ETO Exclusive: Silver Snakes Talks About New Album and New Tour

The southern California rockers in Silver Snakes have been fine tuning their sound for a while in other bands and are here with their new album, Pictures of a Floating World.  With bands like HUM, Quicksand, Cave-In, and more as some of their major influences, it’s obvious that Silver Snakes is a band that’s here to stay. Their frontman, Alex Estrada, answered some questions about the new album, their west coast tour, and provided the whole back story on how Silver Snakes formed as a band. They were also kind enough to let Escaping The Ordinary do an exclusive audio stream of their song, Dear Midnight, in the audio player below.

ETO: I know that all of you have played in different bands previously. How did Silver Snakes come together as a band?

Alex Estrada: Silver Snakes was something i had on the sidelines for years while i was playing in other bands. Daniel and i were in a band called Cathedrals and we knew Justin through the local punk/hardcore scene while he played in a band called Death Art. I met Mike through friends while he was really busy with his old band Dear Life.  Cathedrals started to slow down and Daniel started to play drums for Horse the band. I had a lot of time to work on other projects so i started putting more focus on this band. Eventually Cathedrals called it quits, i made a few calls and we had our first practice almost exactly one year ago. It all just sort of came together after that. We immediately started writing for a full length. Our first show was in February and we locked ourselves in the studio 3 months later.

ETO: You guys just embarked on your west coast tour. Tell me about some of the other bands on the bill.

AE: Well we are doing this tour on our own, It’s just under 2 weeks and we are playing with a handful of different bands in each town. I’ve been doing my best to reach out to the cities and i’ve  found a lot of cool kids and bands that we will hopefully be meeting! There is definitely some mixed bills on this tour which we are super stoked on. We are playing with Devotion in Tacoma, WA which should be awesome. I’m pretty excited about our show in Boise because of the response so far. San Francisco is also one we are looking forward to since we will be playing with some old friends.

ETO: What’s the story behind your new album, “Pictures In A Floating World”?

AE: I see it as a collection of thoughts and situations. Lyrically, The record deals a lot with personal insights on the different paths that people choose in life. I focused on 10 specific situations and the artwork was designed to reflect them. The recording process took place at several different studios with the help of some really good friends. It was engineered by Roger Camero (No Motiv) and produced by Steve Choi (Rx Bandits). They definitely understood what we were going for and didn’t cut any corners when it came down to making it happen. Siren Records approached us about releasing the record and now it’s time to tour and get it out there. We are really happy with the way it all turned out.

ETO: Do you have any advice for new bands out there?

AE: Keep at it. We set a lot of deadlines for this band as far as our first show, demo, record, tour etc and i feel like it was a huge help. Make sure everyone is on the same page and stay motivated. I’m not expecting this tour to be perfect, i’m sure a show will fall through, maybe we’ll get a flat, someones feelings will get hurt or whatever but thats just how it goes. Do your best to avoid a sense of entitlement. No one owes anything to anyone when it comes down to music. We are trying to make a lot of things happen within our first year of being a band but i want to make sure that we do all the hard work that comes along with that.

 

For more information on Silver Snakes, check out:

www.Yearofthesnakes.com

www.facebook.com/yearofthesnakes

www.twitter.com/silver_snakes

www.soundthesiren.com

Silver Snakes is :

Alex Estrada - vocals / guitar
Justin Coates - Guitar
Daniel Pouliot - Drums
Michael Trujillo - Bass