A few days ago UltimateMetal had the pleasure of sitting down with Keith Spargo, Nick Seelinger, and Jeff Alexis from SILENCER. They talked. I listened. A more pleasant, personable, and down to Earth (ironically enough) group of guys you couldn't hope to find.
Ultimate Metal: Why SILENCER?
Keith Spargo: It was kinda meant to be like a play on words...while metal is definitely a loud kind of music we thought we'd "silence" the audience with pure volume. So it was kinda a play on words that way.
A lot of people think of the gun reference but it has nothing to do with that. It has kinda got more of a sci-fi feel to it...our self-titled song describes more what the silencer is.
Ultimate Metal: What do you think of the brand new line-up?
Keith: It took long enough. Upon the demise of the first line-up we could have had another SILENCER in about two months. There was a lot of interest from musicians around this area...but it took four months just to get a drummer who would make practice regularly and who could at least keep up with what we tried to do. It wasn't worth settling...that's why it took that much longer. To be able to find guys who can play is one thing. To be able to find guys who play and look comfortable on stage is another thing. To be able to find guys who can do all that, have gear, and are willing to give up their jobs, their comforts, other hobbies to do it is almost impossible...and that's why it took exactly a year to get the last member from the time SILENCER played its last show - and that was Jeff from San Diego...it's really tough finding dedicated musicians - especially as this is Denver, by no means a Mecca of music. At lest on the national scene. Theres a lot of underground talent here but the willingness for people to go beyond just the circuit around Denver is very low.
Nick Seelinger: It's the best line-up I've ever been in: attitude, work, work ethic...just having a good time - I'm not the only one busting my ass for the band. Everyone is.
Ultimate Metal: It shows! I'm really impressed with Kozmos. How do you feel about it?
Keith: Part of the stigma of the old line-up was more of a classic metal sound - it didn't tread a lot of new ground. So part of it was trying to distance ourselves somewhat from the old sound but keeping certain elements of it that we liked, that people liked. The reason a lot of people came to see us and we got a decent following really quickly was because no-one was doing anything close to what we were doing back in 98 and early 99. But when we were paired with a lot of other bands at different cities and different shows sometimes it didn't quite get the power across, not that we tried to pander, to fit in, but there was a big potential audience that was missing out on something that could still have melody but could also give you a headache on the way home. You really had a good time playing and listening to it so it's two-fold: one was to write some superior songs - stuff that we know can compete. While a lot of bands at the unsigned level write to be king of their city, we write to compete with national bands. We also had to write something that we knew would be fairly accessible right off the bat. Secondly we wanted to trounce the recording quality of the first release - and completely did. It's really, really thick - it's got everything where it needs to be - in our opinion.
Nick: It's a good demo.
Keith: Yeah it is - from some feedback from other people. A certain guy was rating our sound quality. He said, "I listened to your demo and I realized it was just that. I judge unsigned bands in a different category recording quality-wise because they don't have enough money and for that you blew everybody away - if I would have judged you against national quality bands, you'd still be in the upper half," and that's the kind of thing we need to hear.
Nick: Yeah - especially with our budget. It came out as good as we could have expected it to.
Keith: We went to the best studio in Denver, mastered at the best place we could. What made a big difference was, although like Nick said, we had a budget to work with we also practiced, we didn't write in the studio, we had everything, knew exactly what we were doing going in. So the need for producing so-to-say, was only there to say, "why don't you put more umph into that part", but not "why don't you do that part twice," so it turned out really well. We'll use a familiar methodology for the next release.
Nick: We were under deadlines to get stuff done. The solos were done in the studio on the fly. Putting that pressure on ourselves to get the stuff perfect on short notice right away like that too - I think it came out really good that way.
Keith: I personally work really well under pressure, when I have a deadline. For our first show we had a song to finish and we were writing the set list for it about a month before the show - wrote it on the marker board and our guitarist, Mat, said "whoa what's that??" We had about half the riffs written but Nick and I over a week and a half had finished everything else and we arranged it and I'd say right now its probably our best song. It's not on the EP, but it's that type of thing: working to a deadline. The other reason we did it the way we did was a lot of bands - and granted we have the luxury of being able to record first since we've been out of the scene for so long - will play music over, try all the bars a hundred different ways, find out exactly what works right so if they sign, when they go into the studio they know what is perfect because they've done it a hundred times, right. Then the second album is the tough one because they're writing completely from scratch and not had a chance to go and try it out - besides maybe a couple of shows...the whole idea is to release and no-ones heard the music yet, right. So what we did: no-one will have heard this stuff. We need to get in the habit of writing because if we get stalled on our second album that way and we don't know how to write, to be able to say, ok we have a month to get it right, we'll be setting ourselves up for a fall. So we wrote all this stuff knowing that we weren't having a chance to hone in front of audiences. It's got to be good the first time.
