Earlier this month we featured the excellent new album ‘Thieves & Millionaires’, by beat maker Silver Man. We liked what we heard so much we thought we’d catch up with the Silver Man for a few questions.
For those that don’t know, please introduce yourself and what you do
I am a Super Hero time-traveller from outer space.
When did first start making music? What was your inspiration?
I’ve been writing tunes since about 1996, but have played the guitar from the age of 8. I just dabble on the guitar a bit now and sing songs when drunk. My mum always played the piano, so does my brother so we are a musical family. My brother has alot of keyboards and an early computer back in the mid-late 80’s, and a BOSS drum machine and we used to sample stuff, but it was more him than me more than anything.
Have you always made trip-hop, beats style music? Or have there been any drastic changes?
I wrote a bit of that old singer songwriter fayre, but i was never too hot on the lyrics. That trip hop sound was what i was into, i used to smoke a lot of weed and played the bass alot.
You took time out from making music. What were the reasons behind this break?
I’d had enough of it. Being a solo producer is quite isolating, sitting in a dark room listening to a kick drum when its hot outside and people are in the park. I neglected lots of other things, girlfriends I was with and so on in order to do it. I decided i didn’t want to make the sacrifice anymore, and I had started the PR agency Outpost (www.outpostgroup.co.uk) so i threw myself into that and quit the producing lark overnight, never to return….
Your music contains a lot of emotion, is this some you have strived for? Or does it just happen that way?
This melancholic music is the music that really gets me and i love listening to. I just created music that touched me and I wanted to listen to and all those tunes i wrote on the album do that for me. It just happens that way, its not something i specifically tried to do, it was just what was there to be written, and that’s how it came out.
There is a definite feel and emotion within your music, but do you ever try to get any concepts or ideas out to the listeners? As much as you can within instrumental music.
Song creation and structure is important. I want music to not be one-dimensional but have peaks and troughs; to create a journey of high crescendo that can drop to silence. So i tried to create the emotion and flow in the music as much as you can with one bloke in a studio instead of a band where you would normally get a more warm and fluid feel to the music.
Who, alive or dead, would you love to collaborate with? And why?
No idea – Buddha? I’d probably be up for some chanting or something or other. There’s lots of people i would love to collaborate with , but its who would be a good fit. All i wanted was to be in a band and be a singer at the beginning really. I did do that in a previous band but i was never a great vocalist. So i reckon i wish Noel had found me instead of Liam, but i don’t think there’s anyone that can really say they would be a better front man than Liam Gallagher now can they..?!
Do you have any plans to work with any other artists in the future?
The only artists I work with now are with our PR company, and our music publishing and distribution arms. My knowledge and experience of being an artist is valuable to the next generation of musicians and i now bring a commercial and business mindset to assist the creative process.
What can we expect next from Silver Man?
I’m just focusing on building our publishing and distribution companies at the moment, and signing great artists. Silver Man might do another video for one of the album tracks, that was fun to do and to have, but there’s no new tunes planned at the moment. I have been there and done it now so I don’t feel the need to do anymore. At the moment anyway.
Which cartoon, old or new, would you like to provide the music for?
God knows – little mermaid? Aladdin? It would have to be something depressing or emotional for my tunes to work with it though! 🙂
cheers
S M
“Thieves and Millionaires” is out this month on 3 Bar Fire.
Jon Kennedy returns with his seventh studio album, “Ha!”. Mixing up elements of broken beats, trip hop, jazz, hip hop and even drum and bass, Mr Kennedy has thrown everything in there and come up trumps.
TheLeftHandSide 