Silverstein holds a mirror up to reality with Dead Reflection

Silverstein:
Through the Looking Glass 

02 November 2017By Christine Leonard 

Named for the scary-looking children’s author who turned words on their ear and penned the lyrics to “A Boy Named Sue,” Burlington, Ontario’s Silverstein has been pumping out post-hardcore tunes since the band’s inception in 2000. By 2002, the upstarts had made enough noise to attract the interest of Victory Records and in 2003 the renowned punk rock label released Silverstein’s first full-length album When Broken Is Easily Fixed. Featuring 10 energetic tracks, including six songs from their early EPs, the introductory LP launched Silverstein into the public eye, ultimately selling 200 000 copies. 

Swept up in a whirlwind of international tours and press engagements, Silverstein enjoyed an upsurge in popularity that carried them through the next decade and saw them produce another half-dozen records. Notable for both their consistency and longevity, Silverstein has become a mainstay of Canada’s emo scene and Warped Tour royalty along the way. A pair of distinctions that lead vocalist Shane Told, rhythm guitarist Josh Bradford, lead guitarist Paul Marc Rousseau, bassist Billy Hamilton and drummer Paul Koehler have accepted with a sense of gratitude and responsibility.  

“It’s always challenging to write another record and with this being our eighth studio album there was even more pressure because we want to honour the long-time fans, but we also want to reach a new audience,” says Koehler.

“I think with this album we did a good job of balancing both of those things. It doesn’t get easier, it’s still a stressful process and we work through it as best as we can. It was a pretty insane beginning of the year; writing and recording it. In the end, we’re really happy with it and I can say it’s probably my favourite record that we’ve put out. And that’s a hard feat after seven previous albums, to be able to top it, but I feel like we did.” 

Rolled out with the singles “Retrograde” and “Ghost,” Silverstein’s latest effort, Dead Reflection, appeared via New Damage Records in Canada in July of 2017. An examination of the tribulations endured by frontman Shane Told, who also performs solo under the moniker River Oaks, the album surveys the group’s darker side but from a more mature perspective than ever before. 

“It’s a little bit about showing what we’re capable of,” Koehler confirms.

“We switched up the personnel for this record, which also resulted in a more modern production sound. It keeps the band feeling current and helps to showcase these songs in the way they were intended to be heard. So, that was the main motivation for it. Lyrically, Shane took a real deeply personal approach with that. Musically, we tried different tunings and tried to punch up the hooks and chorus to be bigger and better than ever and we also wanted the technical aspect to be more complex.” 

Despite being a well-conditioned melodic hardcore entity with a considerable amount of experience under their belts, Silverstein’s in-studio performances still benefit from harsh scrutiny. Their own worst critic, the group’s guitarist Paul Marc Rousseau rose to the rank of producer and assisted noted Toronto engineer/producer Derek Hoffman on polishing Dead Reflection to a mercurial lustre. 

“In the studio, the producer is always the one to say ‘that was good but you can do better.’ You’re pushing your muscles as far as you physically can to create the take in the studio, but when someone says ‘you can do better!’ that’s when you reach inside yourself and realize if there’s one bit of energy left I’m going to push it out and that’s when you get those extraordinary performances,” says Koehler.

“In the moment you can be dripping with sweat, beat-up and exhausted, and you don’t know that you can do better. And sometimes it takes that third party who’s sitting in the control booth to be critical about the performance and interactions. On Dead Reflection we were really pushing the performances. We pushed it further and came out with a better performance.”

Watch Silverstein perform November 9 at The Needle (Edmonton), November 11 at The Rickshaw (Vancouver), November 16 at Marquee (Calgary) and November 17 at The Exchange (Regina).