Ultimate Metal: How do you write? Do you all get together and come up with lyrics and fit the music around them? How does it work?
Keith: Every individual musician writes a different way. Some bands write by committee. Sometimes that works - most of the time it doesn't, in my opinion, because everyone's going off and you have a really hard time balancing. Generally a band member will have a riff or a theme or an idea and then we generally write in pairs. Right now Jeff and I are working on an instrumental.We try to balance out. Too many people at once: everyone is tugging in too many directions. Nick and I were the only permanent members for the longest time so I had some riffs I was storing up in the hiatus and he came with some stuff. I think it's really rare that drummers write guitar - but he does, and really well. Some of our catchiest stuff he's come up with. So, I'll say, "I have this riff, here's the rough beat in my head, what can you do with that?" and he says, "ok, how about we go into this..." So we do a lot of firing back and forth. We had kinda a luxury because we could hone those parts and then when the other guitar and bass player came in it added a whole other level: what we had in mind was going to be there but we didn't necessarily know where it was going to go past the basic melody and rhythm.
Nick: Once the song's arranged and put together, I like to go over it numerous, numerous times and: "this change just sucks; we gotta do something different". A couple of songs, like Kozmos, I came up with some stops going into different parts of the verse - and just made it so much better. Just little things like that really make in detail what we need to do so that everything sounds smooth and like it should be there.
Keith: Although we haven't played out for anybody, what we will do is record it on a cassette player while we're practicing, after we've got to a certain level, take it home and say, "well we have two days until practice, listen on your headphones, think of anything you'd like to change." The song Kozmos, to use the example Nick was using, was almost 30-35 seconds longer in it's original form: this is a good riff, but lets tighten it up...so you'll think, "when does that part come again," not, "ok, when do we get to the next part".
Nick: I want to listen to every song the whole way through - I don't want to be like, "ugh, I don't like that little part right there, it's kinda weird, I want to have it changed" - to where we don't like it...
Ultimate Metal: Can't be too nit picky then...
Keith: Yeah, you hear this with every national bad: it's give and take in the song writing process, especially when it's a collaboration. Sometimes you have an idea that you think is the best thing in the world, but it takes everybody else hearing it and playing it to say, "ok, I agree with you, we should change this." that type of thing.
Ultimate Metal: Cosmic Power Thrash. Tell me about it. What the heck is it?
Keith: It's an attempt to categorize us by our varying roots music-wise. Start with the first part: my Father works for a radio astronomy observatory in New Mexico so when I was growing up I was exposed to it whether I liked it or not. I was exposed to science shows on public TV, magazines, I couldn't get away from it, it was ingrained in me. When I got to a certain age I realized it wasn't just something dorky my Dad always talked about, I started getting interested in it - and, of course, who wasn't into Star Wars and who wasn't into Alien and really grand sized topics? That started surfacing when I started writing. No-one has really done space properly, I don't think. Certain bands have touched on it in certain albums: Samael from Switzerland has, Gamma Ray has touched on it a little bit with their latest. Not that we are going to make every release totally about Space: this is about the first planet, this is about the second: not like that - but to be able to do it right. I think that subject-wise, bands have touched on it well, but sonically, I don't. Without having an industrial sound and introducing all sorts of blips and whirrs and stuff like that coming from all sorts of instruments that wouldn't go over well live, we're trying to create, with traditional Heavy Metal instruments, a sound that's more expansive than anyone has heard. Kozmos is just the start of that. If we started with some of the ideas we have now, it would probably go over a lot of people's heads. It would be too much too soon, so we're starting with leaning more towards the Cosmic theme songs with some Cosmic sound. Next we can start working the sound up. So after a while, the topic is going to match the sound and going to match the entire approach we're going for. That's the Cosmic part. Power: I'm a power metal, true metal freak. Jeff is. Mat is. Nick's getting more into it because of the exposure from us. Thrash: because we like to get out there and break things...
Nick: That's my Favorite: Exodus...
Keith: We probably sound a bit more thrash than we do power metal right now, but it's a statement that we are contemporary, and we also have memorable melody that people can hum on the way home. My biggest beef with a lot of current music is that you get into it live, when you're in the mosh pit, or head banging, or whatever, but when you go home, everything's kind of a wash. You can't drive home from a gig and have a melody burning in your head all the way home. I think it's kind of a loss. To be able to balance both, to have all of that intense energy of the physical exertion of going to a Heavy Metal concert, and then being able to say, "ok, yeah, remember that part? It's stuck in my head," that's the goal, and that's the realm we live in as a band. I think so far it's working really well.
Ultimate Metal: I have to ask this question. It's required. Inspirations. What are yours?
