The landscape of melodic hard rock / heavy metal is a wide-open playing field in the modern scene. We seem to have certain legacy bands holding onto their following, while newcomer acts strive to garner adequate support to move up the ranks, especially on the live touring / festival fronts. Danish quartet Silvera have received adequate buzz for their debut Edge of the World album in 2020, even as the global pandemic shut down any proper chance to get out on the road to support this fine release. The band would buckle down to write and record the follow-up, an aptly titled World Behind Doors that expands the catchy melodic hard rock / metal influences already present with some added harsh / female guest vocal elements to broaden their sound.
We reached out to vocalist / guitarist Michael Krogh who filled us in on his musical background, how working with Jacob Hansen has improved the songwriting / performances for the group, video work and its importance today versus the MTV era, how D-A-D and Volbeat impact Silvera’s view on achieving a following beyond Denmark, his love of the water / sailing, and what’s in store for the band over the next year.
Dead Rhetoric: What can you tell me about your earliest memories surrounding music during childhood? At what point did you start discovering heavier forms of music, and eventually the decision to pick up an instrument and perform in bands?
Michael Krogh: My family has always played music. My father was in a band, like a part of an orchestra. He started to play the keyboards, he also played the guitar, we’ve had a lot of instruments in the house. And I had an older brother who picked up the guitar. It was just natural for us to play music all the time. My father was in guitar music – Jimi Hendrix and The Shadows, all that. Of course, it had to be guitar-driven music that we listened to all of the time. My brother picked up rock music, started to listen to this famous Danish band called D-A-D. “Sleeping My Day Away” and all that – so we started listening to that. It became harder and harder, he listened to a lot of doom metal like Paradise Lost and all that. Life Of Agony and then Metallica.
I picked up the guitar myself, learned how to play Green Day and all of that stuff. That was when I was young. I got a little better, started to learn some Metallica songs. And then it went from there. It has always been a natural thing.
Dead Rhetoric: Did you naturally want to be a vocalist along with playing guitar, or was that something you picked up on later?
Krogh: In the beginning, it was just the guitar that interested me. The singing, it’s because in school we started to play in a band – or at least tried to! (laughs). Nobody wanted to sing, so I said, okay – I’ll try it. I didn’t sound great at first, but I had to do it. We started to rehearse so I learned how to play rhythm guitar and sing at the same time as well. I’ve not played many leads, because I had to sing – so that is how it is. My brother, he sang in his band as well. It was like a normal thing.
Dead Rhetoric: World Behind Doors is the second album for Silvera. Where do you see the major differences between this effort and your 2020 Edge of the World debut when it comes to songwriting, performances, and overall approach?
Krogh: In 2020 we released Edge of the World – and we managed to play one show, then the pandemic came. What were we to do? So, we wrote another album. We contacted Jacob Hansen again, and he was up for it. This time around, he said please don’t write all the songs before getting in the studio – leave some behind. We will try to do that. Three of the songs we wrote in the studio – Jacob, he’s a busy man. When he has a slot in his studio, you have to be ready. Of course, there’s a bit of pressure and we are getting used to it. When we are there, we get the work done. We went in the studio for 9 am until 4 pm. We stayed in the studio to write some new songs. I think like Jacob said, that gives some new kind of freshness to the songs. That was his take on it, and he was right on that point.
This time around, I had this idea with one song “Utopian”, that I wanted to add harsh vocals. And Jacob agreed. I contacted the Dreamshade guys to see if they would be up for it. I gave them some of the tracks, we went back and forth, and Jacob mixed how the vocal lines would be. They did an amazing job. That was a new thing for us. We have a bit more layers on this one as well. All the guitar parts and drums, they were done in Jacob’s studio. All the lead vocals, Simon did the background vocals by himself, and we sent them to Jacob. Next it came time to do my vocals. Jacob got so busy; he didn’t have the time for it. He suggested Martin Buus, who lives a bit closer to the area I live in. He plays in this metal band called Mercenary. We have the drummer in Silvera (Martin Nielsen), he also played in Mercenary. He wanted to help us, so let’s give it a shot. Martin and I bonded straight away, and he had a lot of ideas with the vocals. I laid out the main melody, and Martin would have all these harmony ideas. A lot of vocal ideas, a lot of layers, so Jacob had a lot to mix with.
