A Quick Q&A With Silverbacks

Following a string of acclaimed single releases, Silverbacks’ debut album ‘Fad’ was announced via Stereogum with the band also being picked as Jack Saunders‘ ‘Next Wave’. Ireland’s latest export combine the urgency of 70’s punk with an incendiary rhythmic section. Ahead of their upcoming release, we caught up with frontman Killian O’Kelly for a quick chat... 

With the runaway success of Fontaines D.C.’s Dogrel last year, and Irish artists featuring heavily on the soundtrack of Normal People, does it feel like an exciting time for the Irish music scene?

It certainly does. There’s a great growing community of excellent Irish musicians and bands for the moment. But maybe there were always this many great Irish artists about and it’s just that a few more heads have turned towards our happy little Island. And we see everyone watching us, so we’re all smiling and waving back.

You’ve described the album as trying to make sense of a disjointed world. Tell us about the creative process behind it- was that disjointed too, or was the vision always clear?

The vision was always pretty simple, we wanted our first album to largely include the best songs that we played live. Because this is our first album we had a lot of time to rehearse and play new songs at shows, breaking them in over and over again.  

Daniel and I worked on the album demos together. This part of the process is maybe a little disjointed in that we rarely write music together in the same room. We take turns adding tracks to the demos and tag each other in and out, like a well-oiled wrestling team. Once we’re happy with a demo we send it to the band whatsapp group we have called ‘No Chat Only Demo’. If it gets a thumbs up from the gang we go in and start practicing. It’s an SLA that works for us. Gary, Emma and Peadar then add their own takes and the demos become a better song. Once we’re in the studio Dan Fox generally adds his own bit of tasty seasoning to the songs.  

You’ve independently released several singles, but Fad will be your first full album. How did you piece together the final tracklist?

A big part of releasing Fad for me, will be to have the vinyl to hold and listen to. Our previous singles were part of our history and we wanted that physical artefact for the archive. The singles also work collectively so it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. 

The final tracklist pieced together fairly easily. We had a few instrumentals to work with to help bridge anything we felt jumped out a little. We wanted Emma’s song to feel a natural progression from a track with Daniel’s voice, and the likes of ‘Dud’ and ‘Madra Uisce’ helped us do this. 

Watch Silverbacks’ latest video for single ‘Muted Gold’ here:

On the album there’s a clear punk sound, and you’ve cited bands like Blondie and The Fall as influences. Would you identify solely as a punk band, or do you adopt elements of multiple genres?

I wouldn’t consider us a purely punk band. Punk music is definitely a big influence, but we take from a lot of different styles. The guitar parts in Muted Gold were influenced by guitar techniques found in Afrobeat music, for example. And we’re currently sitting on a lot of demos that sound like Prefab Sprout. I’d like to think that as our albums progress it’ll become harder to define what we are. Or maybe we’re just plain good sturdy reliable rock. 

Obviously COVID-19 has put live music on hold for a while, but what are your gig plans post-lockdown? Is there anywhere you’re eager to play once this is all over?

At this rate I think we’d play anywhere with a floor. As long as everyone is safe of course. We’ve rescheduled our UK tour to September but we’re not sure if that’s going ahead yet.