nless you’ve lived in a cave for the past several months then you’ve definitely seen Hands in every magazine out there. One of Facedown’s most recent acquisitions, this North Dakota five piece is quickly making waves. Their debut Creator is a uniquely challenging collection of hardcore. Drummer Josh Silbernagel graciously filled us in on all things Hands just days after returning from his honeymoon. What a champ.
You guys are from Fargo North Dakota, and were signed within a year and a half of starting this band, what factors and bands would you say have been vital to your success so far?
Josh Silbernagel: Yes… Fargo! I think that any success we have had can be attributed to the fact that we come from a place that is so cold, so desolate, so… brutally epic that when people hear the name of that place coupled with a band whose sound is described as “ambient/hardcore” they are overcome by an irresistible desire to see what this strange combination is all about. Ummm… in all seriousness I think we have just worked hard to write music that is interesting and creative and have been willing to get out on the road to let people experience it.
Most people don’t think of North Dakota as a breeding ground for this type of music. What is the scene like there?
“The scene has really grown up a lot too. I can remember 10 years ago when Shane and I started our first band, a rap-rock band called Silent Frequency (I’m not ashamed to admit it!), and there were no touring bands in our entire state.”
JS: The scene in North Dakota is interesting. It’s not huge but there is a lot of really cool music happening right now… considering the fact that our entire state has a population of less than 500,000 people. The scene has really grown up a lot too. I can remember 10 years ago when Shane and I started our first band, a rap-rock band called Silent Frequency (I’m not ashamed to admit it!), and there were no touring bands in our entire state. It was a big deal to have a show that was outside of your home town. Now there are several bands from Fargo who are out touring nationally (Battlefields, The Suit, These Hearts, Gumbi, Ghost Hand Punch, Host). It’s also been cool to see the scene diversify musically. Not only has hardcore and post rock really taken off around here, but we’ve also seen the development of indie and rap communities in town as well.
I have been seeing you guys everywhere these past few months. Tell us a bit about the journey that Hands has been on these past six months or so?
JS: Oh man, where to start. Well in the past six months we have been touring all over the place! We did a couple of regional headlining runs. We did a west coast run with The Showdown for a few weeks. We had the opportunity to join Demon Hunter, Living Sacrifice, and Throwdown as a part of the Huntour. We played several awesome fests this summer including Cornerstone, Life Fest, Sonshine Festival, and Tomfest. Oh… and then we also got to make a quick run over to Germany where we got to play a festival called Freakstock! Somewhere in the middle of all the touring we released our new album Creator which we are really stoked about too! Then about a month ago Shane moved to Missouri and I got married. I guess you could say we’ve been kind of busy!!!
Walk us through your decision to sign with Facedown Records?
JS: The process of signing with Facedown was kind of interesting. When we started our band a couple of years ago we really didn’t have any ambitions as far as “making it” was concerned. We just wanted to write good music and have fun playing together. That being said we are all kind of work-a-holics when it comes to music and so things just kind of naturally progressed to the point where we were playing lot’s of shows and opportunities were opening up for us.
We decided to record an EP called The Everlasting just to get some of our early material down and so that we would have something that our fans could listen to. While we were in the studio recording that album we wound up getting a one-off deal offered to us by Oort Records (formerly Lobster Records), so with nothing else really on the table we signed with them. Before writing began for the Lobster album we had a summer tour planned and while on that tour we started talking to Facedown because we had been brought to their attention through a bunch of their bands that we had been playing with (Means, For Today, A Plea For Purging) and they offered us a deal as well.
We decided to sign with them for the record following our Lobster release then went home to write and record what became our concept album The Sounds Of Earth. We did one more tour then started writing for Creator which we recorded after finishing a tour with War Of Ages and Hope For The Dying out to Facedown Fest this past spring.
Sorry… I’ve never really been what you’d call “succinct”.
For those of us who have yet to see you live, describe your show and what you want kids to take away from it?
JS: I’ve said in the past that Hands is all about combining chaos and beauty. I think that really describes our live show appropriately. We are very passionate about the music that we play and it seems to really translate live. We rock hard. We don’t tend to have huge pits full of moshers and dancers at our shows though because our music isn’t just breakdown after breakdown, and sometimes it takes kids a while to “get” what we are doing. But overall we’ve had an incredibly positive response. We hope that anybody who comes to one of our shows is able to draw inspiration, energy, life, hope and renewal from what we present up on stage.
The first band I thought of when I first heard you guys was Life In Your Way. Were they big influences on you guys?
JS: I think early on Life In Your Way was a really influential band for us. Shane is our primary writer and he was into big them at the beginning of our band. We’ve kind of moved out of that territory as we’ve allowed more of a post-rock/ambient vibe settle into our sound, especially on The Sounds Of Earth. But yeah, Life In Your Way was definitely an early influence. Too bad we never got to tour with them… bummer.
Whats behind the name Hands?
JS: Shane came up with the name Hands. He kind of threw it out there one day at practice while the band was still in a formative stage. We all felt like there was something special about it. It was different. It wasn’t some super pretentious metal band name like “The Blood of the Immaculate Witness Within the Throne Room of the Skull Reaper of the Blasphemous Betrayer”. It was just short and simple and was really a word loaded with spiritual connotations; you could draw a lot of meanings from it. We just left it at that with no pre-determined explanation. I guess the real question is “What to YOU is behind the name Hands”.
Where will we be seeing you guys in the next few months?
JS: We’ve kind of been taking it slow over the past month or so due to my marriage and Shane’s big move but we will be hitting the road again shortly. We are headlining a festival in Canada this weekend and will be playing several home region dates shortly there after. In November and December we will be out on another national tour that we will be announcing shortly… so make sure you are checking in at our Myspace site for those dates! Other than that, we are working on writing new material and have more touring for Spring planned! Hopefully we’ll be seeing you on the road sometime soon!
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