Interview: Kenny Hickey
Silvertomb just released their debut album, Edge of Existence, this month via Long Branch Records. With Type O Negative’s Kenny Hickey and Johnny Kelly at the helm, the band evolved from Seventh Void and took on a new life with a slew of new songs and sounds, and the addition of three new band members with Joseph James (Agnostic Front, Inhuman), Hank Hell (Inhuman), and Aaron Joos (Awaken The Shadow). I recently had the chance to speak with Kenny about the making of the new Silvertomb album, including the ideas that went into some of the tracks, the personal touch of his life that he shows through his music, his love of Elvis, the interesting story behind the album artwork, and more.
Silvertomb, of course that’s the latest news with you, Kenny, Edge of Existence just came out the other day, highly anticipated with some great singles over the past few months. Can you start off by talking about how you’re feeling now that the record is officially out?
Like I gave to a child sideways. It’s been a long time coming, the inception of it was probably about 5 years ago, coming up with songs for it and stuff, and it developed into what it wanted to be. Then, of course, after we finished the whole recording process, which is the end of the whole mountain to climb, getting the right sound, performances, tones. And then after that, we had to obviously shop it to the record industry and get a deal, ended up with Long Branch Records. So it’s been a long uphill battle, and it does feel relieving that it’s out now. The responses have been really good, good reviews, so I’m excited about it.
An uphill climb but with some great results, and hopefully worth it in the end, right?
You know what it is, if it’s worth it or not, it doesn’t matter, I’ve got to do it anyway – I’m a musician, that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. I’m going to keep putting music out, that’s what I do.
Well, there’s some really cool stuff going on with the Edge of Existence record, and “Love You Without No Lies” was the first official single, and when I first heard that dissonant piano opening, I felt it set the entire mood for what we’re in for with the album, ominous but also sets a groove right away, then kicks in with the entire doom-y sound of Silvertomb. Can you talk about this one?
It’s a love song to my wife, of course. She’s inspired many, many songs in me. I think it poses a question of, is love possible without lies? Without little white lies and if we were completely 100% honest and truthful to each other, could we still be loved and could we still…“get it on”, ya know? So I guess in a way it was a call out of hope to say, “yes, love is possible without lies”.
A positive message coming through among a doom-y ominous sound, I like that.
Hey, what’s more scary than sex? Nothin’! *laughs* I mean, I got two kids out of it, a house, a mortgage, and a 31-year-long relationship, it’s been up and down, but I’m still in love with her.
*laughs* Aw, that’s awesome. So another track I wanted to ask you about, “Insomnia”, I believe that was the first track we ever heard from Silvertomb, when you guys first formed the band. What I’m curious about is, has that song changed or evolved for you in any way, going from “Okay, this is the first taste of Silvertomb”, versus now in the context of the full album?
Yeah, we released that kind of in a rush. 2018, Life of Agony asked us to come out and support them on an East Coast tour and we had just finished basic tracks in, like, August 2018, and the tour was starting in September. So we wanted to get at least one song out there – nobody had heard anything professionally recorded from us, but we did some shows here and there. So we kind of crushed that down in a big rush and mixed and mastered it in a rush just to get the song out there. After that, the tour was really great for us and there was a great response to the song. But we still had a lot of tracks to do, I still had to lay down vocals, we still had to do guitar leads, overdubs, so that took the better part of the last of 2018 to get all that done. Then it went into mastering January 2019, then we went to a whole process of trying to find a home for the record, and that took another four months. That’s why the whole gap of releasing a single a year ago, and now the record’s coming out a year later, because it took all that time to put all that into place. I think that with this record, releasing singles in itself is kind of counterproductive artistically for it, because really, the record flows with one song, one experience into the other. And I think that it loses something when you pull a song out of context like that. But I think the songs we were released were a good choice, “Love You Without No Lies” was the next one, and probably the most obvious single, then the record label decided on releasing “Waiting”, which is an acoustic rock and roll song. And then “Rite of Passage”, three songs that are totally different from each other, and I was kind of proud of that. I did notice that obviously, everyone’s hammered into each genre and style of music, especially nowadays with algorithmic programming of playlists, all that stuff where you’ve got to be boxed into a genre. So it is kind of problematic if you release something that breaks out of your genre, which I thought “Waiting” is definitely not something that you would expect from us. Look – I’m going up against the grain here. The music industry in general stands to expect me to do like, Type O Negative part two, which is just not what we’re doing. So it’s been challenging, and I think rewarding too, at the same time. I’m just crossing my fingers and going with it, seeing where it takes me.
I definitely understand what you’re saying about the challenges, because there’s certainly a fanbase for a band like Type O Negative, who sees the members of Type O going on and doing something different and thinks, “Okay, so we get more Type O now”.
Right, right.
