In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet.

This time we spoke with angular Dublin-based art-rockers Silverbacks.

Sharing musical genes with legends from the late 70s New York scene including Blondie and Talking Heads to more recent American exports Parquet Courts, rising Irish outfit Silverbacks' own brand of wiry guitar-lead alt-rock has gained praise from some heavy-hitters in the blogosphere over the last year or so. Having been selected as Stereogum's 'Band To Watch' back in May, support for the quintet expanded to include NME and Radio 1's Jack Saunders, who also tipped Silverbacks as one of his 'Next Wave' artists. In 2019 they teamed up with on-the-pulse stepping-stone label Nice Swan (who've released early offerings from the now Mercury Prize-nominated Sports Team, Pip Blom and Hotel Lux to name a few) to bring us the brilliant 'Sirens' and 'Drool', neither of which appear on their highly anticipated Girl Band-produced debut LP Fad. 

We spoke with vocalist/guitarist Daniel O'Kelly to discuss all things Fad and to find out what they've been getting up to during lockdown. 

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TMR: Your debut album Fad is as fresh as a daisy, but your first single 'Just For a Better View' surfaced in 2017. Can you tell us how and when you met and started making music as Silverbacks?

Myself and Kilian are brothers and we’ve been playing music together since we were teenagers. In its current form Silverbacks has properly existed for about 4 years now. Pad, Emma, Kilian and myself all went to the same college in Maynooth and we met Gary at a Wilco concert. Very cool.



TMR: We caught you guys supporting Girl Band at the Electric Ballroom in Camden at the end of last year. Were those the biggest shows you've played to date and how did you find the experience?

Electric Ballroom was comfortably our biggest show. It was a bit of a weird one for me. I remember looking out at a sea of people and thinking "wow that’s a lot of people here to see Girl Band and I have to work tomorrow morning". We all had a red eye booked back to Dublin the next day. I don’t know why that thought popped in my head but it did and I couldn’t shake it for the entirety of our set. It’s kind of like leaving the house for a night out and about two pints in you can’t remember if you turned off the oven. Apart from that, Manchester, Paris and London were all amazing experiences and I’m forever grateful to Girl Band for inviting us along. Getting to see them 4 times (Dublin show) in the space of a few weeks was special!

TMR: Daniel Fox, the bassist of Girl Band, also produced your imminently album. Can you tell us how you got to know each other and what you like most about his production style?

We reached out to him after we heard an EP he produced by Autre Monde, a great Irish band. We also loved the work he did on the Paddy Hana album. Autre Monde’s drums and guitars sounded a bit like something we were hoping to achieve with ‘Dunkirk’. It worked out well and he’s stuck with us ever since. We’re booking him in for the second album and have sent over a long list of demos to get his thoughts on song selection. Apart from getting along, we work well together because he gets a lot of our reference points. He has his own ideas for the songs which often takes them in a better and more interesting direction than the original demos. He’s handy out at percussion too.



TMR: Can you tell us some more about the writing and recording process of Fad in general?

In terms of the song selection we picked the songs that we enjoyed playing the most live. The majority of these songs were written to play live, so it feels a little strange to be releasing an album and not being able to perform the songs for another 6 months (at least). By the time we went in to record Dunkirk we had been gigging for about 2 years, so we had an album’s worth of well drilled songs. The recording process was sporadic enough. We all work and we had to fit studio time around our schedules, gig dates and Dan’s availability. I’m still really happy with how the album turned out, but for album two we’re making sure to keep all recording and mixing in a one or two month timeframe.

TMR: We've really enjoyed the singles so far. The most recent, 'Up The Nurses', was sonically quite different from your previous output, perhaps most obviously because we heard Emma taking on lead vocals. Can we expect more musical twists and turns on the album?

Emma takes the lead on ‘Klub Silberrucken’ too. There’s three instrumentals by Kilian on the album which are all a little different sonically. Madra Uisce is a country-inspired guitar composition. Travel Lodge Punk is a recording that was part of his PHD research into spectrualism and minimalism and Dud is a loop of a string quartet performing another one of Kilian’s compositions. Good man Kilian!

TMR: The title 'Up The Nurses' also hit at a particularly poignant moment. Was that a coincidence?

It was, but it’s a message that’s always relevant. The song title came from a video that was doing the rounds on Irish Twitter a few years ago. A news reporter was going around asking the public if they wanted to wish our taoiseach (Irish prime minister) at the time a happy birthday. One legend replied "No, Up The Nurses". Here’s the link for the curious. We were working on the demo when I came across the video and it seemed like a suitable title.



TMR: You've previously mentioned taking influence from bands including Blondie and Stereolab, but were there any non-musical influences that shaped Fad?

Oh that’s a good question. When writing some of the lyrics for Fad I was particularly interested in colonial history. How it’s often swept under the carpet and not properly examined so that nations can reevaluate and understand their own national pride and identity. I was also interested in the internet, terms like ‘Digital Natives’ and how we’re slowly becoming androids. You can also find some really great one liners in YouTuber comments. Great place to steal choruses from.

TMR: We caught a streamed interview and performance of yours put on by the unfortunately cancelled Psyched Fest. Have you taken part in a lot of streamed gigs and if so how have you found them?

We did one for Dork homeschool festival and it was great fun. We’ve been invited to do more but we’ve politely declined so far. I have nothing against streamed gigs, it’s just difficult enough for us to sort logistically as we all live in different parts of Dublin and Kildare. With the album coming out it just made sense to focus our efforts on getting that out.

TMR: How else have you guys been keeping yourselves busy during the lockdown?

Myself, Kilian and Pad have all been playing Warzone. Pad has his own squad though, he won’t play with us. :-( The album launch has kept us all pretty busy. We’re self-releasing it through our own label ‘Central Tones’. We’ve never run a label before or released an album so we’ve thrown ourselves in the deep end and splashing as we go. It’s very good craic!

TMR: We've all probably had a little more time to listen to music recently and we're always on the look out for exciting new recommendations here at TMR. Are there any emerging artists that you've been listening to that you wouldn't mind telling us about?

France Culture have some amazing playlists on their Spotify profile. Their themed playlists often include music written during important or turbulent moments in a country's history. 1969-1975 - Les Annees Folle D’Adis Abeba is a good place to start. I know it’s not an emerging artist recommendation, but teach a man to fish and all that. There’s a healthy pool of music for you!

In terms of new artists I’ve been listening to Junk Drawer’s debut LP. They’re a band from Belfast and worth checking out if you like the best of 90s American alt-rock and long Kraut-rock jams.

TMR: Finally, Fad landed last Friday. How are you feeling about its release, especially under such unusual circumstances?

I’m excited and relieved. I generally have a short enough attention span for things and we’ve been sitting on Fad for a long time. Once Fad is up and running it means we can start working towards the next thing. I’m looking forward to people hearing it though and hopefully they’ll like it enough to come to our shows next year and say "Hey, that was a cool record man, how much are the badges?".



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Fad is out now via Silverbacks' own Central Tones Records.

-Holly Mullineaux