![\"\"](\"\/beta\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2011\/06\/46660009.jpg\" "\\"Golden")
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Golden Silvers are proving difficult to pigeonhole with their eclectic sound. Lead singer, Gwilym Gold, talks to Sam Richards about comparisons, and to stress they are not 80s wannabes.
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The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bowie, Blur, The Blockheads, Dexys, Wham!, Roxy Music, Prince, T-Rex, LCD Soundsystem. Just a sample of the bewildering variety of acts cited by reviewers attempting to bottle the mercurial essence of guitar-free North London trio Golden Silvers. Like a musical Mona Lisa smile, every listener seems to hear something different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take that as a compliment,\u201d grins gangly frontman Gwilym Gold, perching on the end of his bed in his Highgate digs. \u201cEspecially when we get compared to bands who haven\u2019t been conscious influences \u2013 it feels like we\u2019ve created something new. The only thing that annoys me is that people seem to have latched onto some \u201980s thing with us. We\u2019ve been compared to Wham! or Spandau Ballet and I\u2019m not getting where that\u2019s coming from because I don\u2019t like any \u201880s pop whatsoever.\u201d <\/p>\n
Arguably, there is an unintentional hint of \u2018Wham! Rap\u2019 to Golden Silvers\u2019 catchy radio hit True No9 Blues (True Romance), but that\u2019s about as far as it goes. The best comparisons are with the likes of Super Furry Animals and Mystery Jets \u2013 bands who pilfer gaily from five decades of pop history, too engaged with sunny song-craft to get bogged down in one particular sonic furrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it makes it harder for people to know exactly what we\u2019re about,\u201d says Gwil, \u201cbut hopefully in the long run it means there\u2019s more dimensions to our music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gwil\u2019s clearly a rock\u2019n\u2019roll scholar. His room is decorated with classic posters of Hendrix, Dylan, William Burroughs and Jameses Dean and Brown. A black and gold Prince tambourine takes pride of place above the stack of vinyl LPs piled next to his Fender Rhodes piano, while current bedtime reading is Aldous Huxley\u2019s narcotic odyssey, The Doors Of Perception. He\u2019s as happy talking about Tom Waits as he is the latest hip-hop or experimental releases \u2013 \u201cnew stuff\u2019s always got that vitality to it, even if it\u2019s not something that will stand the test of time\u201d \u2013 before revealing that he\u2019s a former teenage jazz piano prodigy who\u2019s jammed with the likes of Wynton Marsalis.<\/p>\n
Does having chops \u2013 awful muso word that it is \u2013 help when it comes to pop song writing? \u201cMaybe it enables you to do more. Take someone like David Bowie; he\u2019s obviously got \u2018chops\u2019, so that allowed him to reinvent himself on every album. A lot of bands just don\u2019t have anything to work with. You look at the groups who\u2019ve stood the test of time, they\u2019ve got more than good ideas, they\u2019re really dedicated to craftsmanship as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yet, Gwil agrees, technically gifted musicians are often viewed with suspicion on the indie circuit. \u201cEven people who can play act like they don\u2019t know what this chord or that chord is because of the whole punk thing. I\u2019m down with the energy of punk, but there\u2019s something really tired about the whole idea that, if you can play, you\u2019re not cool. All the rock\u2019n\u2019rollers could play their asses off\u2026 and so could a lot of the punk bands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Golden Silvers\u2019 latent muso tendencies haven\u2019t prevented them from accruing a keen female following. A simple post on their MySpace page was all it took to fill a studio with Mary Quant-clad beauties for their “True No9 Blues” video shoot. Bassist Ben Moorehouse, with his crushed velvets and roguish \u2019tache, has the look of a \u201960s Monte Carlo playboy about him, while drummer Alexis Nunez\u2019s effusive Hendrix \u2019fro contrasts nicely with Gwil\u2019s boyish quiff (dye it orange and he could be mistaken for La Roux). <\/p>\n
Despite being the bandleader, Gwil\u2019s the most reserved of the three. \u201cI don\u2019t always feel like a confident performer,\u201d he admits, fingering his piano-shaped pendant. \u201cWith jazz, you\u2019re inside the music, and people are looking in. It\u2019s a weird step to go from that to being at the front of the stage with a mic. I do want to connect with the audience but that\u2019s hard when you don\u2019t feel natural doing loads of bantering or shouting \u2018Make some noise!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Up until now, Golden Silvers have circumvented their unease at playing in front of unfamiliar audiences by hosting their own monthly Bronze Club at the Macbeth in Hoxton, with musical mates such as Micachu, The Invisible and Man Like Me often joining them on stage. \u201cIt normally gets pretty rowdy down there \u2013 in a good way.\u201d <\/p>\n
The spirit of the jam sessions in which Golden Silvers were forged is what keeps it exciting for Gwil, who\u2019s already cooking up ideas for a second album to follow True Romance released over the summer. \u201cThe first album blasted the door open, but the second one\u2019s where we\u2019ll really come through. I\u2019ve got more of a specific vision of the overall sound. I want it to be bigger and heavier\u2026 the bigness of Phil Spector and the groove of J Dilla.\u201d He blushes while saying it, embarrassed by the scale of his own ambition. But if anyone can pull off an abstract hip-hop wall-of-sound low-slung girl-group fantasia, it\u2019s Golden Silvers.<\/p>\n
Photography: Ben Rayner
\nWords: Sam Richards<\/p>\n
A full version of this article first appeared in<\/em> Wonderland #19, Sep\/Oct 2009<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Golden Silvers are proving difficult to pigeonhole with their eclectic sound. Lead singer, Gwilym Gold, talks to Sam Richards about comparisons, and to stress they are not 80s wannabes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9419],"tags":[110,222,223,218,221],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n