Silverstein Happy To Be Discovered

After years of relatively quiet, nice-centric incubation, 2005 will go down in Burlington, Ontario rock history as the year the city's burgeoning emocore scene finally broke big-time. You could thank the five lads in Silverstein and their sophormore LP, Discovering The Waterfront — which surprised virtually everyone by debuting in the Billboard Hot 100 in the top-40 — for that, but, being humble suburban boys, they'd rather give props to their homeboys than pat themselves on the back.

"Ninety-five per cent of the people back home are stoked and excited for us, just like I was for Grade and Jersey when I was a kid," says singer Shane Told over the phone, seeking refuge from the punishing Arizona heat in a friend's air-conditioned house. "They were going to places like Japan and Australia then and we thought that was so cool — that five kids that we knew got to do stuff like that. Those bands just paved the way for us."

The remarkable success of Waterfront and the high concentration of Southern Ontario-bred acts making waves this year have led some to tout the west-of-Toronto suburb as melodic hardcore's Seattle. And while the major label hype machine hasn't slapped "voice of a generation" status on Told or any of his peers yet, the scene's visibility has never been higher. This year's Warped Tour roster, for example, boasted a plethora of bands reppin' the 416 and 905, including Billy Talent, Alexisonfire, Bedouin Soundclash and Boys Night Out.

"[Warped Tour] was great," Told says. "This year, it was all of our friends' bands or bands we'd toured with before. The first day it was like, 'What's up? What's up? What's up?' We just knew everybody. We got to party with all of our friends for, like, a month."

The band's whiplash-inducing rise to fame has not, it seems, gone to their heads. They're as grounded today as they were when they were playing all-ages shows in church basements a few years ago. They've also resisted the "fame is for poseurs" mentality that keeps so many bands from tightly-knit scenes poor and unheard. In Silverstein, success isn't measured in chart positions or sales figures, but simply by how much fun you have doing it.

"We've never been a band that's been, like, 'Oh, fuck MTV,' or 'We don't want to be on the radio,'" Told says. "That's never been our thing. We're just in this for the experience of doing it. We're young, so let's have some fun and take this thing where we can take it."

"Besides," he continues, "If I ever get sick of it, I just won't do it."

Here are Silverstein's Canadian tour dates:
# September 26 St. Catherines, ON @ L3
# September 27 Mississauga, ON @ Blind Duck
# September 28 Oshawa, ON @ The Dungeon
# September 29 Windsor, ON @ Octane
# September 30 London, ON @ Embassy
# November 30 Toronto, ON @ The Phoenix
# December 1 Montreal, QC @ Spectrum