Nick: I started watching Metallica ten, twelve years ago, wanting to do that. It never went away. People constantly tell me every year that I'm a loser and that I can't do that and I should do something else. It made me want to do it more. I just fell in love with doing it. Most of this year we haven't played out and I was in the worst, most depressed mood ever - so it's something I have to do, it's like a drug, I guess. Until that feeling goes away I'm going to keep doing it. I've got some things I want to accomplish: I want to get to Japan, Europe, Australia, Brazil - I'm not going to quit until I do that.
Jeff Alexis: My inspiration is Nick, pretty much. I was out of the music scene for a little while and became very good friends with Nick. I saw the dedication and devotion that he has. I never knew anybody like that. I used to play in prog bands, but nobody was serious. So seeing Nick's dedication really motivates me, and now that I know this guy (points at Keith) I feel the same way about him. Two people. You just can't beat that. Two people with this much dedication.
Nick: When I was in my old band Keith and I would be out at the bars talking and I'd think, "Damn, why can't the guys in my band be like that?"
Ultimate Metal: ...and now the guys in your band are like that...
Nick: They are now, yeah. This is the best thing we are going to find anywhere around. There's nothing better, attitude or devotion-wise. This is pretty much it.
Keith: At the end of the day, even if we never get a gold record, if we at least tour, see parts of the world, if someone gets enjoyment out of it. I would like to be able to say that SILENCER is a part of the Heavy Metal story: that we can be mentioned in the same sentence as Iced Earth, Nevermore, In Flames, Primal Fear, Gamma Ray. That we contribute to the bigger thing that the masters, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, gave to the world. That we're part of the thread. That other bands will say, "SILENCER influenced this riff." Also the thought that I don't have to work for "The Man" my entire life - in a way you still are: for a label, but it's on your own terms. You don't have to dress up to go to work, you don't have to lie in front of people, you go out there and it's an honest exertion, an honest interaction with the audience.
Nick: People appreciate what you are doing.
Keith: Exactly! What most people don't know is that musicians make far less than they think. The biggest you hear about make a good living, but the average musician makes less than working at a fast food restaurant. To be able to give up everything you have, and your comforts just to be able to play forty minutes to half an hour on tour for a month at venues that aren't even a quarter full yet. I think that says something. To me that's my idea of a good time because I'm not driving down the same road to work every day.
Musically I started with bands like Def Leppard and AC/DC when I was about 8 years old. I got into more American hard rock and Heavy Metal and then it all changed when my older brother gave me a dubbed copy of Powerslave by Iron Maiden. I've listened to that album more than any album ever. When the thrash metal explosion hit: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Testament, Slayer, Overkill - those aspects, and this goes back to the other question, pair themselves with the melody. There are a lot of newer bands that people don't give much credit to, especially in the United States (the US doesn't have a clue most of the time), In Flames, Nevermore, who else is American? Iced Earth...
Nick: ...Overkill...
Keith: I can think of a million European bands...it's just so different there than it is here.
Nick: There are less people there but metal bands sell more records there - it's crazy.
Keith: Europe is so much more tradition oriented with everything. Buildings have been around for five-hundred years there, but if something here is more than thirty years old they want to rip it down and build something new. Same thing with music. Classical music was born out of Europe. Heavy Metal was born out of England. The US as a country is only a couple of hundred years old. Everyone is trying to find their feet and have the newest best thing. As a result, and technology is partially to blame for this, something new often takes the place of something quality. It's unfortunate because it took some of the Classical music masters ...the span of when the great wrote most of their symphonies etc. was over a hundred-some years. Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony 124 years after Bach wrote his first. To say that they are that much different compared to something that's flavor of the day here is ludicrous: similar approaches, similar scales, similar keys. It's just that someone wrote the better song and put time into it. We take the same approach. Maybe some of what we are doing now has been done before, or that approach has been tried before, but we are adding on top of it while not straying too far from those roots.
Ultimate Metal: ...evolving from a base...
Keith: Exactly. To think that Heavy Metal in it's purest form was "done" in the first fifteen to twenty years is crazy. Heavy Metal is such a young music form. It would be sad if people just stopped doing it to find something new. It needs to continue. There are realms that haven't been explored yet. That's exactly what we are doing right now with Kozmos and will continue with future releases.
Ultimate Metal: You have made it pretty clear that you intend to go all the way. Are you looking for a label?
Keith: Absolutely yes, to answer your question. For sure. We have a strategy. It doesn't make sense to mail off our EP right off the bat because we haven't proven ourselves yet. We can't prove that we've sold any product or that anyone anywhere but Denver knows about us.
Nick: We've sent out about 30 CDs to major magazines in Europe, Canada, the US, Greece - all the big ones. If we get reviews in all of those, we'll have a list of references saying these guys kick ass or whatever.