The title track we had this sound that almost sounds like a violin – but it’s actually a guitar. We tried to experiment a bit more in the studio.
Dead Rhetoric: Jacob Hansen is well-renowned for his work as a producer in the heavy music landscape. What’s it like working with him, and were there specific elements he incorporated on the record that are beneficial to the final product that you may not have taken into consideration otherwise?
Krogh: Yeah, Jacob Hansen has been a huge part of this. I would say he’s almost become the fifth member of the band. He has so much experience and so many skills. If we enter the studio and we come with a song, he’ll tell us if it’s good, or if it’s not good. He has to approve it, otherwise it won’t get on the record. We’ve used him a lot – not just in the recordings, but he’s been a mentor for us. Even if we’ve played music for a long time, we are newcomers to the scene. He will tell us what to do and what not to do. The arranging of songs – in the beginning we would write these seven- to eight-minute-long songs, and Jacob is like, ‘yeah… I don’t know. Why does it have to be eight minutes long?’. Because we like it… yeah but is it good? I don’t know. He’ll give you his opinion all the way.
Dead Rhetoric: How did the guest appearances come about for Dreamshade and Guarnica Mancini (The Gems / Thundermother)? Do you enjoy the additional coloring these collaborations deliver to achieve the best final output for those tracks?
Krogh: Yeah, indeed. Like I said in the beginning, “Utopian”, we had that song, and we thought it could be fun to have harsh vocals. We contacted them and they were up for it. I really like the contrast between my singing and the growls. And we have another song “Gone So Far”, we thought it wasn’t going to be a duet as it was just me singing on vocals. We were listening to the final mix, and we thought it was okay, but it was missing something. We thought about the duet, as we did it on Edge of the World also with Kobra Paige. Why not try a female vocalist again – we contacted Guarnica Mancini as I’ve followed her work in Thundermother, when she was in the band, and I really love her voice. She also did some stuff with D-A-D. Immediately she was up for it. She was so easy to work with – I gave her the track, sent her the lyrics, and she sent it back in two weeks. We sent it to Jacob, he mixed it, and when we heard the raw mix, it was very good. All her harmonies – my voice is a bit deeper, and I like doing all the bass lines. Her voice did the high notes, it gave the song extra layers. I really enjoy all these contrasts. The more collaborations, the better. I enjoy working with these other artists.
Dead Rhetoric: You’ve filmed a number of videos for both albums that have received decent exposure through many social media platforms. What are your thoughts on the visual medium and it’s importance to building the brand of the band?
Krogh: That’s a good question in 2024. I think it’s very important. There’s no MTV now like in the old days that played all the good stuff – Anthrax, Metallica, all of that. People actually watched it. Now it’s become more of a YouTube thing. We’ve always had a discussion about how important the videos are. In our case, we’ve made a lot of videos because we are all from the MTV era. We remember growing up and watching those videos. I always think it’s fun to do a video. It represents the band very well when you see a music video. I remember when I was a kid – we had this time where I saw “Smack My Bitch Up” video by The Prodigy. I remember how that video was, they were so extreme at that point. It’s important for artists to make videos.
But these days, it’s really, really hard. You put it on YouTube, and maybe it’ll get a lot of views – and maybe it won’t. There’s not just YouTube, there’s Facebook and nowadays you almost have to be a content creator instead of a musician. I think music is like the last link. When I talk to record labels, they want us to be online constantly – you have to be on Facebook, you have to be on Twitter, and so on. It’s almost like the music has become the background, you have to be online and present who you are. We are trying to adapt to that. I’ll be honest with you; it doesn’t come to us easy. It’s not that natural to us. We are in a strange area with that, that you have to make content all of the time.
I miss the era when you didn’t know who the artist really was. The mysterious thing, who are they? Nowadays, you have to be online, and you have to be creative with that.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you consider some of the biggest challenges currently facing Silvera at this point in the band’s career?
