Nirvana, The Beatles, Kiss – these are some of the most well-known bands in music history. Some musicians are working to get their band name on the list of these influential musical groups. Locally, one of these bands is Silven, a new emerging post-hardcore band formed by four determined students, two of whom attend the high school.
The beginning of Silven started with hard work, a love for music and some luck and coincidences. The band members met through mutual connections and started practicing together at one of their houses. They started posting on their Instagram account their practice sessions in early March.
Senior Gabe Jones is the band’s founder and guitarist. Jones played saxophone in the marching band since his freshman year, and started learning the guitar a year ago. He originally came from playing grunge music, but the bands Refused, Deftones and Title Fight inspired him to switch to post-hardcore. Knowing he can’t be a band on his own, Jones began looking for some musicians to join him.
“When I was starting my first ever band, we needed a bassist, and I called up Buskard because I saw him walking into our band room with a bass, and I was like, oh, hey, do you want to play bass? He was like, yeah, and that just kind of carried over into Silven,” Jones said.
Silven bassist Trevor Buskard is also a senior at NHS. Buskard has been playing baritone saxophone in the marching band for his entire high school career. Along with his involvement in the marching band, he has been playing the guitar for two years and learning the bass for two months.
With guitar and bass covered, the two bandmates still desired a second guitarist and drummer. Jones found the band’s drummer by contacting the owner of Skeletones, a music venue downtown. The owner recommended Grand Valley freshman Evan Arraut, a drummer who was part of a band called Crowd of Thirty before it separated. Arraut has been playing the drums for seven years and is majoring in film and media production.
It was from Arraut that the band found their second guitarist, senior Alex Perez from Grand Rapids Montessori High School. He reached out to Perez after hearing him play online. Perez at first couldn’t join the band because of his parents, but this year he contacted Arraut again to let him know he’s ready and allowed to be part of the group. Perez ‘s grandfather got him into the guitar seven years ago.
“Evan discovered [Alex] from Instagram, and he was like, ‘hey, this guy’s really good. We should invite him also,’” Jones said. “And then we all just started from there because we all have a very similar music taste, and we all work together creatively.”
The band name, Silven, is based on the street of the house Arraut was born in, but the street name is spelled Sylvan.
“I spelled it Silven and then when I found out how it actually was spelled, I think what I came up with actually looks better,” Arraut said. “Everybody kind of liked it and we’re rolling with it for now.”
The band plays a lot of covers, but they want to make their own music as well. They have already started some originals— usually based off a riff one of the band members came up with, and then they build the track around it. The songs are mainly instrumental for now and brew an angry and angsty energy.
“The process that makes the most sense is getting all the instrumentals down first and then getting an entirely full song and so then when you start writing lyrics, you listen to how the song feels and write something that actually makes sense for it,” Arraut said. “The aim of it is just to make something that I think sounds good and have an outlet for those emotions and those creative ideas that I can’t get out any other way.”
Like most new bands, they haven’t set their goals too high, but have ensured they have room to grow in the future. A band is only as good as its drive to succeed, and Silven has plenty.
Photo courtesy of Gabriel Jones.
“[I want to start with] some local success. Play at shows, just have fun,” Buskard said. “I want to do music as a career, but I’m just rolling with it and [seeing] where it goes first.”
Jones, on the other hand, knows for sure he will continue to actively pursue a career in music.
“I want to be able to make music and make a living,” Jones said. “That’s my end goal, like the bottom line.”
Perez feels similarly but also is determined to earn a college degree.
“I plan on going to school for music education, and general composing as well,” Perez said. “But if this does go somewhere huge, I’m totally willing to abandon that journey.”
Just like his counterparts, Arraut is hopeful for the band’s future, but he knows that too much pressure might drain the fun from his passion. Instead, he plans to focus on living in the moment.
“I think it’d be cool if it [the band] became that [successful] but more than anything, I don’t want to have expectations of it. I want to make something that I think people think is cool, something that I think is cool more than anything else. I want to write for myself rather than anyone else,” Arraut said.
Silven is working on recording multiple tracks for an EP. The exact release date hasn’t been confirmed.
So awesome! Can’t wait to hear them play!