Keith: Whether the reviews are good or bad it's going to show people that I think that it would be in their best interest to sign us. That at least we're everywhere no matter what magazine they pick up, no matter what State they go to in the United States, the South Western United states, they keep hearing this name. This band has an incredible work ethic. Maybe with some push and some backing and some distribution, these guys would be a good bet.
Nick: We will be proving our cd sales to them too. We have a bar code. We're going to scan every disc we sell. We can prove that we actually sold these - not like some band from the middle of Nebraska who say they sold three hundred at one show. We're proving it.
Keith: That's an important part. if we can prove that we sold 5000 of our own CDs out of our van, at shows, and out of consigning at record stores in the city we happen to be in - there are national acts who don't sell five thousand in a particular year. If they can say, "they did that on their own, what could they do with distribution, with some magazine advertisement." It's not like we're going to go out and hound the labels right away. It would be dumb to because we haven't proven ourselves yet. We've gotten a good reception at the first couple of shows we've done, some good initial reactions to our cd, but it's nothing yet. We're a small fish in a big pond until we can prove that we can move up the food chain and survive.
Ultimate Metal: You've touched on this a bit, but how do you feel about the metal scene - nationally and locally?
Keith: Locally we stick out like a sore thumb, but that's good. There are probably 2 or 3 bands in Colorado that play at the energy level, intensity Heavy Metal-wise who still sing, really sing, and only a few more past that who include melody and harmony, as basic as that sounds. What passes for metal locally and nationally in some cases is a heavily distorted guitar tuned very low and with staccato picking. Metal in my opinion is something you've got to earn. It's not something that you can buy off the shelf in an amp box or an effect pedal. You've gotta earn it, prove that you know what you are doing before you call yourself "metal" or even more, "heavy". The term "heavy" is so blatantly overused.
The local scene is hitting a second resurgence popularity-wise, people coming to shows. After the late 80s-early 90s, it took a dive for a while...
Nick: Yeah, 96 was horrible. We couldn't get a show in Denver for a year (my last band). We were playing in Colorado Springs mostly. Now it's everywhere.
Ultimate Metal: ...now there's at least a show a week.
Keith: Absolutely. Booking other cities is worse. Nationally, while there was one big push musically in the 80s, you were one of two things: you were either a really big Heavy Metal band or you were a pop band. Pop will never go away, it will always be in the lime-light. Heavy Metal will never go away but it won't really be in the lime-light. Right now there is a very diverse grouping of what's called Heavy Metal. Generally what makes it to the top is good. I can appreciate a style regardless of whether it's what I do or if it's something very different - as long as it's done well. Where I draw the line is the copycat bands.
We would have, with our style, a fairly difficult time securing a large deal in the United States, just because of what's selling right now. We don't rap. We don't have an "agro" sound. We're definitely something with a more European flavor. So the major push is to be accepted first in that community and to be able to prove to a label that we sold this many overseas and getting us some effort here, we could appeal to American audiences. That's where the Thrash aspect of our music comes in really handy. One, it's fun to play and it makes for great songs, but two, what most of America thinks is metal is just a heavy chord bludgeoning you over the head, weird noises, samples, industrial riffs, and death metal vocals which if done well are incredible, but if aren't: cookie cutter cookie monster.
Ultimate Metal: Are you going on tour? Got anything planned?
Keith: I wouldn't say a tour per the strictest definition. With the last lineup we did two weeks straight and it was incredibly fun. The best feeling in the world was sitting in the van thinking the only thing I have to worry about is where we are going to eat in the next city, and having a good show that night. That was a great feeling. The problem is, it's expensive to do in one shot and each city has to wait longer to see you again because you've blown your money in one fell swoop. So what we are doing now is doing a circuit though the South Western United States. The idea is to be known in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Las Vegas, Salt Lake...if a show presents itself further than that, obviously we'll do it...LA, Texas: Dallas/Ft. Worth, St. Louis...so it will be an every other weekend type thing. Every city would have to wait two months maybe tops to see us again - and there are bands even within one city who don't play every two months. A an A&R guy would be able to say, "I'm in Phoenix, who does well here? SILENCER, they aren't even from here but they make it here every other month and have a really good following" and the same in Albuquerque - a regional following.
Ultimate Metal: Anything else you want to say to the world at large and UM in particular?
Keith: Prepare yourselves for an expansive sound! It's starting with Kozmos and it's going to go a lot further than that. We're trying to do what Beethoven did to Classical music that preceded him by a hundred years. It's going to be bigger than anything anyone's heard sonically in the realm of what the human ear can hear. It's going to be a massive sound, as big as Space, as big as the Cosmos.
Nick: I'd like to say to anyone reading this: come and see one of our shows, California, New York, wherever we are. Come up to us and say "hi" tell us what you think of us. Hang out and have a beer.
