After a 17-year career, Canada’s Silverstein are far from slowing down. Their ninth album 'Dead Reflection' was released on Friday, and it does not disappoint. Whilst on the Vans Warped Tour, lead guitarist Paul Marc Rousseau spoke to GoldenPlec about how they're changing with the times, his role as co-producer for the album and how social media can create a "profound sadness".

Having been on Warped Tour several times previously, it’s nearly become routine to the band. “The best part about it for me is the community of it,” Rousseau explains. “We get to spend a lot of time with close friends, a lot of time, just the way the setup is, is designed to make those situations work. Every day we park next to so many of our friends and you get to float around and do your own thing. I love that, I don’t like the heat and the bugs.”

This interview took place a few days before the release of ‘Dead Reflection’, and anticipation was at a high. “We’re so excited,” Rousseau says, explaining how they’ve updated their release schedule this time around. “For the first time ever, we’ve released a ton of tracks before the album comes out. It’s been neat to gauge response as it goes and see the snowball build.” This decision was both as a way to get fans excited as the band were on tour but also, Silverstein are keeping up with the ever-changing industry. “We’re also trying to change our release model to reflect the way people listen to music now. People aren’t just waiting for the record, and it leaks and there’s this whole thing – it’s like, you’re going to stream it so why don’t we just give you some stuff now. We’re excited and we want you to be excited.”

On the note of this changing tide, Rousseau explains that it’s bittersweet, “I’m conflicted – I think it’s great but the tough part is, and this seems to be an ongoing trend throughout the world is, the way things are done is changing but the payment [isn’t]. Like, a house costs a million dollars but when your parents bought it, it cost 50 grand but minimum wage has only gone up two pounds. No one is making money off album sales but it’s not like guarantees for shows has gotten higher so people are trying to find alternative ways to make money because we need to earn money to do this – it’s not cheap to tour, it costs thousands of dollars a day to keep a band on the road. That’s one thing that I think streaming kills a little bit. The streaming payout model isn’t really fair but I mean, everyone is in the same boat, really. Everyone is trying to find a way, and we’ll find a way!”

Even though Silverstein have been around since 2000, it’s clear that they’re still changing things up – not only did they lead up to the release differently, the recording process also took a new turn. “The process was a lot different this time,” Rousseau explains. “For starters, I co-produced the album so that was a big change, we worked with a different producer than we did for the last three.” This producer being Derek Hoffman, “He and I worked together, he’s way more hands on, he’s super musical, his focus is less not the technical side, more on the vibe. He just wants to make things feel right. I really enjoyed… trying to craft the vibe through every song and pepper in the things that we wanted… We normally see things comes together really late in the game, this time it was like a month before we even started tracking vocals for real.” The role of co-producer was never decided, it just happened naturally. “It was actually after the fact that we realised that I had actually done it. I wasn’t supposed to – it was just the way I ended up making tons of the pre-production demos and I was the one sitting there day in day out, auditing everyone’s performances and looking for the vibe.” Rousseau explains how Hoffman offered him the title after the album was done, saying that he deserved it. “It was really kind of him to give that, it wasn’t part of the deal, he’s really cool.”

‘Dead Reflection’ is Silverstein’s second release on Rise Records, Rousseau explains that label has a reputation that is unwarranted, in his opinion, and the transition has been pretty seamless. “We’re veterans,” he laughs.  “We’ve gone through it so many times and they know that, it’s all been really smooth. I don’t know if you’re aware of the reputation that Rise has, people seem to be under the impression that Rise controls their bands and that has not been our experience at all – they didn’t even ask to hear demos. We just delivered the record and they went ‘sounds great’. It’s funny, if you read the comments on YouTube – especially as soon as we signed to rise it’s like, ‘pfft, Rise made them just another Rise band’ and it’s like… we do not communicate with Rise about creative decisions at all so it’s we really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Speaking of the changes in the industry as a whole, such as the need for social media, Rousseau argues that it’s just a reflection of society, “We’ve created a culture of people who need validation all the time and so I think as much as I’m able to criticize it, I’m not immune to it. I definitely feel validated when I read comments that are positive. This is another cancerous thing about social media is that when someone disagrees with me I’m just like ‘oh fuck you’ but that’s also maybe bad –  maybe I should take some of those criticisms to heart but I don’t. And nobody does, right, you follow people you agree with and you ignore the people you don’t. That’s bad for the world I think, we need more civil disagreement and to see the opinions of people we disagree with.”

Even though the group are Canadian, no one can escape the current political climate, “Right after Trump was elected, I was like, I gotta see how the other half lives and I followed a bunch of alt-right people on Twitter and it was the most exhausting thing, it actually ruined my life, I only lasted like three weeks and I wasn’t even engaging with it, I was just reading it, and I was like ‘oh my god, how are you people doing this?’ It makes me angry and sad, it’s a really profound sadness when I read this stuff, and it sucks because I wanna understand but I just can’t.”

Onto a slightly lighter note – Silverstein have now released ‘Dead Reflection’ and it lives up to the hype. The band are set to continue touring on the back of this for the foreseeable future. Excited to play new material and continue to reach a new audience, the band’s release caters to old school fans but shows an evolution and growth that keeps in interesting.