From my personal perspective interviewing artists who have been in classic bands, who do newer work, I always love to hear the newer stuff, I love to hear where the artists are going next, and I think that there is a bigger audience for that out there than a lot of people realize. That a lot of fans are genuinely interested in the artist and what you’re doing, something like the track “Waiting”, for instance, you said it’s acoustic rock and roll, nothing like Type O, but it’s still something really cool and getting great reviews.
I think that if it has some power and it’s strong, then it should be allowed the chance to get out there, make an impact and do something. I think my experience with releasing these last three songs, is that the algorithm is also limiting in a way because if you want to break out and do something crossover and fusion – the computer ain’t gonna get it. I’m not saying that I want to break out into something completely different that’s not rock and roll, not metal, but I do have a need to take my music to some other level, something further, and push back. I’ve been playing metal for 30 years…I went to Slayer at the Garden the other night and geez, there was a lot of old people there! It’s very interesting to see my generation reaching middle age…20 years from now, they’ll still be going to shows with a cane going “SLAYER!”
They will be, absolutely! And Slayer will do their final, final, Final, leg of the tour by that point, right?
Yeah, they do a “Final” tour every time they need money! *laughs*
*laughs* I do get what you’re saying though, about the genres, and while algorithms and playlists can help in a way, by exposing your songs to the people who would be interested, I see why you say it can also be limiting because it can put you in a box of a genre of what you’re creating.
Which is always done, it’s done in Hollywood, it’s done in the music industry. I get it, there are entire careers of people in the industry whose lives depend on trying to sell music to demographics of people and stuff. They have to try to refine it and focus it, to sell it the best they can. But at the same time, yeah, it does put people in a box…I’ve gotta get out of this box! I want to play Elvis! All I want to do is play Elvis covers! The hell with metal! *laughs*
Well, how do I know you don’t already lead a double life as an Elvis impersonator?
Oh, I impersonate Elvis every day in my garage along with my acoustic, you know. That’s what I do, I drink beer, play rock and roll songs, and that’s when I’m happiest is when I’m playing music just for the sweetness of it, you know?
That’s what’s important not to lose, for a lot of musicians, some get burned out, some get stuck in doing it because they don’t know anything else, but that right there is the important part to hold onto,
Yeah, that’s how it started, that’s what it was originally about. It was about enjoying, and serenading yourself. But, in the same breath, how long can I go on playing music to myself in my garage?
It’s the balance, that’s what it comes down to. You want to have the enjoyment of it, but of course, you’ve got to make a career out of it too.
Absolutely, and there’s nothing deeper and more satisfying than performing live to an audience. That electric feeling, when it’s going great, it’s the greatest thing in the world. So, I really can’t wait to get out there on the road with this and perform.
Is that on the horizon for the near future?
Absolutely, we have one of our first headlining shows at St. Vitus on December 21st of this year, and after that, in the early spring of 2020, we’re going to go out and start with North America.
I’m glad to hear you’re already lining stuff up. Now, before I let you go, I want to ask you a little more about the album, because writing the album, I imagine, was kind of a collaboration for you all, but from what I understand, it seems to be a very personal album for you specifically, right?
It turned into that, yeah, as the writing progressed. So I guess I get a little depressed sometimes – I mean, I deal with depression and anxiety all the time – and I guess having a few beers, coming up with music, and then writing lyrics, and as the stuff developed on, man, I found myself speaking more and more about what went down with Peter in Type O, and how everything hit the wall. I was also having some personal problems too, at home. So I just kind of went with it. You could consider it a confessional album.
That’s cool you’re not afraid to let that personal element out and express it in that way.
Oh, it is scary. It is terrifying, but I don’t think I revealed anything extraordinary in the lyrics. I think people…everybody’s got problems, you know? Got problems in their family, they got issues, I mean, maybe they’re not spewing them publicly like I am, but I know they’re there. You can’t hide it from me, because I know everybody’s got problems, you know? So my hope is that maybe I can connect with some of them through the subject matter of the record, you know? Maybe they can identify with it, some of it, part of it.
Absolutely, I think people already have, hearing it now that the full album’s out. Like you said, everybody’s got problems, whatever they may form themselves as in everybody’s lives, there’s always something. So that’s a big part of the connection when it comes to music, if you put it out there, they’re going to find something to connect with.
That’s the ultimate goal for me. Look, I’ve been through it all, I don’t care about fast cars and women and more, any of that shit. Been married for 30 years, I don’t want to be this hotshot rock star or some shit like that. I just want to continue using music as a medium to reach out to people, that’s really what I want to do. That’s my ultimate goal.
And that’s awesome, so keep on doing it. On another note, an interesting fact I actually read about this album, that you yourself posed for the basis of the album artwork, can you talk a little about that?