Keith: If ya like us enough, tell the club owner, tell a friend...
Nick: Buy our stuff...
JA: Cheers!
And that about sums it up....
Ultimate Metal: Why SILENCER?
Keith Spargo: It was kinda meant to be like a play on words...while metal is definitely a loud kind of music we thought we'd "silence" the audience with pure volume. So it was kinda a play on words that way.
A lot of people think of the gun reference but it has nothing to do with that. It has kinda got more of a sci-fi feel to it...our self-titled song describes more what the silencer is.
Ultimate Metal: What do you think of the brand new line-up?
Keith: It took long enough. Upon the demise of the first line-up we could have had another SILENCER in about two months. There was a lot of interest from musicians around this area...but it took four months just to get a drummer who would make practice regularly and who could at least keep up with what we tried to do. It wasn't worth settling...that's why it took that much longer. To be able to find guys who can play is one thing. To be able to find guys who play and look comfortable on stage is another thing. To be able to find guys who can do all that, have gear, and are willing to give up their jobs, their comforts, other hobbies to do it is almost impossible...and that's why it took exactly a year to get the last member from the time SILENCER played its last show - and that was Jeff from San Diego...it's really tough finding dedicated musicians - especially as this is Denver, by no means a Mecca of music. At lest on the national scene. Theres a lot of underground talent here but the willingness for people to go beyond just the circuit around Denver is very low.
Nick Seelinger: It's the best line-up I've ever been in: attitude, work, work ethic...just having a good time - I'm not the only one busting my ass for the band. Everyone is.
Ultimate Metal: It shows! I'm really impressed with Kozmos. How do you feel about it?
Keith: Part of the stigma of the old line-up was more of a classic metal sound - it didn't tread a lot of new ground. So part of it was trying to distance ourselves somewhat from the old sound but keeping certain elements of it that we liked, that people liked. The reason a lot of people came to see us and we got a decent following really quickly was because no-one was doing anything close to what we were doing back in 98 and early 99. But when we were paired with a lot of other bands at different cities and different shows sometimes it didn't quite get the power across, not that we tried to pander, to fit in, but there was a big potential audience that was missing out on something that could still have melody but could also give you a headache on the way home. You really had a good time playing and listening to it so it's two-fold: one was to write some superior songs - stuff that we know can compete. While a lot of bands at the unsigned level write to be king of their city, we write to compete with national bands. We also had to write something that we knew would be fairly accessible right off the bat. Secondly we wanted to trounce the recording quality of the first release - and completely did. It's really, really thick - it's got everything where it needs to be - in our opinion.
Nick: It's a good demo.
Keith: Yeah it is - from some feedback from other people. A certain guy was rating our sound quality. He said, "I listened to your demo and I realized it was just that. I judge unsigned bands in a different category recording quality-wise because they don't have enough money and for that you blew everybody away - if I would have judged you against national quality bands, you'd still be in the upper half," and that's the kind of thing we need to hear.
Nick: Yeah - especially with our budget. It came out as good as we could have expected it to.
Keith: We went to the best studio in Denver, mastered at the best place we could. What made a big difference was, although like Nick said, we had a budget to work with we also practiced, we didn't write in the studio, we had everything, knew exactly what we were doing going in. So the need for producing so-to-say, was only there to say, "why don't you put more umph into that part", but not "why don't you do that part twice," so it turned out really well. We'll use a familiar methodology for the next release.
Nick: We were under deadlines to get stuff done. The solos were done in the studio on the fly. Putting that pressure on ourselves to get the stuff perfect on short notice right away like that too - I think it came out really good that way.
Keith: I personally work really well under pressure, when I have a deadline. For our first show we had a song to finish and we were writing the set list for it about a month before the show - wrote it on the marker board and our guitarist, Mat, said "whoa what's that??" We had about half the riffs written but Nick and I over a week and a half had finished everything else and we arranged it and I'd say right now its probably our best song. It's not on the EP, but it's that type of thing: working to a deadline. The other reason we did it the way we did was a lot of bands - and granted we have the luxury of being able to record first since we've been out of the scene for so long - will play music over, try all the bars a hundred different ways, find out exactly what works right so if they sign, when they go into the studio they know what is perfect because they've done it a hundred times, right. Then the second album is the tough one because they're writing completely from scratch and not had a chance to go and try it out - besides maybe a couple of shows...the whole idea is to release and no-ones heard the music yet, right. So what we did: no-one will have heard this stuff. We need to get in the habit of writing because if we get stalled on our second album that way and we don't know how to write, to be able to say, ok we have a month to get it right, we'll be setting ourselves up for a fall. So we wrote all this stuff knowing that we weren't having a chance to hone in front of audiences. It's got to be good the first time.
Ultimate Metal: How do you write? Do you all get together and come up with lyrics and fit the music around them? How does it work?