Krogh: For us, at the moment, we have released two albums now, we’ve gotten good reviews and that’s so nice. Here in Denmark, the rock scene is not that big anymore. We have the old ones – Volbeat and D-A-D, but there’s not many newcomers. We struggle with the fact that there are a lot of festivals in Denmark. A lot of metal festivals, but when we contact the metal festivals, they tell us we are a bit too soft. That’s fair enough. We contact the normal festivals in Denmark where they have more pop acts, they tell us we are a bit too harsh. So, what to do? It’s a weird thing. The metal thing is huge in Denmark and Scandinavia. Especially death metal. But the rock scene is like a little brother to the metal scene.
Dead Rhetoric: How would you describe the band’s live performances over the years – what do you want the audience to take away when they hear and see the band on stage?
Krogh: We always try to interact with the audience. I always have one or two tracks where I put my guitar down and go out to the audience to interact with them, some kind of live feel. I love other artists when they just do something. You have to wake up, be a part of the show, so you have to interact with us. We always think about that element in a concert. Simon, you can do a solo here and be more active with the crowd. That’s what I love about live music. Getting a reaction out of the audience – the synergy between us. It’s a very important thing – as artists you have to feel like the band wants to play and they want to be here right now. If they do, it can be a great night. The audience has paid a lot of money to see you, you have to deliver.
Dead Rhetoric: Discuss the importance of acts like D-A-D and Volbeat in breaking through beyond the Danish / European market into international acclaim and appeal? Does this give Silvera hope that you could also make an impact outside of Denmark if everything lines up accordingly?
Krogh: Yeah, it really does. They are inspirational, and we can see it is possible. One day we hopefully strive for this, you can call it a dream, but we want to achieve things outside of Denmark. They have done it. You look at our neighbor countries like Sweden, they’ve been really good at this. If you look at the Stockholm scene, In Flames and an insane number of bands. When In Flames came, there were four or five bands that also came out of that Gothenburg scene to make an impact. Volbeat came, but there are no other bands in the same line of that band. We have a lot of amazing bands in Denmark. The possibilities and talent are there. Maybe someone else will succeed.
Dead Rhetoric: What are three albums that helped shape your outlook on music (they can be hard rock/metal or otherwise)? And what’s the best concert you’ve ever attended purely as a fan in the audience – plus what made things so special to you?
Krogh: For me personally, Metallica will always be one of them. When I grew up, it was the self-titled black album. I will say D-A-D again, maybe the compilation with all their greatest hits. I listened to that a lot. There are so many bands – I would say Paradise Lost also. Draconian Times, yes. I listened to that record a lot. Tomorrow it would maybe be another answer. We have this national stadium in the Copenhagen area, back in 2007 Metallica played with Slipknot and I think Lost Prophet. It was insane. I was 17, maybe 18 – my first huge concert, I’d never experienced before something that size.
Dead Rhetoric: What is your definition of success when it comes to this band? And has that definition changed from your initial beginnings as a musician to where you are and what you’ve been able to achieve currently?
Krogh: In the beginning, all musicians think I want to play music – maybe I’ll play in a rock band. Or someday I’ll play in a huge rock band, traveling the world. Now we are getting older, we’ve got kids, and that’s why you have to be more realistic with this. Our goals have changed, we all have jobs and stuff like that. We want a decent number of shows every year, and that’s fine by us at the moment. We are not 18 years old anymore, we have to be realistic of what we can do and what we cannot.
Dead Rhetoric: Do you have any special hobbies, interests, or passions outside of music that you like to participate in when you have the free time to do so?
Krogh: For me, at the moment, I have had this house for eight years – it’s very close to the Fjord, the water. When I moved here, I noticed everyone is surfing here. So, I’ve started surfing, I started on a stand-up paddle board, just to get a bit more action. I really like to use a lot of my spare time on the water, it’s an amazing feeling to catch the waves.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s on the horizon for anything related to Silvera or other musical activities over the next twelve months or so?
Krogh: At the moment we are trying to get a spring tour going. Hopefully we will see some more shows, we want to play a lot. Maybe get out to Germany, other parts of Scandinavia, the USA, who knows. We just want to get some more shows under our belt. We haven’t started the next album. I know it’s taken four years; it was 2021 we went in the studio with Jacob. Then we waited for me to get the vocal time, so we went with Martin, and that’s why a lot of time passed. The record label also had a schedule. I think now, if we call Jacob, we’ll get five days and we can do the drums and guitars with him, and the vocals again with Martin. We have all the guys, and we know what to do now. It shouldn’t be four years until the next album.