Yeah, I did. The original idea, Joe James, my guitar player, just like a lot of the flavors on the record are like 70’s classic rock, he was like, why don’t we do a 70’s van art theme for the record? I think I took it one step further because when I was a kid, 10, 11, 12, we used to cut out from school and go to my friend Tommy Fitz’s house in Brooklyn, in the garage behind his house was an old Sabrett hot dog wagon and there was black light posters all around, we used to burn incense, and smoke pot and crank Black Sabbath and Zeppelin all day, so I really wanted to catch that vibe. Take it beyond the van art and get to this black light super sci-fi 70’s vibe, so that imagery came up, and we needed a central figure. The pose is obviously taken from some famous artwork of the ascension of Christ that was done throughout the middle ages and underneath him should be all the apostles as he’s rising up to heaven, but we kind of struck them out and put a whole 70’s sci-fi theme in there. And Joe got his friend, who’s a tattoo artist, Rodrigo Canteras is his name, to do the central skeletal figure, and I remember Joe texted me going, “Well, what do you want him to do? How do you want him to pose?” And at that time, I had been hit by a vehicle last year, and my shoulder got really screwed up, I smashed my face in. And at the time we were coming up with the album art, I had just gotten out of this really complex shoulder surgery, so I couldn’t really lift my left hand. And I just stood in the middle of my living room and told my wife, “Take a picture of me, this is the way I want Christ posing”, and you can even see it in the picture, my left hand, I couldn’t spread it out because I was still recovering from shoulder surgery. So she took a picture of me and I sent it to Rodrigo, and I thought he was going to use it as inspiration, but he ended up just making the skeletal figure right over my pose of my body. So that’s how it ended up, I’m really proud of the album art, I love the way it came out.
Yeah, I guess out of that really bad situation came…some pretty cool stuff actually! It sucks you had to go through a car accident just to get cool album art, man, but you know…*laughs*
*laughs* I got a few good songs out of it too! That are going to be on the next record. Wherever I can get the inspiration, man, if I’ve got to throw myself in front of a bus, fine.
Sacrificing for the music. Now, some are wondering, did Seventh Void evolve into Silvertomb, or…?
Yeah, it did. When Seventh Void, well, it really dissolved. I put music to bed for a couple of years after Peter passed, last time I toured with Seventh Void was 2011. And I just got kind of sick of the whole thing, I was trying to reevaluate my life and say, what am I doing? I’m tired of waking up in a bus with no air conditioning and my boots on in the morning playing a local dive, you know? I was trying to, I guess, shake it, move on and try to reinvent myself in some other way beyond music. It didn’t work out. I ended up, a few years later, coming up with song ideas, and dying to play again. That’s when we brought Joe James into the band, a great guitar player, and I had a few songs written, “Point of View”, “Love You Without No Lies” is a Seventh Void song, like that whole intro with the piano was originally a guitar riff. And once we had put keyboards into the band and this whole other spectrum of instruments, I kind of retrofitted it and came up with that piano intro. So, it started with a few songs, and the real turning point was in the writing for “Right of Passage/Crossing Over”. Where the whole chorus breaks out into this whole orchestration, at the time, I heard all this stuff, and it’s like, why don’t we just go for it, you know? At the time, we didn’t have a keyboard player, and it came out really really good, and suddenly, we found ourselves in need of a keyboard player, somebody who could pull off all this stuff live, make it happen. So when Aaron Joos came into the band, he took it even further with his string and organ sounds, that are throughout the record now. So at that point, two new members, music that was way different than anything Seventh Void would have done. Seventh Void was supposed to be a really simple rock band, a heavy classic rock approach, in counterpoint to Type O, which was a very complex band. And now, we found ourselves reversed, turning this into something more complex with more musical depth and tone to it. So that’s when we ended up scrapping Seventh Void and renaming the whole thing and moving on as a new entity.
And you mentioned having songs already projecting toward the next album now, so you’re already looking toward the future with that as well?
Already got 30 minutes of the next record written, it’s unbelievable. It’s this stuff taken beyond, to the next level, so it’s a totally different sound, you’re going to feel very little remnants of Seventh Void left in it, and I mean, obviously, it’s going to be dark. I don’t know why, but every time I sit down and write something, it comes out dark. I have yet to write a happy song. Yeah, I’m very excited about the next stuff. I mean, any artist you talk to is ready to move on to the next stuff, and this stuff for Edge of Existence was written 4-5 years ago at this point. So I just can’t wait to get the next record out.
That’s awesome, I’m looking forward to it, and with 30 minutes already written, it might not be that far in the future that we hear more from Silvertomb. Loving what I’m hearing so far, and plenty of others are too. It’s been really cool talking with you, Kenny, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me.
Cool, thank you.
Keep up with Silvertomb via: https://www.facebook.com/silvertombmusic/.