Keith: Every individual musician writes a different way. Some bands write by committee. Sometimes that works - most of the time it doesn't, in my opinion, because everyone's going off and you have a really hard time balancing. Generally a band member will have a riff or a theme or an idea and then we generally write in pairs. Right now Jeff and I are working on an instrumental.We try to balance out. Too many people at once: everyone is tugging in too many directions. Nick and I were the only permanent members for the longest time so I had some riffs I was storing up in the hiatus and he came with some stuff. I think it's really rare that drummers write guitar - but he does, and really well. Some of our catchiest stuff he's come up with. So, I'll say, "I have this riff, here's the rough beat in my head, what can you do with that?" and he says, "ok, how about we go into this..." So we do a lot of firing back and forth. We had kinda a luxury because we could hone those parts and then when the other guitar and bass player came in it added a whole other level: what we had in mind was going to be there but we didn't necessarily know where it was going to go past the basic melody and rhythm.
Nick: Once the song's arranged and put together, I like to go over it numerous, numerous times and: "this change just sucks; we gotta do something different". A couple of songs, like Kozmos, I came up with some stops going into different parts of the verse - and just made it so much better. Just little things like that really make in detail what we need to do so that everything sounds smooth and like it should be there.
Keith: Although we haven't played out for anybody, what we will do is record it on a cassette player while we're practicing, after we've got to a certain level, take it home and say, "well we have two days until practice, listen on your headphones, think of anything you'd like to change." The song Kozmos, to use the example Nick was using, was almost 30-35 seconds longer in it's original form: this is a good riff, but lets tighten it up...so you'll think, "when does that part come again," not, "ok, when do we get to the next part".
Nick: I want to listen to every song the whole way through - I don't want to be like, "ugh, I don't like that little part right there, it's kinda weird, I want to have it changed" - to where we don't like it...
Ultimate Metal: Can't be too nit picky then...
Keith: Yeah, you hear this with every national bad: it's give and take in the song writing process, especially when it's a collaboration. Sometimes you have an idea that you think is the best thing in the world, but it takes everybody else hearing it and playing it to say, "ok, I agree with you, we should change this." that type of thing.
Ultimate Metal: Cosmic Power Thrash. Tell me about it. What the heck is it?
Keith: It's an attempt to categorize us by our varying roots music-wise. Start with the first part: my Father works for a radio astronomy observatory in New Mexico so when I was growing up I was exposed to it whether I liked it or not. I was exposed to science shows on public TV, magazines, I couldn't get away from it, it was ingrained in me. When I got to a certain age I realized it wasn't just something dorky my Dad always talked about, I started getting interested in it - and, of course, who wasn't into Star Wars and who wasn't into Alien and really grand sized topics? That started surfacing when I started writing. No-one has really done space properly, I don't think. Certain bands have touched on it in certain albums: Samael from Switzerland has, Gamma Ray has touched on it a little bit with their latest. Not that we are going to make every release totally about Space: this is about the first planet, this is about the second: not like that - but to be able to do it right. I think that subject-wise, bands have touched on it well, but sonically, I don't. Without having an industrial sound and introducing all sorts of blips and whirrs and stuff like that coming from all sorts of instruments that wouldn't go over well live, we're trying to create, with traditional Heavy Metal instruments, a sound that's more expansive than anyone has heard. Kozmos is just the start of that. If we started with some of the ideas we have now, it would probably go over a lot of people's heads. It would be too much too soon, so we're starting with leaning more towards the Cosmic theme songs with some Cosmic sound. Next we can start working the sound up. So after a while, the topic is going to match the sound and going to match the entire approach we're going for. That's the Cosmic part. Power: I'm a power metal, true metal freak. Jeff is. Mat is. Nick's getting more into it because of the exposure from us. Thrash: because we like to get out there and break things...
Nick: That's my Favorite: Exodus...
Keith: We probably sound a bit more thrash than we do power metal right now, but it's a statement that we are contemporary, and we also have memorable melody that people can hum on the way home. My biggest beef with a lot of current music is that you get into it live, when you're in the mosh pit, or head banging, or whatever, but when you go home, everything's kind of a wash. You can't drive home from a gig and have a melody burning in your head all the way home. I think it's kind of a loss. To be able to balance both, to have all of that intense energy of the physical exertion of going to a Heavy Metal concert, and then being able to say, "ok, yeah, remember that part? It's stuck in my head," that's the goal, and that's the realm we live in as a band. I think so far it's working really well.
Ultimate Metal: I have to ask this question. It's required. Inspirations. What are yours?
