Silent Civilian
Not So Silent
By: Carl Sundberg
Last updated May 20th , 2010

In 2004, Jonny Santos left the fame and the glory of his grammy-nominated band Spineshank to pursue a different direction with his musical endevours - something less industrial and something more thrashy. What he didn't realize was how difficult the road would be to get there. Starting virtually from scratch with his new musical vision, he started Silent Civilian. Immediately, it was riddled with lineup changes. Then the band was dropped from their label - Corporate Punishment Records - before they even released an album.
 
Silent Civilian finally released their debut album Rebirth of the Temple in 2006 through Mediaskare Records. This album was far more aggressive than anything Spineshank had released up until that point. Following a relentless touring cycle, Santos took some time off to recharge his batteries only to find himself battling his personal demons again, losing his house, his car and his girl, and traveling thousands of miles with his dog to a friend's front step for somewhere to live. He worked through his issues and now, is prepping the band's newest release.

Ghost Stories, the group's sophomore set which features new members Ryan Halpert on drums and Shaun Feiler on bass, who's been since replaced by Robbie Young, is even more thrashier and aggressive than Silent Civilian's debut. It will also tell the story of a man who's been through hell and back, more than once. 

101D.com: Let's talk about the new album, Ghost Stories. I'm guessing you're pretty stoked?

Johnny Santos: Yeah, I'm really, really happy with this record. I don't think any of us expected it to come out the way that it did. I couldn't be more excited for something right now. 

101D.com: Tell me what went into this album, in terms of your life and your emotions and the lyrics, the songwriting. What was going on for this album?

Johnny Santos: We started on the record about a year and a half ago, we had come off the last tour in 2007 and we were out with Kittie and It Dies Today, and when we came off that tour, we had been on the road for about 18 months. People were burnt out. We lost Chris [Mora], we lost Disco [Daylen], so I took a year off. It almost looked like it wasn't gonna happen at first, you know. I had rejoined Spineshank, and it looked like Silent Civilian was going to be a one-album thing. But somehow, you know, fans kept asking for it, the label was asking me what are you going to do with this, and I finally said, "Ok, let's do this." So we started the record, and it was really challenging. I went through a lot, especially toward the end. Half the record was scrapped and half was re-written, and I know it's really cliché, but I went through a serious life change. I went through a really bad breakup, I lost my house. I lost my car. I ended up having to move 1200 miles back home with my dog, showing up at my buddy's doorstep and was like, "Hey dude, can we crash here for awhile," you know? So I was pretty pissed off when we started tracking this record. A lot of things changed. We came into the studio with what Dave [Delacruz] and I had, and our new drummer joined the band literally ten days before we started tracking the record. So he brought a whole new element into it too. He had a totally different style and he wanted to try all this stuff out, and at first we were like, "You can't just come in here and chance shit," but then he was bringing all this new stuff into it and everything just got really exciting, really fast. I've never made a record so spontaneous and so sporadic. By the end of the day, when all was said and done, we were like, "Oh my God, we did this." It's definitely not the same record that Silent Civilian released four years ago. 

101D.com: What's interesting about your story so far is that it seems like you had to go through some shit to get to that next level. I mean, on the first Silent Civilian album, you kind of had to do the same thing, you know, going from Spineshank and all this glory to basically starting from scratch. It brings about an honesty in the music that can't be faked.

Johnny Santos: Yeah, when you stop to think about it, misery brings creativity and it's a shitty thing to have to go through to make really good music. And it's like, "Am I fucking cursed, do I have to make sure I'm absolutely miserable just to make a record good?" (Laughs) But I guess that's what makes life work for somebody like me. And I just know with the few songs that have leaked out and the fans have been able to hear, it's such an amazing, overwhelming response.

101D.com: In your words, what would you say is the difference between the first album and the new one?

Johnny Santos: There's a lot of differences, like the obvious ones, like on "Atonement," a lot of people will view that one as being, for lack of a better term, "commercial-friendly." But we didn't set out to write a radio song. We wrote a lot of songs for the record, and that one, we had absolutely no intention of it becoming a radio song. It was written in half a day. I sat down with the guitar one day, and I had that riff in my head and I laid down a vocal melody for it and I was like, "Whoa, that's pretty cool." I think when bands try to write radio songs, that's when they screw up. 

101D.com: Yeah, you can hear it too. You can hear the process of them saying, "This is what's going to be a hit on the radio, this is what the label's gonna push," and it just screws up.

Johnny Santos: Right. Plus add to that, we had shot a video for a completely different song, and then the label was into the other song, and we had to chuck the video for that song and start another video for this one. We were like, ok, whatever. It was not our intention. As far as the rest of the record, I think it's 10 times, 20 times heavier than the last record. The first record, I have no regrets. I still think it's great. But as far as this record's concerned, it's not as overproduced. The first record, we were very meticulous about all the little things here and there, making sure every stop is perfectly clean. We were almost in a pop mentality when it came to how clean the record was. Even though it was a heavy record, it had a really polished, really produced sound to it. When we went into this record, I was like, "Fuck the world," and we're not gonna do that. I want this record to be dirty, I want it to be raw and I want it to be dangerous. A lot of bands don't do that anymore. I think that's why it came out the way it did. Because we just didn't give a fuck. We didn't hire a producer. I produced the record. I just thank God that our label, Mediaskare, trusted us. 

101D.com: Last question, you got back together with Spineshank recently, what's the status on that front?

Johnny Santos: Actually, yesterday, we finished writing the new record. We've got half of it recorded. I called in yesterday, and was like, "Ok, let's finish this one song," and we have 32 songs right now for this fucking record. We spent the last two years writing, because with Silent Civilian and their other projects, we haven't been in too much of a hurry to finish this record because as of right now, we're pretty much free agents. We got out from under our deal with Roadrunner, and there's a couple of offers on the table, but we haven't been in too much of a rush. For a band like Spineshank to be gone for five years, we've got to come back with a really fucking good record. (Laughs)

101D.com: Well 32 songs is a good start.

Johnny Santos: Yeah, exactly. We wanted to make sure that when we do come back out of the gate, it was gonna be the best record ever. When people hear it, and I'm not trying to blow this out of proportion, but people are going to be in for a pleasant surprise. It doesn't sound anything like old Spineshank, but then again it doesn't sound anything like what's going on today.



Ghost Stories is in stores now!

[Tags] Metal, Rock

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