Matthew Barber : In Name Only

Barber's misery finds company

Songwriter recruits friends to back him on self-titled album

by Christine Leonard
June 9, 2011

Matthew Barber returns with his six full-length album named, get this, Matthew Barber

We’re all familiar with the saying “misery loves company,” and when it comes to traveling and performing on the open road the pressures and politics of being in a band can often push artists past the point of enjoyment into the realms of a professional private hell. Perhaps that’s why Mississauga’s Matthew Barber has been having such a great time as a footloose and fancy-free soloist on the eastern Canadian folk-rock scene.

“I’ve done the solo thing alongside the band thing my whole career,” the versatile singer-songwriter says. “Solo touring has been a big part of my life for the last six, seven and now eight years. Yeah, I’ve been doing more and more of it recently. I love playing with bands, but the pros and cons don’t always balance out.

“It’s a blast being on the road with friends and the dynamic energy a group can bring to the stage is truly exciting, but it’s also prohibitively expensive. Luckily, I happen to be someone who can play solo and still have that much fun. Plus, the fans who come out to my shows seem to prefer seeing me this way, so I can honestly say I don’t feel like I’m shortchanging them. And, as an added bonus, I actually get to pocket some of the proceeds at the end of the day.”

Bringing it on home in the most immediate sense, the talented multi-instrumentalist opted to record his latest album within a decidedly domestic sanctum. Painstakingly piecing together what amounts to his sixth LP in relative isolation, Barber is pleased to have completed his self-titled 10-track opus just in time for an early June release prior to a cross-Canada run of summer- tour dates with friend Oh Susanna (Suzie Ungerleider).


“This latest record represents a departure in that I usually have whole bands join me in the studio,” Barber explains. “This time I worked on my recordings at home in the basement, recorded all the parts myself and layered them on using a half-inch eight-track analog recorder. I did it my way.”


“Obviously, the songs take a different shape on the road. My approach to the instrumentation is either electric or acoustic guitar or piano; I like to use all three interchangeably, so for live interpretation, it’s just a matter of finding out what works. That’s what I’m busy figuring out at the moment.”

Once again dipping into the wellsprings of his hungry heart, Barber touches on some sentimental favourites for his newest offering. Thumbing through his troubadour’s diary of thought for the perfect poetic inspiration, Barber blends gentle twang-tinged ballads and spirited folk-rock shakers for this warm and woody self-titled release which officially drops on June 7.

A fitting follow-up to last year’s True Believer and the Juno Award-nominated Ghost Notes, Barber’s latest record features 10 fresh yet carefully considered tracks that are immeasurably informed by the musician’s current state of romantic security and bliss; he reminds us of this on the charming cut “Ring Upon Your Finger” with the line, “I’m singing ‘cuz I’m a singer, baby; it’s what I do with my life.” Barber’s slow spiritual swing number, filled with austere and honest vows of fidelity and rootsy harmonica lacing, seems to be destined for alternative trip-down-the-aisle bridal processions everywhere.

“My songs are almost always dealing with something personal,” Barber says. “I tend to write in the first person; the trait of showing my intimate side and what I’ve experienced in life continues on this album. To me, art is about taking that personal grain of inspiration and translating it into something that is more universalized.”

“I want people to feel like they can relate and make sense of the emotions being portrayed. I am in love right now. Of course, it’s easier to write when you’re feeling the blues; art of all varieties goes well with melancholia, but just because I’m in a good place doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and sabotage my life for art.”

“Some people succeed in feeding off of that kind of drama for a while, but it’s a bad trade in the end. I may be a romantic, and I may have even tricked some people into thinking I’m an optimist, but my so-called love songs are all tinged with uncertainty. I like to keep people guessing.”

Matthew Barber performs at Palomino 

EVERYDAY SUNSHINE - THE STORY OF FISHBONE

Metzler doc has Fishbone shining

Everyday Sunshine has vet Cali act navigating the racialized waters of ’70s L.A.

We’re all familiar with the images of public school desegregation in Texas back in 1956, black children being led into their formerly all-white schools under guard as angry mobs jeer from the sidelines. Flash forward some 20 years, and the next generation of African-Americans were met with a similar circumstance, as Los Angeles began bussing students from outlying black neighbourhoods into the city’s more affluent and predictably white high schools. Despite protests by white parents, the likes of Fishbone’s Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher were soon ushered into a previous unexplored environment, one that exposed them to the surf and punk rock culture of their newly acquired peer group.