Nick: I started watching Metallica ten, twelve years ago, wanting to do that. It never went away. People constantly tell me every year that I'm a loser and that I can't do that and I should do something else. It made me want to do it more. I just fell in love with doing it. Most of this year we haven't played out and I was in the worst, most depressed mood ever - so it's something I have to do, it's like a drug, I guess. Until that feeling goes away I'm going to keep doing it. I've got some things I want to accomplish: I want to get to Japan, Europe, Australia, Brazil - I'm not going to quit until I do that.
Jeff Alexis: My inspiration is Nick, pretty much. I was out of the music scene for a little while and became very good friends with Nick. I saw the dedication and devotion that he has. I never knew anybody like that. I used to play in prog bands, but nobody was serious. So seeing Nick's dedication really motivates me, and now that I know this guy (points at Keith) I feel the same way about him. Two people. You just can't beat that. Two people with this much dedication.
Nick: When I was in my old band Keith and I would be out at the bars talking and I'd think, "Damn, why can't the guys in my band be like that?"
Ultimate Metal: ...and now the guys in your band are like that...
Nick: They are now, yeah. This is the best thing we are going to find anywhere around. There's nothing better, attitude or devotion-wise. This is pretty much it.
Keith: At the end of the day, even if we never get a gold record, if we at least tour, see parts of the world, if someone gets enjoyment out of it. I would like to be able to say that SILENCER is a part of the Heavy Metal story: that we can be mentioned in the same sentence as Iced Earth, Nevermore, In Flames, Primal Fear, Gamma Ray. That we contribute to the bigger thing that the masters, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, gave to the world. That we're part of the thread. That other bands will say, "SILENCER influenced this riff." Also the thought that I don't have to work for "The Man" my entire life - in a way you still are: for a label, but it's on your own terms. You don't have to dress up to go to work, you don't have to lie in front of people, you go out there and it's an honest exertion, an honest interaction with the audience.
Nick: People appreciate what you are doing.
Keith: Exactly! What most people don't know is that musicians make far less than they think. The biggest you hear about make a good living, but the average musician makes less than working at a fast food restaurant. To be able to give up everything you have, and your comforts just to be able to play forty minutes to half an hour on tour for a month at venues that aren't even a quarter full yet. I think that says something. To me that's my idea of a good time because I'm not driving down the same road to work every day.
Musically I started with bands like Def Leppard and AC/DC when I was about 8 years old. I got into more American hard rock and Heavy Metal and then it all changed when my older brother gave me a dubbed copy of Powerslave by Iron Maiden. I've listened to that album more than any album ever. When the thrash metal explosion hit: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Testament, Slayer, Overkill - those aspects, and this goes back to the other question, pair themselves with the melody. There are a lot of newer bands that people don't give much credit to, especially in the United States (the US doesn't have a clue most of the time), In Flames, Nevermore, who else is American? Iced Earth...
Nick: ...Overkill...
Keith: I can think of a million European bands...it's just so different there than it is here.
Nick: There are less people there but metal bands sell more records there - it's crazy.
Keith: Europe is so much more tradition oriented with everything. Buildings have been around for five-hundred years there, but if something here is more than thirty years old they want to rip it down and build something new. Same thing with music. Classical music was born out of Europe. Heavy Metal was born out of England. The US as a country is only a couple of hundred years old. Everyone is trying to find their feet and have the newest best thing. As a result, and technology is partially to blame for this, something new often takes the place of something quality. It's unfortunate because it took some of the Classical music masters ...the span of when the great wrote most of their symphonies etc. was over a hundred-some years. Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony 124 years after Bach wrote his first. To say that they are that much different compared to something that's flavor of the day here is ludicrous: similar approaches, similar scales, similar keys. It's just that someone wrote the better song and put time into it. We take the same approach. Maybe some of what we are doing now has been done before, or that approach has been tried before, but we are adding on top of it while not straying too far from those roots.
Ultimate Metal: ...evolving from a base...
Keith: Exactly. To think that Heavy Metal in it's purest form was "done" in the first fifteen to twenty years is crazy. Heavy Metal is such a young music form. It would be sad if people just stopped doing it to find something new. It needs to continue. There are realms that haven't been explored yet. That's exactly what we are doing right now with Kozmos and will continue with future releases.
Ultimate Metal: You have made it pretty clear that you intend to go all the way. Are you looking for a label?
Keith: Absolutely yes, to answer your question. For sure. We have a strategy. It doesn't make sense to mail off our EP right off the bat because we haven't proven ourselves yet. We can't prove that we've sold any product or that anyone anywhere but Denver knows about us.
Nick: We've sent out about 30 CDs to major magazines in Europe, Canada, the US, Greece - all the big ones. If we get reviews in all of those, we'll have a list of references saying these guys kick ass or whatever.
Keith: Whether the reviews are good or bad it's going to show people that I think that it would be in their best interest to sign us. That at least we're everywhere no matter what magazine they pick up, no matter what State they go to in the United States, the South Western United states, they keep hearing this name. This band has an incredible work ethic. Maybe with some push and some backing and some distribution, these guys would be a good bet.
