The Silver Surfer - Interview

  by Olga Sladeckova

published: 16 / 1 / 2003

intro

One of the acts at the recent Pennyblackmusic bands night, Silver Surfer recently finished to much acclaim their first ever British tour. Olga Sladeckova talks to the Oregon group, who are ack for a second interview, about their new album 'If This Is Ou

As you may recall , Pennyblackmusic first talked to Silver Surfer last year, and we interviewed then Ryan Carroll, the group's lead singer and guitarist, who talked about the band's history since its formation in 1997 when its original members were still at High School in Oregon. At the time Silver Surfer had released 3 EPs on their own Tyrannosaurus Records. What came across clearly then already was that Silver Surfer are a band that won't wait to be asked to do things. They will go and make things happen. That is one of reasons the band's fan base is enlarging in the group's native Portland and also in Seattle, the two cities where the group plays the most. Doug Quast's keyboard and backing vocals, Jeremy Dietz's bass and Jeremy Dickerson's drums, each of which are lead by Ryan's voice and his guitar, all shine with enormous musical potential. Silver Surfer's music is colorful and their tunes are fresh with joy and positivity. The latest 'evidence' of the band's productivity is their debut full length album 'If This Is Out There...' The first steps towards promoting this album were made when Silver Surfer toured Britain for the first time in January. The group played its first British date at the first ever Pennyblackmusic Night at the London Spitz on January 11th, and helped to sell out the venue. 4 days later on January 15th, I followed the band to watch them play their second gig at the Half Moon in Putney in London, and, sitting around a large table, this time around talked to all four members of the band, rather than just Ryan on his own. PB: Your first ever show here in Britain was in London at the Spitz at the Pennyblacknusic Night. Could you tell me how you enjoyed that ? Jeremy Dietz : It's fun to play somewhere you don't know and if you get a good response you know you have earned it. It's more awarding. DQ: The audience actually bothered to spend a little bit of money because they wanted to hear us on CD as well. We sold quite a lot of copies of the new album. PB: As an American band what do you think of British fans? Jeremy Dietz : I think the British are much more enthusiastic about music than I thought they would be. I thought they would be just standing and tapping their toes. RC: Yeah, it went well there were people dancing and that was really good. At home a lot of people just stand and look at you thinking if you are going to be the next big thing. Jeremy Dietz : Our friend's cousin came to the show and threw panties on the stage! We have never met her before. It was like the 2nd song, 3rd song, and the panties came up on the stage. They were nice panties... RC : We also made jokes, but no one laughed (Laughs). DQ : There was also someone shouting something but we misunderstood what they said. JD: We may need a translator the next time. (All laugh) RC : Yeah, we really liked Saint Joan. They were really good and also very nice people. Baptiste were good as well. I really like Baptiste's guitars and that last song they did, 'Icarus', when they just were going crazy. DQ : It was a really good night. We can now go home and say that we sold out in London! PB: You have just released your first full length album 'If This Is Out There...' Before we talk about the music, looking at the artwork, it that a child spinning around on it ? How did come up with that idea for the artwork ? DQ: I was looking in one of the local Portland magazines 'Willamette Week' (which could be compared to the UK's Time Out or Guardian-Ed) And I saw a picture of an art exhibit of somebody famous turning a kid around. Ryan was in his bedroom and I just pretty much yelled at him "Hey I think it would be a good idea for the cover to have a kid spinning around." We has been talking about the title and it seemed to kind of go along with. RC : One of our friends is a photographer. She has a friend who has a little girl, and the mother was spinning the girl and the photographer around. She put her arms around the mother and took the picture. DQ: I didn't even know that! (laughs) PB: How did you come up with the title 'If This is Out There...'? ...A few seconds of silence... DQ: We had a big discussion about the title. It's based on idea from a movie called 'The Jerk' with Steve Martin. He is raised in South America by a black family while he is white. One night he is lying in bed and he is woken up by music from a radio and he is suddenly able to snap his fingers and move his feet, and so he finds rhythm. He wakes up the whole family and he is like "Grandmother get out of bed!" and he then says "If this is out there think how much more must be out there". The whole world, as a result, opens up to him when he find rhythm. We talked about that. Jeremy Dietz and I both are Jerk fans. PB to RC: Do you as the lead singer write all the lyrics? RC: Most of them. We all write our own parts. PB: Do you have a favourite song by the band? RC: 