An Interview With The Silverteens on Their New EP, “TV on Fire”

The Silverteens, a Minneapolis-based garage/powerpop band, just released a four-song EP, TV on Fire. With their first release since November 2023, The Silverteens firmly establish their own unique sound —still rooted in garage and power pop — but reflecting a modern aesthetic, emphasizing strong harmonies that remain grounded by crunching/searing guitars and a hard-driving rhythm section.

STREAM “TV ON FIRE”

Interview Contributed to by Krista Vilinskis of Elephants and Flowers Media

An Interview With The Silverteens:

TV On Fire feels like a natural evolution from your 2023 debut while also introducing a more refined identity. What changed creatively for the band over the past few years, and what do you think this EP says about who The Silverteens are today?

Jerry: As the band decided to focus on original music, a lot more original music followed. Steve got incredibly inspired and wrote, and is writing, a lot of excellent songs. I feel the EP shows a band feeling more confident, a bit more serious but still wanting people to have fun and dance as much as when we mostly did cover songs.

Mark: We’ve been around since 2011, doing almost exclusively obscure covers from 1960s garage rock to 1970s punk and power pop — songs we loved when we were real teenagers. It kind of ran its course. We all were in bands in the 1980s that focused on original music and most of our friends’ bands today perform mostly originals. But it kind of came to a head when Terry joined us on guitar in 2021: He challenged us to focus more on originals. Steve, more than anyone, took that to heart.

Your music draws from garage rock and power pop, but it never feels like a nostalgia exercise. How do you honor the spirit of those genres while making music that feels relevant in 2026?

Jerry: I feel it’s like taking not just garage rock and power pop, but all the types of music we grew up with, and all the great new music out there and just let the ideas flow. It feels a lot different to me than when we were teenagers or in our twenties. Hopefully that outlook helps make the music feel relevant now.

Steve: I don’t think we purposely try to stay relevant. We have so much musical history between us to draw from. I think we capture the energy of those genres in our music and performances.

Mark: We love those eras of music — it drives us — but we are living and performing in the now and we’ve never had a desire to replicate a specific sound or play a cover note-by-note perfectly. It’s all about interpretation and our own emotions.

Steve, your songwriting anchors this EP, touching on friendship, relationships, and the constant pull of modern technology. Were these songs connected by a common thread as you were writing them, or did that reveal itself only after they came together?

Steve: I didn’t start out writing them with a concept in mind. It just kind of came together. When I write I just let it flow. It usually happens quickly. It can start with a chord progression, a melody, feeling or a phrase and I run with it.

The title track suggests that sometimes the healthiest response to a hyperconnected world is simply to unplug. What inspired that message, and has your own relationship with technology changed over time?

Steve: I wrote that song a few days after getting back from a north woods camping trip. It’s a good thing to disconnect for a while. Technology can overwhelm you. Let a campfire be your tv or phone screen. Go “build yourself a fire” in the lyric doesn’t have to be taken literally, can be a call to get up and accomplish something without the use of technology. Technology, AI advancement isn’t going away. You have to find a way to strike a balance.

Every member brings decades of experience from some of Minneapolis’ most influential bands and venues. How have those experiences shaped the way you work together today, and what have you learned about making music that you couldn’t have known when you first started?

Jerry: To not be tuning, or playing drum fills when someone is saying something on stage or in practice. And learning to downsize, very helpful. And as Bill Batson said so well when he did sound at the Entry “Get your shit off the stage”. A very wise man.

Mark: I’ve never been in a band that takes itself too seriously. It’s always been about having fun. Yet — even though we didn’t take it seriously — when we were younger, there was always some level of drama. At our age, we’ve kept the fun and removed the drama. We all get along really well. Speaking for myself, I never expected that I’d be performing in a rock band when I was 30 or 40 — or pushing 70. But here I am.

Rather than choosing a familiar classic, you recorded “Cupidation, ” an obscure 1966 garage-rock gem with a remarkable backstory. What drew you to that song, and what makes an overlooked piece of music worth bringing back to life?

