Discovering The Waterfront, the breakthrough album from Canadian post-hardcore pioneers, Silverstein, turns 10 this year and the band is hitting the road to celebrate. JESSICA WILLOUGHBY chats with vocalist Shane Told ahead of their show at Amplifier Bar on Sunday, May 10.
Every musician loves to romanticise their breakthrough album.
But for Canadian post-hardcore pioneers Silverstein, revisiting 2005’s Discovering The Waterfront revealed a few ‘truths’ about the experience. Despite what they told media at the time, the pressure was on with this sophomore album.
“This album was kind of our first ‘real’ album, in that our actual debut was written and recorded over a long period of time,” vocalist, Shane Told, tells X-Press. “We ended up writing the follow-up in three months, living in California and working with a real producer (Cameron Webb). There was a lot of pressure. At the time, I lied and said that we didn’t feel that kind of anxiety. But we definitely did. We’d seen other bands mess up their second album and, in turn, their career and we didn’t want that to happen to us.
“But we knew we had some great songs and we were starting to find where our sound was going. We never would have predicted that, 10 years later, so many people would care so much. That is crazy to us.
Now, with more than 1500 shows and eight albums under their belts, they are hitting the tour trails this year to not only celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Discovering The Waterfront – but also their 15 years together as a band. “The tour has been absolutely incredible so far,” Todd says. “It has such a great vibe, sharing it with the fans in this way. It’s been crazy how excited and happy people are. I look into the audience and everyone is just all smiles. It’s really cool. Discovering… is our most loved album and we thought it made sense to play it for the fans.
“It’s actually a challenge playing an album front to back. You can’t skip any of the more difficult songs. We don’t change the order around and that can make it pretty gruelling at times. But it’s important to us to push forward as well. We also have a new album coming out in May and we’re playing some new songs as well. Once that album comes out, it’ll be the end of the celebration of our past.”
I Am Alive In Everything I Touch, Silverstein’s latest opus, will be out on Tuesday, May 19. A concept album, this recording takes listeners on a journey to the band’s most favourite – and challenging – cities they have toured.
“It’s about taking a sort of journey, both physically and emotionally, and wondering where you are afterwards,” Told explains. “It’s a journey I’ve been on for the last 15 years. The record is very personal. It’s difficult to put yourself out there like I do, but I think it’s the most honest record we could make at this point. And each track does have a setting of a different city. I’d say my favorite of the cities I’ve mentioned has got to be Los Angeles. It’s just a place with so much going for it. Great music, food, art and culture. The weather is fantastic. Two baseball teams… what more could you ask for?”
This release also signals Silverstein’s first on Rise Records, after their departure from longstanding label, Hopeless Records. “A lot of people don’t know this, but we’ve been friends with Rise for years,” Told says. “We’ve tried to put out some B-sides with them in the past, and it didn’t work out at the time. So when we became free agents again, we decided they were great for us.”