'Sgt. Pepper vs Endless Summer' is my favourite right now. Jeremy Dietz: I have a video about the Beach Boys, a documentary about them which I lent to Doug and Ryan. Ryan watched it and came back with the lyrics of the song and a guitar part. The Beatles and the Beach Boys kind of listened to each other and were inspired by each other. DQ : Paul McCartney said something along the lines that'Pet Sounds' ended up being everything they wanted 'Sgt. Pepper' to be. RC : In the lyrics Sgt. Pepper is asked where he's got his influences from and he is says from the 'Smile' album (the Beach Boys' unreleased follow up album to 'Pet Sounds'-Ed) DQ : Yeah, and 'The End of Summer' is the Beach Boys album. RC: So it's sort of loosely related to that and relationships with people. PB: Where was the album recorded? RC: Our drummer, Jeremy, recorded it in a cabin in woods. Jeremy Dickerson: That was where we could go and spend all of our money for 3 days. Jeremy Dietz: The first song, 'Change Your Mind', has a lot of versions. and was all over the place before it ended up at the place it did. We haven't had much time to practice all the songs as well because Jeremy, the drummer, lives quite far away. Jeremy Dickerson: Yeah, I live about 2 hours drive from them so it's quite hard to get together. I think the CD is good because, regardless how much time we spent doing it, it will last for many listens. You can always find something different in it. PB: I really like it. I like the fact that every song has something slightly different about it , but you can always find something new. There are lots of new sounds on it, but it still gels together well. RC: This is our first full length recording. Other then that we have just done the 3 eps. DQ: Those were done only in 1 or 2 days of recording. We have a certain amount of money, know how many songs we can do and how much time we have, so we just go in there and pump out like 6 songs in 2 days. RC: 'Curve Of Venus', our first EP, was recorded in 3 days. Each day we worked for 18 hours ! DQ : With one mixing! It's better sometimes because you can over produce it. I think that's the strength of the 'Sgt Pepper vs Endless Summer'. It was impulsive. I was reading about Coldplay amd how they recorded the 'Rush Of Blood' album and 4 of the songs they actually just recorded for the first time at the recording session rather then having them done before. And they came out to be some of their strongest songs. PB: Back in the US, how often do you play? Jeremy Dietz: Probably once a month or twice a month. In Portland it's different. Bands play really late. You can play a show at about 1 am. DQ: The best point is to play is like second or third on the bill,because then you play at about 11:30 or 12 and at that point the bar is the most full. PB: So, when is going to be the next time you come over to UK? All laugh RC: Whenever tickets are cheap. Next January maybe... PB to Ryan: I know you also play in other band called Saturna. Could you tell me more about it? RC: We don't really live in the same city but we are making a record. It's quite good for inspiration sometimes actually. PB: Do you ever argue in the band about music and making decisions? DQ : No one has had any fist fights, if that's what you are asking. (All laugh) Jeremy Dietz: Usually we come to something even better. It's always better to have more people coming up with ideas then one. PB: Would you ever consider signing to a major record label? RC: That would depend... We would have to be in control of things and most people won't let you do that. If you make it on your own and then the label wants you then you pretty much have those things. DQ: I would quite like to have somebody that would do all bookings, take care of distribution and send it out for reviews. That way I could just concentrate on the music and that would be great. RC: At the same time it's not as inspiring. It doesn't feel as good if someone just gives you something rather than if you have to work for it. DQ: That's what we do now. PB: Silver Surfer also contributed a song to a Reverb Records compilation called 'Shoegazers'. It included several bands performing cover versions of songs by famous artists such as the Jesus & Mary Chain, Spiritualized, and Ride. How did that come about? RC: All of those bands on the compilation have been influenced by the shoegazing movement. We all played at a show. There were actually two different shows, one in Portland and one in Seattle. We played covers like the Ride, Spiritualized, and the Mary Chain songs. Reverb Records helped us to do the show and they thought it would be nice to give this away at the show. so they took one song by each band and released it. DQ: It turned out to be very successful show. There probably about 600 people between the two shows. PB: What have you got planned for the near future? RC: The record will be released in February. We will be playing a few shows in Portland and Seattle 2 weeks later and will then start promoting it and sending it out to radio as well and to college radio. Jeremy Dietz: we will also probably go to California in Summer. PB: Thank you very much and good luck with the album! Silver Surfer: Thank you!

Picture Gallery:-