobby?
Gary: It has been really great! We put Fad out by ourselves so to have a bigger team this time around has really gone a long way.
What advice would you give for anyone trying to achieve a similar sound to you?
Peadar: Don’t do it bud, we will sue.
If your music were a film or TV show which would it be and why?
Daniel: I think if it were a TV show it would have to be Kojak anyway, we have an unreleased demo named after Telly Savalas.
Gary: We also like a lot of 70’s New York bands so that makes sense.
Peadar: La Règle du Jeu by Jean Renoir
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s important to you?
Daniel: Marquee Moon by Television - I think it will forever be the main album that got Kilian and I so obsessed with guitars in the first place.
What do you hate right now?
Kilian: That evil bastard Omicron, fingers crossed the Power Rangers get him.
What do you love right now?
Kilian: The Power Rangers
Is there any new music from 2021 that you’re enjoying?
Emma: Some of my tracks of the year are Every Day Carry by Dry Cleaning, Moderation by Cate Le Bon and That Life by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Daniel: The album Promises by Pharaoh Sanders and Floating Points
Kilian: The album Henki by Richard Dawson and Circle
What comes next in the Silverbacks story?
Daniel: We’ll keep recording anyway - plenty of demos in the tank and we are already making plans for album 3!
Peadar: World Domination.
Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
Emma: Be kind to each other :)