Interview: Shadows of a Silhouette

Hailing from Derbyshire, Shadows of a Silhouette specialise in sometimes angsty, other times melancholy, always ear-catching tunes. If they were a beverage, they'd be a snack bite: strong, intoxicating, and with an ability to turn sober thoughts into drunken words. Worthless has a great line: “I've never had a girl stick around for long, I get drunk and I write a song” which embodies this. Shadows of a Silhouette are a cocktail of hooky guitars, punchy drums, surging instrumentals  and sincere lyrics. 

They are young, yet weld electric chord progressions and dynamic riffs with the strength and style of longtime hitmakers. The band have already had multiple radio plays on BBC Introducing across the West Midlands along with track ‘Number 3’s’ being selected as BBC Introducing Track of the Week! So far they’ve put out one choon after another, from ‘Wind Up Merchant’ to ‘Shot By the Messenger’ to their latest single ‘Worthless’.

Honest and catchy, Worthless has mighty drums and I instantly liked it after hearing.. To me, it emanates a ‘this is how I feel and it's not necessarily good, but I won’t pretend otherwise’ vibe. Packed with promise, this band has burst onto the indie rock scene with a zooming start, and I am excited to connect with this young, distinct band, albeit over the internet.

S: Firstly, it’s difficult to come up with a fresh name in this day and age, how did you coin yours? 

SOAS: We spent a long time messing around with band names with first being called The Retrospects, then The Groves, The Nicotines, and then finally Shadows of a Silhouette. What was important for us was having a band name which didn’t generate 50 other bands with the same name when you search for it on the internet, which I think we’ve achieved.

The name came out of nowhere really when Nathan, our lead singer, suggested it when we were trying to create a new one. We like it because at first glance it makes no sense at all, but the second you start to think really think about it you begin to make sense of what it might mean, and I think that’s why it’s a good name, because it has loads of different meanings and is open for interpretation.

S: The band met in sixth form, right? When creating, how has friendship aided authenticity and got you guys on similar wavelengths - would you say you’re soundboards for each other?
SOAS: Yeah so the first time me and Nathan ever properly spoke to each other was when we met up at his house so he could show me some of his recording techniques, and we ended up writing Number 3’s that day.

I’d say that as we didn’t really know each other that well when we started writing together, this actually helped us creatively, because I feel that we both wanted to impress each other, and that possibly pushed us further into trying to write something new and unique in styles we probably wouldn’t have conjured up if we were writing individually. 

We all want to contribute, and we are all different people with different history and background who came together in our later teenage years to become great friends and share the same passion for music.

This is why our sound varies so much because life varies and for me if Nathan writes something that’s absolutely shit hot, I’ll want to go away and try and write something better, as I’m sure he will as well, but we never knock each others work, we always praise each others ideas, and work on them together. Once the balls rolling with a tune there’s no stopping it, and no telling where it might go or what it might mean in the end.

S: Shadows of a Silhouette have been knocking out banger after banger - can fans hope that there’s a debut album in the works? 

SOAS: Thankyou! Yeah we’ve definitely got loads of new tunes coming their way but its more likely to be in the form of singles and another EP release. The problem is for upcoming bands today is that people can’t be arsed to listen to 12 songs from a new band, and you can only really get peoples attention through a maximum of 5 tunes on an EP, which is a shame really because bands put a lot of effort into their music, even if they’re not top hits, the music still has meaning behind it.

But even the more wider known bands/musicians like Slaves and Noel Gallagher are doing EP’s now, and I feel that bands nowadays only really release albums once they’re on the brink of making it. So we’ll see how it goes, but the fans can rest easy knowing there’s plenty of music in the cannon.

S: There’s a snippet of your upcoming single ‘Don’t Tempt Me With A Good Time’, that is out the 24th April 2020. What did you most enjoy about making ‘Worthless’ and this song? 

SOAS: Worthless is a song born out of emotion, every note that the instruments play speaks a word to us, and although its more of a personal song with personal meaning on Nathan’s part, it means something completely different where those personal thoughts and feelings are cracked open with a four piece band full of recklessly free minded people (the best kind of people) which leads on to ‘don’t tempt me with a good time’.

A song about a character that’s probably you. Feeling anguish in life just to conform. And taking every single opportunity to do otherwise Like some kind of automatic function. We don’t pretend like we are in control of our lives, but we know the controller is here somewhere. Its always a pleasure writing songs together, And its with ease that we write these songs because its almost like they get picked right out of us, because of this our songwriting process is short. We are doing everything our own way, most of us can’t honestly say we’ve played an instrument for more than four years. But we can all say we know how to make a song. 

S: Worthless overflows with vulnerable lyrics - did you draw from something personal to strike such a contemplative tone? 

SOAS: The lyrics of worthless can be split into two narratives, it represents the way we disregard anything that isn’t now, and the shameful feeling of an overwhelming lack of responsibility. But yet simple things bring about relative stress and suffering. That was the idea for the start anyway. The song begins by comparing the life of Nathan to that of his great, great grandad, who fought in the first World War, and a line of the song which sums up perfectly the mood of the track is “My blood comes from great men who fought for a purpose, so its no wonder how compared to them, I feel worthless”.

At the start there’s a clear narrative and there’s a point in the middle of the song where its just becoming increasingly disassociated from the original idea like a string of mazes moving from one territory to another but never finding an exit. When suddenly that narrative/ idea of wondering what I should be feeling is overwhelmed by the feelings that actual I feel/felt.

Then, mazes and history and strings don’t matter anymore because you’ve reached a state of mind where your almost absent. But what this song really means, is so obscure it even eludes me but this is my best description for now. But something personal is sewn into the seams of every one of our songs its one of the most important things if you want to take your songwriting seriously. 

S: At the festival of your dreams, choose the three headliners.

SOAS: The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys and Nirvana.

S: Final question! What is the first thing you’ll be doing when Quarantine season is over? 

SOAS: As soon as the world comes back down to a nice simmer, we see it as a good time to start burning some gas, and get back to playing gigs as soon as we can.

We’ll also be straight back into the studio with all the songs that me and Nathan have written so far during quarantine. I think this quarantine has put into perspective how important music is to us and that’s a real incentive for us to push it more than ever once this is over, so I’m sure the first thing we’ll be doing after smashing it for a week or so is getting these songs fully written and recorded and back to playing live music.