Silverstein Interview , Seattle,WA
"Never Shave Again Tour"

Backstage with Silverstein @ Warped Tour 2006

Yours truly & Silverstein on the tour bus

I had the opportunity to sit down with lead singer Shane, of Silverstein on the leg of their "Never Shave Again" tour. It was an unusually cold evening and the tour bus was smelly, which is odd, considering Silverstein smells so good. From what I could see, it really looked like they hadn't shaved. All I could think, was thank God this wasn't a girl band. Shane was both open and honest during the interview. He had me laughing so hard at one point, I really thought I was going to piss myself. This is quite ironic seeing that I actually did get pissed on during the show. Not literally of course, I helped security pull a girl out of the mosh pit, and she had pissed herself. Unfortunately my good deed was rewarded with her piss on my hoodie. Enough talk about pee.

Silverstein put on an amazing show. The energy was very high after "Aiden's" performance and it trickled into Silverstein's. It seemed to increase as they performed, with fans screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs. Shane came out with his face painted like Will from "Aiden", (Halloween was the next night), he bore a striking resemblance to his pal. The fans loved it. Throughout the show, it seemed as if the whole band was communicating personally with the audience, and the audience with them. They came, they played, they conquered. You have to catch these guys on tour, I'm just wondering what they're going to look like at the end of it.

Jenn- "Silverstein" formed in the year 2000, in Ontario Canada. How would you describe the past 6 years?
Shane- So much has happened. We started from nothing, as low as you can be. Just 5 kids in a basement with no expectations of anything at all, to now it's almost like a mini corporation ya know ? It's been a wild ride, but we've kept our morals and we've done things the way we wanted to do them. We've had fun the whole time.

Jenn- Does it seem like it's gone by fast?
Shane- I think it's gone by fast, but when you think about it, a lot has happened in 6 years.

Jenn- "Discovering the Waterfront's" main theme seems to be, coping and determination.
Shane- Absolutely.

Jenn- Is there anything else you'd add to those themes?
Shane-The one thing I really want listeners and fans to know, is the record is a hopeful record. We tried to make sure that the element of hope was present throughout the album. It wasn't just about darkness, because I'm not a depressing guy. I'm probably a lot happier than the average person. I've had bad things happen to me just like everyone .People ask why do you have such a dark record? Why do you have to bring up borderline suicidal references? If I'm just singing about unicorns and puppies and stickers, no one's going to listen to it. You talk about the subject and then you talk about how to deal with it. Then you bring in the element of hope, that's what I've tried to do.

Jenn- Is there any particular song on the album that has a special meaning to you?
Shane- They all have their message and their importance to me, but my favorite song is the last one on the record called "Call it Karma". We've been doing an acoustic version live of it, every night, and it's been coming out really good. That song is like telling my life story, that's how I feel about it, it's also a song that ties the whole record together . I really enjoy singing it.

Jenn- Do you feel it was harder as a Canadian band breaking into US market ?
Shane-We were lucky because we're on an American label( Victory Records ) , whereas a lot of bands in Canada become big in Canada, because they're signed to Canadian labels. Making that transition is very hard. We never had a Canadian label. People didn't even know we were Canadian , so it was like we were touring as a US band.

Jenn-So you became more successful in US than Canada?
Shane-We did, about 3 yrs ago we started to get big in the US and now, over the last year or so, Canada has caught on a lot more. We have more radio and video play there now.

Jenn- The last time I saw you, you were on Warped Tour, how was it for you?
Shane-It's one of those things, if you asked me in the middle of Warped Tour I'd give you one answer, if you asked me at the end of Warped Tour I'd give you a different answer. If you ask me now, it's a different answer and if you ask me again in 6mths it will be a totally different answer. Warped Tour is hard, but when you look back on it, and it's been a couple months now, you forget about the hard times and remember hanging out with your friends and playing to large crowds.And that was awesome.

Jenn- Do you think you'll do Warped Tour again next year?
Shane- We might take a year off of it, we've done it past 3 yrs in a row .