Jerry: We are always looking for obscure, cool cover songs, especially when we started out. Steve’s cousin, David Moe – our previous bass player – brought the song. It’s an awesome one – we’ve been playing it for a long time. And doing those backing vocals were way, way fun.

Mark: We didn’t really uncover the backstory until recently. We’ve always loved performing this song live. In the studio, Paul isolated Jerry and Steve’s background vocals and it sounded like a Gregorian Chant. We were vaguely aware of The Bumpers and that they performed the song for a 1966 Stewart Granger film in Italy. What we didn’t know until then was that they performed at a Rock Beat Mass — which was loved by young Italians at the time. Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church was not a fan and they excommunicated the band. Sometime later the order was rescinded.

Mark, your work documenting Jay’s Longhorn preserved an important chapter of Minneapolis music history. Has spending so much time reflecting on that era changed the way you think about your own place in the city’s musical legacy?

Mark: I was in awe of all of the Longhorn bands and musicians so it was thrilling to be able to interview them more than 40 years later. Terry, our guitar player, recently said that you took for granted that era would never end. Of course, it did at some point. I’m not taking away anything from today’s Minnesota music scene because it’s great, has grown tremendously, and is so much more rich and diverse. But the Longhorn will always be a special place for me and for many others. We were all young, the music was new and fresh, it was the only venue in town for local original alternative music, and it was just a fun, fun time. To be honest, I have never thought about my own legacy. I’m just thankful I’m still able to perform live rock and roll music.

The harmonies, guitars, and rhythm section all feel carefully balanced on this EP—it’s melodic without losing its edge. Was there a conscious conversation about defining The Silverteens’ signature sound, or did it emerge naturally during the recording process?

Jerry: I felt it emerged naturally, we love doing harmonies and I think we all wanted to do as many harmonies on songs that felt right. As a drummer, my problem is being able to sing those parts in the studio while not playing. It’s a totally different singing experience and takes a while to get used to and find the notes again. And guitar wise, I think we all wanted Terry to do everything he would like on guitar. He’s really, really creative.

Mark: When Terry joined the band, the background vocals became more of a focus for the band. Jerry and Steve are just stellar live and we wanted to recreate that during the recording sessions. When we played at the White Squirrel, a bar in St. Paul, someone — referring to our background vocals — told Steve that we were the Eagles of garage rock. I took that as a compliment.

Steve: The Silverteens sound has been evolving over time emphasizing vocals and melody. It still has to rock and it does. We’re all on the same page as far as that goes. We’ve definitely slowed the tempos down a bit from the earlier days.

You’ve all spent years interpreting other artists through your eclectic live sets, but the focus has increasingly shifted toward original music. What has writing and recording your own material given you that playing covers never could?

Jerry: It feels really good and satisfying when someone comes up after a show and says how great the songs were, or pick out a few by name that they really liked. You don’t get the same feeling no matter how well you can play a cover.

Steve: The process of writing the song, bringing it to the group and having them interpret it is exciting and fun. When multitracking in the recording studio it’s very satisfying to have the guys bring in ideas to try or come up with something on the fly that works out on the track.

If someone discovers the Silverteens through TV On Fire, what do you hope they hear beyond the songs themselves? What do you hope they understand about the band after those four tracks end?

Mark: To me, I hope they hear and understand that people in their 60s can rock out with the best of them. And I hope that they check out our 2023 LP and look forward to our full length CD that comes out this fall. If they are local, come to our shows! We do this out of love, but it’s always great to have a supportive crowd.

=======

STREAM “TV ON FIRE”

SOCIAL MEDIA:
Facebook: facebook.com/TheSilverteens/
Instagram: instagram.com/thesilverteens/
Bandcamp: https://thesilverteens.bandcamp.com/music
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/1J6hPXYpUZy2cc94TPqIeL
Website: thesilverteens.com