Silverthorne
Well-travelled musicians with ‘form’ take their next throw of the rock’n’roll dice.
The night before Silverthorne’s first ever gig, their studio in LA caught fire. The band had left their base to grab some food, and returned to find fire engines tackling the blaze (started by a malfunctioning tumble dryer).
“We stood watching the fire,” says singer/guitarist Pete Shoulder, “and Brian [Tichy, drummer] was like: ‘We should write a song about this, like Deep Purple did with Smoke On The Water!’ And I was going: ‘Yeah, I think ‘tumble dryer’ rhymes with ‘fire’…’”
The next morning they returned to salvage what they could, and drove to Las Vegas.
“We played the gig and we were all completely black and charred!” Shoulder says, laughing. “Everybody was walking in going: ‘What is that smell?!’ It smelled like some sort of campfire.”
This saga wasn’t the first obstacle on Shoulder’s path to Silverthorne, and their EP Tear The Sky Wide Open, an infectious mix of luxury classic rock and fat, brooding grunge grooves (think Led Zeppelin voiced by Chris Cornell). It all started when he was invited to audition for Stone Temple Pilots, who’d just lost singer Scott Weiland. Liking what they saw, guitarist and bassist Dean and Robert DeLeo asked if he’d sing in another band they were starting, with Tichy on drums. An album was completed, but it was put on ice after Jeff Gutt joined STP.
“I was trying to think what to do next,” Shoulder recalls, “and Brian called me up and said: ‘Why don’t you come back over and stay with me for a bit, write some songs and see what happens?’ So I went and stayed with him for a month, and we wrote over an album’s worth of material.”
Their collective experience has undoubtedly helped. Shoulder was previously in blues rockers Winterville, The Union and more, while Tichy has drummed with Whitesnake, Foreigner and Ozzy, among others. All of which is streamlined into Silverthorne’s warm yet muscular sound.
In truth it’s been almost a lifetime in the making. Shoulder started gigging in the North East aged 13, and by 17 was signed to Sony. He subsequently spent a couple of years travelling around America working with different (mostly pop) songwriters. When that petered out he was picked up by Island Records, who had their own ideas: “They wanted me to be the blues version of Jamie Cullum. But I wanted to play rock music. I met Joss Clapp [Winterville bassist] and said to the label: ‘I want this band signed.’”
After Winterville were dropped, next was The Union, co-fronted with Thunder’s Luke Morley. Since then Shoulder’s been involved in other bands and solo work, all leading up to the close call with STP and now, finally, Silverthorne.
“You get used to a lot of uncertainty in this game,” he says philosophically, with a laugh. “I’m quite laid back about things now. All you can do is try your best and work hard.”
Tear The Sk y Wide Open EP is out now via Golden Robot.
“We’re huge Zeppelin fans. Then there’s nineties bands like Nirvana and Alice In Chains.”