2025: The Year of Silverstein [Interview]

The Chinese Zodiac states that 2025 is the year of the snake, but we beg to differ: 2025 will be the year of Silverstein.

The post-hardcore legends, with eleven full length albums under their belt and 25 years of constant touring, may just be one of the hardest-working bands out there. They’ve been a persistent force in the scene since their emergence in 2000, followed by the explosions of “My Heroine” and “Smile in Your Sleep.”

Twenty-five years later, they’re about to prove even further why they quickly became a household name. The forthcoming double album, Antibloom | Pink Moon, will be released in 2025 and they feel it's their best work yet. The band shared collectively: “In 2025 we will be celebrating 25 years as band. For a milestone this large, we felt it deserved the largest campaign of our career. We felt incredibly inspired, and put everything we’ve learned / felt / experienced into this double-album. They say it takes an artist their whole life to write their debut album, but with starting this band so young, it felt like it took 25 years to write Antibloom / Pink Moon - the absolute collection of our musical style and ideas we’ve pioneered over these years.”

So far, Silverstein has released “Confession”, of which vocalist Shane Told stated: “I’m so excited to be releasing our new banger ‘Confession’ out into the world. Early on working through our initial demos I knew this one had something very special in it. It was fun to craft this one in the studio and perfect it, deciding exactly how to present it with all the different layers of music. I think it’s one of the strongest singles we’ve ever released because, at its core, it’s all about the message, melody, and emotion.”

I had the absolute honor of chatting with Shane recently about the double album, their next tour, Warped Tour speculations, and more!

So, you're releasing your double album next year and I was wondering what went into that decision to make it a double album?

Well, yeah, it's weird that people are calling it a double album. It's kind of like it's two separate albums, two separate releases. When I think of double album, I think of like the Beatles White Album, or Smashing Pumpkins, you know, those kinds of double records. This is more like two installments coming out six months apart. So, it's kind of like two records. And really, the reason was just we had so many songs, more than we've ever had, was that there were more songs that we really, really liked and didn't want to cut. Sure, we could have probably cut some of the songs and broke some people in the band's hearts, and then maybe come back to them later, but it felt more real and kind of more in the spirit of what we were trying to do, to just release all of them together this year. So that's when we had the idea to do two records.

Yeah. Do you identify with more one more than the other?

No, I wouldn't say so, although I will say a lot of my favorite songs are on the second one. Probably out of the the whole batch of songs, I think my top three are all on the second one. So maybe I sort of identify more with that one, which is interesting that it's the second record, not the first. But I mean, it wasn't about putting all the good ones on the first one or anything like that, and then the throwaway tracks in the second, it was more we wanted to have two really great flowing releases that had different things about them, in the way that they flowed, but they still felt really cohesive, like you could listen to them and they're shorter, right? So you could listen to them in maybe one drive, one commute, you know, and not have it be like too much to take in. So they're shorter, and I have crazy ADD so, for me, this is my kind of record. Short and sweet.

Like a bite-sized portion.

That's right. Yeah? Like tapas. Everyone loves tapas.

Yeah. So far you've released "Confession," which is incredible. How will the albums and the singles to follow compare to "Confession"?

Well, we also released "Skin and Bones," that was the first one. So, those two tracks so far, and they're pretty different from each other. You know, "Skin and Bones" is pretty hard, pretty heavy, and has a lot of different dynamics vocally, whereas "Confession" is kind of more of an emotional and a softer song. I think that the first record has both of that in the other songs, and then it continues on with Pink Moon later in 2025. And I think as our fans have come to learn, we are going to do a lot of different things on each record. It's not going to be the same song over and over again, you know? We're going to have a lot of a lot of different songs.

Okay, so you formed in 2000 right?

Yeah.

How has the music industry changed over time for you? Like, would you say it's easier or more difficult to be a band now than when you started?

I think it's way harder now, and it's changed. It's ever changing, it's changed in the five minutes we've been talking. It's so fast now how much things go from one thing to the other. We started in 2000 and then it was like, CDs were the thing. You made an album and put out the CD, and there weren't even really vinyl records at the time. Vinyl wasn't that popular. And then, at the turn of the millennium, it didn't get popular again until probably like 10 years after that when it started getting popular again. But it was just all the focus was on the CD, and that really didn't change until maybe 2008 or 2009 when all the digital music started happening with iTunes, and then very quickly it shifted into streaming. And now, it's just the the dynamic has completely shifted in just a few years to all these different DSPS and how people are now focusing on playlisting. Playlisting is the new radio. Well, it kind of was. Now it's getting a little bit away from that now, and playlisting is less important. So, you have to constantly really keep your ear to the ground with what's going on and keep up with the different trends and social media and all that different stuff, too. So when we started, the first couple records, there wasn't any social media then, until MySpace came along. So, there's just so much more to think about now, and there's so many different layers of promotion, and that just wasn't the case when we started. So, yeah, it's really, really different. We were on top of that stuff as it was changing when MySpace came out, or when Facebook came out, or when Spotify came out, or all those different things over the years, we've always tried to be immersive in them, and embrace them and see them as a vehicle and as an opportunity for more people to find out about our band, you know, and I think that's the right approach. But it's harder now, it's weird. It's like, in a way, it seems like it should be easier now because there's so many ways toget discovered or whatever, but, at the same time, it's really tough because there's just so many other things out there, and people have so much less time for each one of them because there's only so much time in a day.