Nick: We will be proving our cd sales to them too. We have a bar code. We're going to scan every disc we sell. We can prove that we actually sold these - not like some band from the middle of Nebraska who say they sold three hundred at one show. We're proving it.
Keith: That's an important part. if we can prove that we sold 5000 of our own CDs out of our van, at shows, and out of consigning at record stores in the city we happen to be in - there are national acts who don't sell five thousand in a particular year. If they can say, "they did that on their own, what could they do with distribution, with some magazine advertisement." It's not like we're going to go out and hound the labels right away. It would be dumb to because we haven't proven ourselves yet. We've gotten a good reception at the first couple of shows we've done, some good initial reactions to our cd, but it's nothing yet. We're a small fish in a big pond until we can prove that we can move up the food chain and survive.
Ultimate Metal: You've touched on this a bit, but how do you feel about the metal scene - nationally and locally?
Keith: Locally we stick out like a sore thumb, but that's good. There are probably 2 or 3 bands in Colorado that play at the energy level, intensity Heavy Metal-wise who still sing, really sing, and only a few more past that who include melody and harmony, as basic as that sounds. What passes for metal locally and nationally in some cases is a heavily distorted guitar tuned very low and with staccato picking. Metal in my opinion is something you've got to earn. It's not something that you can buy off the shelf in an amp box or an effect pedal. You've gotta earn it, prove that you know what you are doing before you call yourself "metal" or even more, "heavy". The term "heavy" is so blatantly overused.
The local scene is hitting a second resurgence popularity-wise, people coming to shows. After the late 80s-early 90s, it took a dive for a while...
Nick: Yeah, 96 was horrible. We couldn't get a show in Denver for a year (my last band). We were playing in Colorado Springs mostly. Now it's everywhere.
Ultimate Metal: ...now there's at least a show a week.
Keith: Absolutely. Booking other cities is worse. Nationally, while there was one big push musically in the 80s, you were one of two things: you were either a really big Heavy Metal band or you were a pop band. Pop will never go away, it will always be in the lime-light. Heavy Metal will never go away but it won't really be in the lime-light. Right now there is a very diverse grouping of what's called Heavy Metal. Generally what makes it to the top is good. I can appreciate a style regardless of whether it's what I do or if it's something very different - as long as it's done well. Where I draw the line is the copycat bands.
We would have, with our style, a fairly difficult time securing a large deal in the United States, just because of what's selling right now. We don't rap. We don't have an "agro" sound. We're definitely something with a more European flavor. So the major push is to be accepted first in that community and to be able to prove to a label that we sold this many overseas and getting us some effort here, we could appeal to American audiences. That's where the Thrash aspect of our music comes in really handy. One, it's fun to play and it makes for great songs, but two, what most of America thinks is metal is just a heavy chord bludgeoning you over the head, weird noises, samples, industrial riffs, and death metal vocals which if done well are incredible, but if aren't: cookie cutter cookie monster.
Ultimate Metal: Are you going on tour? Got anything planned?
Keith: I wouldn't say a tour per the strictest definition. With the last lineup we did two weeks straight and it was incredibly fun. The best feeling in the world was sitting in the van thinking the only thing I have to worry about is where we are going to eat in the next city, and having a good show that night. That was a great feeling. The problem is, it's expensive to do in one shot and each city has to wait longer to see you again because you've blown your money in one fell swoop. So what we are doing now is doing a circuit though the South Western United States. The idea is to be known in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Las Vegas, Salt Lake...if a show presents itself further than that, obviously we'll do it...LA, Texas: Dallas/Ft. Worth, St. Louis...so it will be an every other weekend type thing. Every city would have to wait two months maybe tops to see us again - and there are bands even within one city who don't play every two months. A an A&R guy would be able to say, "I'm in Phoenix, who does well here? SILENCER, they aren't even from here but they make it here every other month and have a really good following" and the same in Albuquerque - a regional following.
Ultimate Metal: Anything else you want to say to the world at large and UM in particular?
Keith: Prepare yourselves for an expansive sound! It's starting with Kozmos and it's going to go a lot further than that. We're trying to do what Beethoven did to Classical music that preceded him by a hundred years. It's going to be bigger than anything anyone's heard sonically in the realm of what the human ear can hear. It's going to be a massive sound, as big as Space, as big as the Cosmos.
Nick: I'd like to say to anyone reading this: come and see one of our shows, California, New York, wherever we are. Come up to us and say "hi" tell us what you think of us. Hang out and have a beer.
Keith: If ya like us enough, tell the club owner, tell a friend...
Nick: Buy our stuff...
JA: Cheers!
And that about sums it up....
