Silent Planet Join Erra On Their Australian Tour
Silent Planet have finally landed on our shores as part of a brilliant line up with ERRA. Vocalist Garrett Russell takes time out of his day in Perth to discuss the band, the album Superbloom and how life has been on the road. However, first the weather.
‘I’m very happy to be here. I got to say it was thirty degrees and snowing in Tokyo and now it’s a hundred degrees in Perth, so this is the most dramatic climate change I’ve ever had in my life. After four months of winter, it is so crazy to just one day be ‘it’s summer now!’ It’s the middle of summer. It’s hot. It’s really strange. I think the other times I’ve been in Australia, it’s been a bit cooler. It was like August and one time in October. This is fun!’
Onto the serious stuff now, Superbloom landed in November 2023, exactly one year after the van crash and since then the band have toured extensively around the world promoting the album. Surely the songs, now birthed, are taking a life of their own?
‘I think that over the course of playing the album ‘Superbloom’ live, we discovered a very dark sinister sound moving between them that we wanted to create. To put a noise to the feeling of someone losing their humanity, watching themselves become something that they don’t understand. We did that. I think a really good example of that is when we play the album, we play ‘Euphoria’ and then go into ‘Dreamwalker’, and most of the song ‘Euphoria’ is kind, a light sort of pretty song for us, but at the end it changes and there’s this real tone change. It leads off with the little guitar, this guitar note, and becomes ‘Dreamwalker’. In that thing, I’ve started an ongoing monologue that I’m whispering, talking sort of between my teeth. Just a little Easter egg for more of the story lyrics that are not in the album but live. I’ve sort of started to narrate a little bit, and so that’s been really fun.’
Does this fun, creative narrative plant seeds for the next project?
‘Certainly. We’ve been working on a lot of new music. It’s always such a gift to be able to play music, watching how people react to the music and then just allowing that to inform the process for us.’
Superbloom was the first official album with bassist Nick Pocock on duties, although he had toured with the band previously and was a huge fan from back in the day. With the creative process already underway, how is Nick contributing?
‘Last year in 2024, we toured a lot. We did our US ‘Superbloom’ tour, we went to Europe with Polaris. We supported Dayseeker on a tour. We supported the Devil Wears Parda on a tour, and we wrote a lot of music between. I feel like we really locked in and when we were on tour late last year we definitely had some moments like, ‘oh, we’re very comfortable now with these songs.’ Nick is, I would say, on some of our new songs, he’s had more of a hand in the writing process than he ever has before, so that’s been really great having an additional cook in the kitchen for sure.’
You mention being in the pocket at the end of last year, do you sometimes look at other bands, your own journey and still consider yourself a student?
‘Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Especially anytime you add a new song to the set, because you can’t rely as much on muscle memory. You have to just do it and it can feel a little non-familiar. Especially as a vocalist, I’m always learning. We have some new unreleased stuff that I sing a different arrangement than I’ve ever sang before. As someone who’s still kind of learning the way with singing, there’s a lot to it. It’s a challenge for sure, but I love it. I think about that a lot. I don’t think this music thing would be nearly as fun for me if I was just really, really good. I don’t know because I have pretty severe ADHD and something that I think keeps me very focused vocally is knowing that I’ve come a long way, but I still have a long way to go to get to where I really want to be. It keeps me humble and it makes it really fun too because I’m on stage and sometimes I’m just thinking about what’s coming out of me, taking snapshots of moments, it just keeps me curious. I want to be a student until the day I die.’
It’s been a hot minute since Silent Planet were in Australia, how would you describe your show to those who have not seen you?
‘I think a Silent Planet show, there’s an ebb and a flow to it. We want to give people an experience that feels cinematic, that has peaks and has valleys in the sound. We want it to be very dynamic and we want it to be space creating. Which is to say we want there to be moments for people to be a little bit unsure of what’s happening or why is this happening or what am I hearing right now? We do have the traditional metalcore moments of like, ‘oh, everyone knows a breakdown’s coming’, but I also want to have moments where it’s a bit genre less or doesn’t really conform to when someone signed up for a metal show.’
Interview By Iain McCallum
Catch Silent Planet on tour with Erra and Resolve on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…
