Welcome to #TBT Mixtape, Billboard‘s series that showcases artists’ very own throwback-themed playlists exclusive to Billboard’s Spotify account. The curated set features the artists’ favorite tracks from their youth and childhood.
This week’s edition comes from Silverstein. The Ontario, Canada-bred rockers — comprised of vocalist Shane Told, guitarists Paul Marc Rousseau and Josh Bradford, bassist Billy Hamilton and drummer Paul Koehler — have risen from their underground roots to the top of the emo and post-hardcore genre after two decades in the industry.
They’re celebrating their 20th anniversary as a band this year with the release of their ninth album, A Beautiful Place to Drown, on Friday UNFD. The set, recorded with producer/engineer Sam Guaiana, includes previously released singles “Madness,” featuring Princess Nokia; “Bad Habits,” featuring Interval’s Aaron Marshall; “Burn It Down” with Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo; and “Infinite” featuring Underoath’s Aaron Gillespie. Simple Plan’s Pierre Bouvier will also appear on the album.
To honor their career milestone, Silverstein put together this week’s #TBT Mixtape to spotlight some of their early sonic influences and their genre-less taste through the years, including tracks from The Get Up Kids, Pedro the Lion, Mew, Thrice and more.
Check out the playlist and bassist Billy Hamilton’s reflection, plus some throwback pics of the group, below.
“I kicked off this playlist with some of the most influential bands from back in 2000 when we started Silverstein. We were after a blend of emotional melodic post-hardcore, and bands like The Get Up Kids, Mineral, Saves the Day, Hot Water Music, Elliott and our hometown heroes, Grade, were at the forefront of that sound. The playlist evolves into the bands that were influencing us as we started touring and what would eventually influence our second album, 2005’s Discovering the Waterfront. We did our first tour to the UK sharing a bus with Underoath and a British band called The Hurt Process, who introduced us to Cameron Webb (producer of Discovering The Waterfront). We were most excited to work with Cameron as he had recently recorded the Park album It Won’t Snow Where You’re Going, which was a staple in the van for us at the time.
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“On that same tour was when we heard about Mew from Denmark, and that record had a lot of influence on us at the time. Armor for Sleep were friends of ours who we had toured with a little bit in 2004, and they dropped What to Do When You Are Dead around the same time that we were finishing up recording Discovering the Waterfront. It really pushed us in the studio as far as trying to match those ferocious guitar tones. I remember when Shane first showed me our song, ‘Your Sword vs My Dagger,’ because he said, ‘I’ve been really into that new Thrice record lately,’ and I hadn’t listened to it yet.
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“We keep going with some bands we’ve shared the road with, especially in the 2010’s. Bands like The Chariot influenced us to have a new approach with ‘heavy’ parts, and touring with bands like Pierce the Veil and Beartooth exposed us to their extremely catchy songwriting. The last chunk of the playlist represents some of the more pop, hip-hop and folk influences we had going in to record A Beautiful Place to Drown. Not only did we use some more pop-focused songwriting techniques and structures, but the sonic landscapes that artists like Wilco and Bon Iver bring to the studio have always been inspiring to us. I also included a few tracks towards the end that we have been spinning a lot on tour the past couple years. Hopefully this playlist tells a story of the last 20 years of Silverstein without even including any of our songs. Enjoy!”
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Catch Silverstein on tour dates through the summer, with a sold-out stop at New York’s Webster Hall on Friday night, plus dates at Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas (March 24), Wonder Ballroom in Portand, Ore. (March 31), and more.
