26 Mai INTERVIEW — The Silver Lines introduce themselves before their first Parisian gig

Last April, when the Sun finally arrived in Paris, we sat down with the two brothers from The Silver Lines, before their first ever Parisian gig.

SOB: Can you introduce yourselves?

Dan: Well, I’m Dan, and this is Joe. We’re from The Silver Lines, the singer and the guitarist. In school, I tried out for some bands I liked. I once listened to a Buddy Holly song and I was like, this is amazing. I started by playing guitar in some bands but I wasn’t singing. I didn’t have to in school because of toxic masculinity, for a boy to sing at school is like not cool. You get, like, bullied. So I never, never did it. But then we were at university together and we were thinking and we were like writing songs, but we couldn’t form a band. Then we finally got a band together, but it was just me on guitar, a drummer and singer, so we couldn’t find a bass player. And then the drummer left and we managed to get a different drum and bass player. Then they left the band just slowly until George, basically it’s 2019. 

SOB: And what are your music influences? 

Dan: Well, the first song we ever wrote is a song called Parliament, that’s one of our early things. That’s the first song we ever wrote because that was my version of a timber riff at the start of it. And then it goes into that like a boogie, that boogie woogie so that all the things that they did, like a trial by police, but I didn’t know enough about stuff like that. And then we just like wrote from there. Like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Elvis, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, too. I also like R&B song like Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, sort of the Baptist overtones.

SOB: Your song Smoke sounds like early noughties. So I was wondering what inspired you?

Like, we like The Libertines, The Strokes. We’ve always had. We never really wanted to be punk and I don’t think we are and I hope we’re not. But we always really liked rock’n’roll. How can you describe it like that? Everyone in England that’s in a band thinks it’s rock and roll and it’s cool.

It’s not rock’n’roll. So they think if you say rock and roll, they’ll think it’s like open chords and like the Oasis thing. But we like to add a bit more blues in it, a lot more R&B and soul stuff like that. Yeah, that’s not as much. So there’s that. Like there was a boom in the late sixties, like Led Zeppelin, the Stones… And I feel like we’re missing out on people who are willing to listen to it because they were more open minded to listen to their music. 

SOB: Your E.P. will be released in September, what can you tell us about it?

We’ve finally been able to get together a body of work that’s really cohesive. What we’re like live. So we have got another ripper, which in hindsight I think it’s a really cool thing to have done. But we’re a bit young and couldn’t before because of lockdown. 

So the first E.P., not to dwell on that too much, was just like during lockdown. We’d just formed the band and we were just writing in our bedroom and weirdly it all came out odd and half the songs we can’t really play live without having a lot of equipment, three physical synthesizers and drums up. But we released that as, like, a piece of art. That was just like kind of a collection of songs very cheap at that time. So it’s kind of cool in that way.

SOB: What can you tell us about the lyrics?

Mostly each song has its own story. The first track is an arrogant track. And then Cocaine steps up the arrogance a little bit. If you want to look at it like that, it’s like you’ve got it to a level and then a bit of a comedown from everything and then tame, which is the last song. It’s kind of like the cycle of life, you can slip back into full arrogance again.

You played a few gigs in France already, what do you think of the French audience?

It is absolutely lovely. I think I could live here. We thought we’ve done six shows over the last week and a half and everyone’s been really up for it. Culture is about live music as there is in the UK. Because there’s too much choice in the UK, so no one sees it. People are more open minded than in the UK, some people are. We thought the French didn’t really like the English very much. But they all say English, rock’n’roll, French rock thing. Yeah. And we thought that was really cool. So yeah.

SOB: You’ve been signed onto Marshall records and you’re playing a Marshall night at Supersonic, can you tell us how it happened? 

So last year we played a gig in Wales in a tiny bar and then played festivals in Wales. And then John Lewis saw us play at Focus Wales and then afterwards said do you want to play in front of thousands of people. And we said yeah. He said done to have a booking agent. And then we started getting more and more offers and we were like “We need to look a bit more professional” , so we got on a call with Marshall and said can you do a bit more representing for the UK for us because a lot of things going on now and then. So we went with them. But with us going to Marshall, we said we prefer the bands you have than the few booking agents in the UK, and the bands I had rested better with our sound, our morals, all that sort of stuff. And then going south to the rest of Europe for the rest of the year. So yeah, it’s good! 

SOB: Are there any bands you’d like to recommend?

Cucamaras, they’re pretty cool guys!

[PHOTOS] The Silver Lines @ Supersonic, Paris, le 12 avril 2024

[PHOTOS] The Libertines @ Le Trabendo, Paris, le 13 mai 2024