Interview By John Lester
Considering that we're on the eve, of the eve of the release of 'Shattered Shores', what is the overall feeling in the Silent Line camp?
Well we're mostly just really excited, the hardest part is over. We gave it 110% on the record and without being too presumptuous, we feel like this is the best material we've ever written. So far the reaction from our singles has been amazing.
on the record and without being too presumptuous, we feel like this is the best material we've ever written. So far the reaction from our singles has been amazing.
The talent on 'Shattered Shores' is quite exceptional. How was the writing process different from your past albums, beside the fact that it is a concept album?
Well, again, thanks! After recent changes to our lineup and dealing with personal issues, making this album has been incredibly enjoyable. Everyone's input is seriously considered and valued and no one is afraid to speak their mind. It's the first time we've made an album where we took our time and made sure everyone was happy with everything; no deadlines were set until we were done recording and mixing. It was quite a bit longer of a process than our last albums, taking about six months to write and record, but we think it shows in the end product. The writing process itself was a long one. The songs came about through many beers and long nights spent in the basement trying to think of the perfect way to tie two sections of a song together. If everyone wasn't as involved as they were, we'd still be stuck at the writing stage. When I was stuck on a song, Randy had a good idea for a riff; when the drums in our writing software sounded like shit because I'm not a drummer and clumsily wrote down impossible to play fills, Adam fixed it in a few seconds; when the bass guitar was too complicated and pretentious,
be stuck at the writing stage. When I was stuck on a song, Randy had a good idea for a riff; when the drums in our writing software sounded like shit because I'm not a drummer and clumsily wrote down impossible to play fills, Adam fixed it in a few seconds; when the bass guitar was too complicated and pretentious, Andy “Root-Note” Sidloski came along and made it into a more appropriate riff. The other guys say that I wrote the majority of the songs, but if you heard the songs before and after we went through them as a band the differences would be apparent. Basically, we tried to make songs where all the instruments played their part and contributed to the feel of the song whereas on prior records we were constantly trying to play the hardest and most complex thing we could think of on every instrument at every moment. It's not that we didn't challenge ourselves musically this time around, we definitely did more than ever before, it's that this time we focused on how we can make the song feel complete. It's like writing a symphony where individual parts might be simple but add up into a cohesive piece of music instead of writing a cacophony where it's a bunch of different noises striving to be heard over another. Wow, that was a lot longer of an answer than I expected to give, sorry!