We Chat To Silent Confidant Ahead Of Their 'A Night With Silent' Day Festival At The Angel Microbrewery

So, tell us about your new EP, Dusk?
Well, this is the first EP we’ve released after coming back with the new line up. We went into this realising we had a lot more material than an EPs worth and not all of it really made coherent sense for one release. So what Dusk is actually the first half of the full project were calling Dusk till Dawn. Dusk is the stuff that wouldn’t necessarily be what those who’ve been with us with the previous line ups would expect, for this half we’ve toned down the heaviness and focused more on the song writing aspects, essentially trying to write things that tickled our brains. Then the idea for the second half dawn will be the heavier stuff that we think people will expect, things along the lines of Toxic and Kill the Problem.

What would you say to attract new fans to your band?
I would probably say start listening to us now so in a few years you can tell your mates you knew of us before we were famous! On a real note, though, I’d probably say that we have a bit of something for everyone. We have the heavy pounding riff stuff for the rock crowd and the metalheads, we have the happier, upbeat pop-punk stuff for the nostalgia element, and we even have a lot of shoegaze-y stuff that’s very almost ready to be put out.

What can people expect from your shows?
Pure unadulterated aggression. We love a mosh pit, we make a point of getting a wall of death going almost every show. We like to have a party, don’t get me wrong, but I see getting onstage as a release of catharsis, we don’t stop moving… which is probably why most gig photographers hate us. Oh, and a little game show, I guess? I won’t divulge any more than that though…

Why the idea of a festival and why The Angel Microbrewery as the venue?
Well, the festival side was actually a complete accident. We first started the booking just looking to do a three to four act gig but when we got the pay sheets through we saw the option to hire the venue for the day and we basically thought why not, we didn’t get up to much during festival season so why not cut out the middle man and put in on ourselves and use it to showcase a few local and underground acts. We approach the ‘A Night With Silent’ thing as a variety show to try and blend the scenes. Even if we weren’t doing this as a festival we would still be (and probably will in the future) putting it on as a shorter variety show. As for why The Angel, I have wanted to play a gig there again for a while, it’s always a good bit of fun and its where I first played live with Silent back in 2021 with our first line up when we were a duo.

Which other bands are playing and what can we expect from them?
As we mentioned before, it’s a variety show so we have a mix of rock/metal bands and rappers playing, the way we approached it was we wanted to see these acts anyway, so we figured it’d be a hell of a lot more fun to play with them.

We have Yung Capz on first, a rapper from Nottingham. He’s friend of our bassist Ash and honestly, he’s just a vibe to listen to. Next, we have Dved coming up from Leicester with his guest act Klaude. He’s again a rapper. This is his first gig so were really excited to see him! After that we have Bonestrider, a stoner metal band from Nottingham. Again, this is their first gig, and they may not have anything out yet, but I’ve been helping them record some stuff and I’d be amiss to say I’m not blown away by them.

Following them up we have dead*9 coming down from Manchester and he’s also bringing another member of Fifth Wall with him, Alienvert. Again, just expect some angry Memphis rap from him. We have Hound Master on after that, they’re an alt-rock/post punk band from Nottingham, we booked them because we just genuinely enjoy their stuff and they’re cracking live. After that we have Kurrii who is another rapper from Nottingham, who I honestly think is going to slap the audience in the face with his blend of hyperpop and rap. The second to last band we have on is Head Cloud, a grunge-gaze act from Nottingham. It would feel wrong not having some massive shoegaze-y elements in the night, so we brought in these guys as they will fill that vibe perfectly.

Nearing the end of the night we have our co-headliners Monzioh and Klegz, these are a couple of good friends of the band, and they bring the party. We played with them at the beginning of summer in Nottingham, and if you want angry party rap with some chill vibes too, you’re not going to want to miss them. Then finally to end the night we have us. Now you may say we are being narcissistic by putting a festival on and headlining it as a band of our size, to that I say, we are. We are also taking advantage of our set ending at midnight and were using it as a release party for Dusk which will be dropping at midnight.

What is one thing you would say to convince people to come?
Honestly, if you want to truly support your local scene and underground artists from your area, you should come. We want to keep on doing shows like this to support the underground and we want to do it bigger and better for everyone who comes to watch. We want to put on the best show we can for you guys and the only way for that to evolve is to come out and show support. Other than that, I’d say it’s just going to be a cracking night and we want this to be a party, and what’s a party without a crowd?

What does the future hold for the band?
Honestly for things to get bigger and better, we have no intention of stopping and would love to see ‘A Night with Silent’ to become a proper festival. Other than that is expansion I suppose, we are looking at gigging across the UK effectively. All we know is we want to entertain whoever and wherever we can.

Silent Confidant's 'A Night With Silent' takes place at The Angel Microbrewery on 22 September 2023. You can buy tickets here.

@silentconfidant