Already well-acquainted with the worlds of funk, jazz, reggae and R&B, the singer and bassist pooled their talents with drummer Phillip “Fish” Fisher (Norwood’s brother), guitarist Kendall Jones, keyboardist Chris Dowd and trumpet player Walter Kirby to form the original 1979 lineup of Fishbone. Tracing the groundbreaking ensemble’s twisted roots, filmmakers Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson have gone to remarkable lengths to uncover the ins and outs of one of North America’s most influential bands in Everyday Sunshine, screening at this year’s iteration of the Calgary Underground Film Festival.

“They are the storytellers of their age,” explains co-director and writer Chris Metzler. “They grew up in the first post-civil rights generation in the 1970s and were raised with the promise and belief that came with that. The challenge of making the film was to reveal that era of L.A.’s history; it’s one of the most racially polarized yet multicultural spaces in the world. Through Fishbone, we wanted to tell the story of the black experience and the insolence that came from them as a result of the city they came from.”

Of course, no trip to the Hollywood Hills would be complete without some bonafide star-spotting, and Everyday Sunshine doesn’t disappoint. According to Metzler, the directors had a difficult time narrowing down the number of celebrity interviews they could include in the movie. Having spawned innumerable acts in its three-decade career, Fishbone has attracted some pretty impressive followers.

Everyone from Flea to Perry Farrell to Ice T to Gwen Stefani chimes in on Fishbone’s no-holds-barred, genre-straddling, mosh-pit-igniting performances. Stefani, in particular, expresses a deep affection for frontman Moore — his persona has been the single greatest influence on her style as a lead singer. Another of the film’s gems is a smooth and informative narrative thread furnished by none other than Laurence Fishburne, who provides insight into the events and conditions surrounding Fishbone’s meteoric rise to an equally mercurial fall, one that finds the band in court for trying to kidnap/force an intervention on one of its own.

“We tried to stay away from the cache of name recognition in dealing with the celebrities in this film,” says Metzler. “We wanted to stick to people who were family members and close friends for this one, but there are so many who have been personally touched by the band. Contemporaries, followers, friends outside music — there is a lot of admiration for them and a lot of relationships to be talked about. Fishbone has been involved in punk, ska, rock, metal, hip hop.... Everyone wanted in! Laurence knew the band from his days working as a nightclub bouncer back in the ’80s; he was the perfect voice to explain the issues surrounding the film.”

Determined to witness the life of Fishbone firsthand, filmmakers Metzler and Anderson spent three to four years tracking the band on tour, delving into members’ home lives, and watching over their shoulders, as Fisher struggles to get Moore’s alter-ego, Dr. Madd Vibe, to step away from the theremin. Recent and archival concert footage is interwoven with Ground Zero reports, family album-calibre interviews and Fat Albert(ish) animation to deliver an awe-inspiring yet completely sobering account of Fishbone’s tumultuous swim upstream.

“The tough thing about working on a documentary film is that there’s a fine line as to how much filming effects the action,” says Metlzer, of Fishbone’s reaction to being immortalized in celluloid. “In the end you can’t really separate the two, but having a lot of people asking those questions certainly makes the band reflect on things, even when they’re not on-camera. Angelo and Norwood are thoughtful guys, and a lot of the things that came out in the film had been on the tip of their tongues and ruminating in their heads for a while.”

“Sharing these details outside of the self often spurs us on to share even more,” he continues. “What started as a compelling project has become a catalyst. The band is curious to see what happens next. They really loved seeing these interviews; if they had one piece of feedback it was that they wanted to see more of the people. It could have been a 10-hour movie!”

Christine Leonard

Originally published April 7, 2011 in Fast Forward Magazine

Fishbone: EVERYDAY SUNSHINE - video