By: Caroline Cummings
NEW YORK, USA

I had the opportunity to sit down with Josh Epstein, lead singer of The Silent Years, and interview him about his creative process as well as his new album The Globe. Josh is a talented singer, guitarist and songwriter who infuses his eclectic sound with very personal lyrics. His intelligence and devotion to the art form are evident in the interview and throughout his music.

Thirsty: Talk about the evolution from the first album to where you guys are now.  I found The Globe to be much more experimental than your previous records.

Josh: When the band first started I had less of a base of knowledge so it was like building with limited materials.  As I grow, as a fan of music there is just more that I can employ and more that I can put into it.  And also, in the past few years the kind of stuff that I like has changed and I began enjoying more experimental stuff.

Thirsty: Talk about that.

Josh: I went through a period where I was going to a lot of shows where it was just people building their own instruments and making noise.  At the same time I was listening to African music with a lot of percussion polyrhythms. I don’t know if that necessarily has made it all the way in yet, but I think it will.  We are definitely using a lot of stranger technology on stage; I am running my voice through a lot of weird stuff now.

Thirsty: In the making of this last album, The Globe, who would you say were your biggest influences?

Josh: I don’t know.  When it comes to making albums I stop listening to everything because I don’t want to inadvertently rip someone off. For me the process of making an album is just a purging of things. This time around it was a concept album and I had to think a lot about it. The concept of this album is centered around the universality of the human existence. Everyone’s problems are equally real to them, regardless of who they are.

Thirsty: Or what it’s about?

Josh: Yeah exactly.

Thirsty: And that’s reflected in your lyrics as well?

Josh: Yes, but I think it comes to a point where the music definitely comes from the soul and gut, and then the lyrics are very planned and precise. There were so many rewrites and everything was really intended. So it was like these super analytical thought-out lyrics with this emotional, very unplanned music.

Photo: Caroline Cummings

Thirsty: I noticed that you have brought in a violinist who also plays the keyboard.  In fact, the whole fabric of your band has changed. How has that influenced you creatively?

Josh: It has, I don’t know how it’s going to change, but its made it so that I am less focused on what everyone else is doing. I got to choose these people rather than just start a band and you know ride it out. So because I got to choose them, I am more comfortable just being like, all right you know what, do your thing, because I like what you do, otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted to play with you.  I enjoy being surprised by things, hearing things that I wouldn’t have necessarily come up with, or that I couldn’t have thought of by myself, which is why I am enjoying being in the band.

Thirsty: You guys bring a lot of humor to your performances.

Josh: Well I think that in terms of a live performance it’s so different than recording an album and we’re constantly learning that. It used to really bum me out when we would go to show and there wouldn’t be many people.  Now I'm trying to realize that you just have to have fun doing it and once you start having fun, people in the audience actually respond more because they can tell that there’s something there.

Thirsty: You are from Detroit. How do you feel about the music scene there?

Josh: There are so many good bands now that should be getting national attention and no one is. So, I think that everyone is resigned to the fact that they’re not going to.  It’s like this pool of people who are doing things for their own pleasure.

Thirsty: They are not doing it to get famous anymore?

Josh: Right. We are still conscious of the fact that there is going to be an audience, but I guess we are more focused on making really good music.

Thirsty: I know at some point you were looking to sign with like a major label, or you were in a deal with a major label and now you’re with Defend, but you also have your own label?

Josh: It’s my label in partnership with Defend.

Thirsty: And how has that affected you guys?

Josh: It’s been different.  It’s cool to have complete control, sometimes it’s annoying to deal with the business, but it’s something I’m learning to like.

Thirsty: So how do you get yourself out there?

Josh: Touring really helps, it’s annoying sometimes to show up to a town that you haven’t played before and have the small crowd again, but it’s really necessary, and we’ve had some really good luck lately. YouTube made us the featured video and in two days 160 thousand people watched our video, which was cool.

Photo: Caroline Cummings

Thirsty: Did it help your sales?

Josh: I don’t know yet actually I haven’t gotten the report, it happened this week.

Thirsty: How’s the new album sold?

Josh: Double the last one. 

Thirsty: Already? It’s only been out there for a short period of time.

Josh: It’s actually doing pretty well. Considering that we didn’t really spend that much money to make it and we get to keep most of the profits from it.  I think it should be pretty good.

Thirsty: Do you have any advice for people who want to try and do this on their own?

Josh: You know, I heard some really good advice recently, which was that a lot of people are really concerned with trying to make super sounding recordings, so they spend all of this money and go into a studio and wind up having so little time to make it and get the performance right.  I think that the best advice that I can give someone would be to sacrifice a little bit of the quality of the sound and just get the right performances.  Make sure you sing it the way you wanted to sing it, make sure that some humanity comes through it.

Thirsty: So it is not so computerized?

Josh: Yeah, put a little heart into it. I think that that really comes through.

thesilentyears.com