Jenn- You worked with Cameron Webb on your last album, do you plan on working with him again?
Shane- I don't know. I love Cameron, he's one of my favorite people both musically and a as a person. He's a great guy. In terms of working with him and Silverstein again, we've definitely thought about it , but we're not sure. It might be fun to work with a big name producer who's done a lot of big things and who has more of a role in shaping our sound as opposed to someone who's just recording us.

Jenn- You've been on tour a long time, what are you plans for upcoming year?
Shane- After this tour we're gonna start writing and try to get a new record together. And then next year, who knows? Being an international band, we've always tried to play all over the world. We went to Australia this year and last year, and we're gonna go next year. We went to Japan and we're going to Brazil in January. It's actually pretty important to us, to try and go all over . Some bands just tour the US over and over again, but we want to play for, and see our fans, outside of the country too, ya know?

Jenn- What's the difference between fans from say, Seattle, to Australian fans?
Shane- It's amazingly pretty similar, in terms of how people react to the music. I think that's the amazing thing about music, it's natural to people, people react the same way to it. It's a universal thing. In Japan, very few people speak English, but everyone's singing in English.

Jenn- I can't imagine myself trying to sing in Japanese.
Shane- (laughs) Exactly !

Jenn- So Shane, do you have any funny tour stories you can share?
Shane- Pretty much every other day, something ridiculous happens. Last year we were doing this tour on the east coast of Canada. There's not a lot going on out there, everything is pretty small, like the clubs and everything. We went out there for fun, and did the tour in a van & a trailer. We've done these big bus tours, and this took us back a little bit. We used to stay at kids houses when we were on tour, we'd just crash on their floor or whatever, instead of getting hotels. That was fun, it was good times. So I had this bright idea, I was like, you know what? Let's just stay at some kids houses, like the old days. So we stayed at this kids house, it was pretty sketchy and dirty . I was sleeping on the floor, and in the middle of the night, these 2 roomates came home. It was like 4:30 in the morning, i don't know what the hell kind of drugs these girls were on , but they started making all this noise, and taking fruit, like bananas and stuff, and smashing it all over the floor . So there was banana guts everywhere, anyway, so we're trying to sleep, but it's not like we can tell people to shut up in their own house. Finally, I get back to sleep, and it feels like something is licking my face. So I open my eyes thinking, what the fuck was that? Was it these girls doing some shit? I forget about it go back to sleep. About 30 minutes later, I feel the same thing ! I tried swatting whatever it was, and then I see a fucking bat flying across the room! So finally, I get up to go the van, cuz i don't want to tell everyone that this bat was flying around me. Cuz then they'd want to go to the van too right? So I go and crash in the van, thinking no one's ever gonna believe me. I wake up, and one of the guys that's here with us right now, was also there, and i said to him " You're never gonna believe what happened to me!", he was like " No, I gotta tell you something first. There was a bat flying around!" and i said, " No, no, no,I know!" . He said "The bat was in the fish tank, and I had to rescue it!" . Apparently, I had scared the bat, and it crashed into the fish tank! It was drowning, but they saved it. They didn't believe me, cuz the fish tank was covered. They thought that I put the bat in there! I have no idea how it got in there, but they thought I tried to kill the bat.

Jenn-(I'm almost pissing myself laughing) That's like the new "Ozzy" bat story!!
Shane-Ya, except I didn't bite the head off, I just scared it into the fish tank!!! Another story kind of related, we were staying with Will, from "Aiden" ( in Seattle) and I slept on his floor. Almost the same thing happened, except it was a rat. It crawled across my face!!

Jenn- ( I gasp like any female would ) .
Shane- I told Will in the morning, and he said, "Ya, he's been eating all my bagels!!!" . I was like, " Dude, you gotta get rid of the rats man!!".

(we're both laughing now)

Jenn- Is there anything else you'd like to say to your fans?
Shane-Like what you like. Don't like bands because you think they're cool, and don't hate, or like a band, because of their fashion. Like a band because you like the band. I think that it's important these days, because so much stuff is either not cool, or too cool. Music is music, doesn't matter what genre the band is.