Lost AT E Minor

Music / The Silver Seas sailin’ on

April 3, 2008 | Music | by Francis Andrews |

We name-checked them as having one of the top five albums of 2007, and with good reason. I speak of Nashville band, The Silver Seas. We caught up with guitarist and vocalist Daniel Tashian. Your music’s like a chronology of the last 60 years of music, taking in old rock n roll, with some 60’s/70’s folk and right through to 2008’s brand of catchy, feel-good indie-rock. A band of all ages then? ‘I don’t know. I feel it’s a strength and also a weakness. Like, not many people can put on their record, and someone will say: “That sounds like the Lovin Spoonful!”, because that’s a very hard thing to do, but then again, nobody really cares how hard something is, really, so, you have to ultimately go with what feels and sings good. Some songs want more modern lyrics, others seem to beg for cliches’. Hailing from Nashville, you’re clearly well pitched to capture middle America in an album. Do you draw heavily on the sights and sounds around you? ‘Well. I suppose it’s impossible not to. But as a kid, I was surrounded by country music, and I thought it wasn’t cool, so I kept the psychedelic furs on in my walkman all the time, sort of like a buffer against all the steel guitars, you know, but now, I have grown to love it, and so maybe if there’s a bit of country in the music, I don’t mind so much’. There seems to be a theme of escapism running through a lot of your lyrics – quite common for bands hailing from your area. Why the need to leave? ‘I don’t know. Maybe when you’re writing a song, you need to have somewhere to go, other than: “Here we are, isn’t this great?” That song would get boring in 2 seconds, and trust me, I have a song like that. No, I think the idea of a song is: “Wouldn’t it be nice!”, you know, like you’re sort of after something, yearning a bit, you know?’

Tagged: , country music, nashville, new bands, pop music

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