SILVERTUNG TALK HIT SINGLE, NEW MATERIAL, ORIGIN OF BAND NAME
There’s probably nothing more exciting for an up-and-coming rock band than scoring your first radio hit. And that is precisely what Silvertung is experiencing with their melodic tune, ‘”You & Me,” which is making its presence felt on the Billboard Charts in the US, by entering the Billboard Mainstream Rock Radio Chart’s Top 40 (after debuting at #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Radio’s Most Added List). Recently, the band’s singer and songwriter, Speed, spoke with BraveWords correspondent Greg Prato, about the song’s success, touring, and the story behind their intriguing name.
BraveWords: The song “You & Me” is getting a lot of attention on radio.
Speed: “I’m very surprised. I was probably the only one that thought it - for it to go out to radio. I was a little nervous about putting out something so stripped down. And kind of being judged by that style, because I know what kind of band we are - we’re more upbeat, a little more in-your-face style stuff. But when my manager called me and said he wanted to do that, I said, ‘I don’t know if I agree with that.’ But he said, ‘Do you think it will be a hit?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I think so. It’s kind of one of those given songs.’ He said, ‘Well, why wait? Why don’t we put it out there, and see what the audiences feel like?’ I said, ‘OK, we can do that.’ But then again, I was against it at first. Now, I’m kind of blown away. I’m extremely humbled by it, and blown away at the same time. I guess I wasn’t expecting a song like this to amp up the way it has.”
BraveWords: Will the song reappear on the band’s next full-length album, or is it strictly part of the EP?
Speed: “It is strictly part of the EP, Out Of The Box, at the moment. Again, that was one of the only stripped-down songs we had on the EP.”
BraveWords: How would you say that song is different than the typical Silvertung material?
Speed: “It’s very raw - stripped-down. We’re one of those bands that has a lot of energy. When we hit the stage, it’s like 120 miles per hour from the beginning to the end. So now that we kind of have to rewrite the entire stageshow, because this song has done so well…thank God for the fans that we have. Because if it wasn’t for them, there would be no Silvertung, anyway. So knowing that they love the song this much, we’re going to rewrite our show so that we can bring that song in at the right moment and still be able to have enough time to bring everybody up. I mean, the song is not a downer song - it’s not a depressing song. It’s actually, honestly, it’s about my nieces - watching them have kids. I grew up with my nieces - both of them - and I’ve watched them have kids and I’ve seen how they’ve reacted with their children. And that was kind of where it came from. But it also came from more along the lines of just someone special in your life.”
BraveWords: What are some memories of filming the video for the song?
Speed: “That was actually a blast. We talked about a concept video at first, and we kind of agreed everyone is doing concept videos, so let’s steer away from it a little bit, and have a little more fun. Let’s show everybody what we did to put the song together, show a little bit of the tour we just came off of - we did a tour in November and December - and show a little bit of what we do when we’re not just playing music, and mix it up a little bit. My personal feeling, I thought that the video came out really good. I’m hoping everybody else feels that way.”
BraveWords: When did the EP come out?
Speed: “It came out July 8th, 2016.”
BraveWords: Is Silvertung working on new material?
Speed: “Absolutely. Once we were releasing Out Of The Box, we were already working on new material, because we had so much in our backlog, that we were really excited about it. Some of it was going to make Out Of The Box, and honestly, ‘You & Me’ was not going to make Out Of The Box. That was a last-minute addition. There were a few other heavier songs that were really amped up, and we can’t to get those out as well. So we’re really amped up with the new stuff that almost made the EP, but it didn’t. The new stuff that we’re working on…I don’t want to give too much away, but there is so much energy in it. We’re kind of going back to the old school feel with some of this. Pulling a little bit of the feel of the ‘70s, mixed with the ‘80s. We grew up in the ‘90s, so that’s automatically going to be in there - we grew up on Alice In Chains, Godsmack, Disturbed, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and bands like that. It’s a big mixture of excitement that’s going on so far.”
BraveWords: When do you think the next release will come out, and will that be a full-length or another EP?
Speed: “We’re pushing for a full-length, and hopefully to release a new single in 2018. And then hopefully follow that up with a full-length and a tour right behind it.”
BraveWords: What are the band’s touring plans for this year?
Speed: “We’re going to tour as much as we possibly can. I know that we’re working on a new stage set-up and a new stageshow, so March is going to be about the starting time - a ten day/twelve-day run, and then do some sporadic shows, and maybe even do some acoustic shows. Maybe even do a radio run and visit some of these people that are blessing us so well with their attention to ‘You & Me.’”
BraveWords: What is the story behind the band’s name?
Speed: “Well, I can give you clean version or the dirty version. The clean version is it was an episode of the Simpsons. The dirty version is we used to rehearse in my uncle’s garage, and we were sitting around one night, trying to come up with a good band name. So many of the great names are already taken, so we were just pushing everything around - calling ourselves the Bricks and stuff like that. And I happened to scroll over my uncle’s VHS tapes, and there were a lot of porno flicks in there. I pull out one, and it says Silver Tongue. And jokingly - I wasn’t serious - I turned around and said, ‘Guys, I got the name…Silver Tongue!’ And everybody looked at me, and were like, ‘Dude…that’s pretty bad ass.’ I was like, ‘Really?!’ We just changed the writing on the end, we spelt it ‘tung’ instead of ‘tongue.’ It’s a little more exciting.”
