SILO goes international
Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter
For the past few years the band SILO has been building a fan base here in its own community. They play a hard rock style that is hard to find these days but that shows the roots of their musical love.
Everyone listening to the band hears something a little bit different; a Metallica influence is apparent, as are Avenge Sevenfold and Offspring. Vocalist Clay (Cash) Watson said SILO has never wanted to sound like a cookie cutter band. They are happy to hear that their fans can pick out the different mix of bands coming through. They have always strived to sound different for each song, instead of each song sounding like the previous one.
Last year the band was happy to announce their song Paper Note was being released across Canada to 131 rock stations. This year the good news continues for the band mates.
A publishing company in Vancouver had recently scouted the band, and the rep wanted to see what he could do for the guys at the Midem Music Conference held in France this past January.
The rep put together a compilation package of SILO’s music and videos and then met with other representatives from music labels, licensing and publishing companies.
“Our music and the quality of our music was so well received over there that he didn’t even have to do follow ups, he already had four of these deals. Basically these deals are placement licensing and publishing deals, and they have some really big backing behind some of these companies like EMI Music, Sony Music, Universal,” said Cash (Clay) Watson.
“The reason it’s good is really the way you make money in music is through placement/licensing deals. If you think about the grand scope like how big Rock Band is, how many bands came from the Rock Band era? Or you think about movies, growing up I would see a good movie and if you’d love the soundtrack, you would go buy the disc, that’s how you would get to know a band. These companies already have so many TV, movie, commercial opportunities all over Europe.”
Watson said sometimes there are bands that may be looking to buy a song or two to fill their album. By signing on with the publishing/licensing companies new doors and opportunities are being created. Canada and the United States are both great places to be, but musically right now, Europe is where hard rock is in its glory.
“We’ve been trying really hard to get into that market and finally found a way in. Also it is going to open up a lot more opportunities in Europe, once they get to know your name then they want you over there playing music. We’re hoping this kind of gives us that bridge to go from here to go over there and hopefully make a living, it’s sort of the first big, big step for that,” said Watson.
“We have to go where our stuff is popular and right now in Europe it’s the place.”
Every year SILO host theirs own music festival called In Our Blood Music Festival. This year the event will be a baseball tournament and concert, which will be held in Lyalta. Leading up to the music festival the band hosts two pre-shows, one in Calgary and one in Strathmore. On March 9 the Strathmore Hotel is sponsoring the 2013 In Our Blood Music Fest and Ball Tournament Pre-Festival event.
Registration will be open for the ball teams and the bands go on stage beginning at 9:30 p.m. The lineup for the pre-fest includes Devin Peterson, Big T, Head Cobra, SILO and Dunright.
SILO’s music can be purchased on iTunes or by heading to one of their shows where CD’s are always on sale. For anyone who maybe doesn’t want to download a track or the album, but still wants to hear what the band is all about go to soundcloud.com/silo-1.