And I feel like people's attention spans are just so short now.

Yeah, I mean, they really are. I remember in the 90s, we would wait five minutes for a web page to load, and that was fine. Now, it's like if that thing doesn't load in like three seconds, people think "what's going on? What's wrong with this? What's going on?" I'm over it in literally three seconds. So, yeah, the world has definitely changed.

So you have the '25 Years of Noise' tour coming next year. Is there anywhere in particular you're excited to go to, maybe like a restaurant you can't get at home?

Well, yeah, that's always the case. America is a really cool place like that because each city does have its own specialties and intricacies and, really, its own culture. People always say, America doesn't have culture, but it does. There's a lot of differences throughout the country so that's always a cool thing about touring the US, and Europe, too. But I think we've done so much of that that a lot of that stuff is kind of second nature, like we get the food in the place. It really all comes down to the show and the crowd and being able to do something we haven't done before. And with this tour, the production we're bringing out, and some of the tricks and and the show we're putting on is going to be next level for us. And I'm really excited for some of the biggest shows we've ever played, whether it's Cologne, Germany, which is going to be the biggest show we've had lunch show we've ever played in, maybe in the world, actually, and then, places like Philadelphia, L.A., and San Antonio and just these places we've had magical moments in over our career. To get to do it now, celebrating a quarter-century of that, that's why we do it. You know, the food's great, some nice sight seeing, too, and we get to go to Paris again. But it's always about the show.

I've seen you guys live, I think three times, and photograph you, so I'm hoping to do that again this tour. You guys put on a great show. Do you have any particular performance over the years that kind of stands out to you as an important one?

Well, you know, When We Were Young in Las Vegas was just a couple weeks ago, and I really feel like that was one for the books. I mean, to have a festival that big and have people from all over the world coming to it to really embrace the scene and our music. It's not like it's some rock festival with Metallica headlining or System of a Down. Those bands are great, but this was really our music, and to be a part of that, and to just play a classic record and have people just get so excited about it and give us so much praise really felt great, and really felt special. And we've seen it, you know, in the weeks that have passed since. People are talking about it, and we've noticed, an uptick in our numbers and stuff, so it's a big deal. And it was, it was pretty special. So I know it's the most recent show, but it really was an important one.

So speaking of festivals, you were on a number of Warped Tours. I know you can't share if you're going to be on the next one yet, but, hypothetically, who would you be excited to see showing up at the next Warped Tour shows?

Well, I hope it's diverse, you know, and to speak on Warped Tour, I mean, we are in the top three bands that did the most Warped Tours ever. And actually, Kevin Lyman told me that we are the number one international band because we're Canadian, so we count as international. We're the number one international band with the most Warped Tour dates played. So that's kind of a cool thing to hang our hat on, so I think it would be pretty surprising if we didn't do any of the Warped Tour dates. But yes, you'll have to wait and see for the lineup. But I think the one thing about Warped Tour that a lot of people forget is the diversity of the music. It wasn't just punk rock, or in the later days, you know, all pop punk and emo bands. There was always hip hop. There was always elements of electronic music and all kinds of different stuff. So I hope that it's true to that, and we get a really nice and diverse bill of a lot of different artists, and newer bands, especially. I know that this is looking like it's a nostalgia thing, and everyone's going because they went to Warped Tour in the 90s or 2000s, and I did too. But I think one thing that was always so rad about going to Warped Tour was discovering new music, and walking around and going, "Oh shit. I'm on some random stage, and it's 2:30 in the afternoon, and there's some incredible band playing." And then those incredible bands ended up turning into bands like A Day To Remember or whoever you know that cut their teeth on Warped Tour. So, I hope that we have a lot of newer acts, younger bands and stuff that people can can learn about and find out about, not just old guys like us.

No, I get that because the ones I went to, people would hand out CDs, and you would be like, Okay, well, let me check this band out.

The amount of CD samplers I handed out on Warped Tour was no short of crazy. Like thousands of them, just myself, and the amount of people that said, "I found out about you guys from a Victory Records sampler CD." And it's like, that worked back then, but I don't think it would work these days. I think some people would not even know what it was.

Speaking of newer bands, or any in general, what have you been listening to lately?

Some newer stuff. There's this band Spiritual Cramp that I really like, I don't even know where they're from. I like to jam them out in my backyard. I really like the new Hot Mulligan stuff. That's a great band. There's new stuff from Grayscale. I was just listening to that the other day. Yeah, so, I'm all over the map. And State Champs just put out a new record and Real Friends, they're killing it. There's a lot of great bands all over the place that I like.

So, the last thing I wanted to ask you— is there anything we didn't talk about that you would like to share with your fans?

No, I mean, I think you know you covered the main stuff, which is the 25th anniversary tour, 25 Years of Noise, and you can actually vote for our set list. We're we're doing something where you can pick one song from each record that you want us to play, because we're going to play at least one song from every record. So, we wanted our fans to vote for that and have a say. And yeah, Antibloom is coming out in January, so check out our new album, and then more to follow all through 2025. It's our 25th anniversary so we're going pretty hard.