Featured Artist - Silver Trees

After watching one of my favorite artists, Landon Pigg on youtube, I had the pleasure of stumbling across "She" by Silver Trees.

Silver Trees combines the pure acoustic freshness and vocal smoothness of Landon Pigg's "Falling in love at a coffee shop" with the artsy sounds and engaging lyrics of Bon Iver.

I had to know more about this new group, so I convinced them to let me feature them on Indie Folk-Pop. 

Silver Trees is an indie-folk band from Nashville, TN, founded by Paul Johnson and Chase Coy in 2013. After working together on some independent projects, Paul (singer/songwriter) had some close-to-the-chest songs stored away that Chase (producer & singer/songwriter) caught wind of and had the idea to collaborate on what would eventually become the debut EP, “Paper Hearts."

Paul Johnson

Heather Renee:  I see from your bio that Paul is a singer/songwriter and Chase is a singer/songwriter and producer.  What types of projects did you release before your collaboration? How did you and Chase meet?  

Silver Trees:  Both of us have released solo albums, but what initially got Chase and I working together was when we met for a cowrite a couple years back.  I had heard Chase’s music before and decided to reach out to him to work together on a few things, which luckily worked out!  After that, I had Chase produce a demo for one of my songs, then he asked me to help him track and write for a song called “All We Are” by one of his side-projects ‘Speakeasier’. It wasn’t too long after that project that Chase proposed we do collaboration with some of my songs and his production.

Chase Coy

Heather Renee: Is Silver Trees a one-time collaboration?

Silver Trees: We both definitely want to continue to work together on Silver Trees music.  Chase will occasionally bring me in to write and do guitar work for some of the other artists he works with too, but I think the reception to the Paper Hearts EP so far has been really encouraging and will lead nicely into the next Silver Trees project.

Heather Renee: What instruments do you play?

Silver Trees:  I sing and play anything guitar, we brought in some Nashville friends for bass, keys and drums, and Chase does everything else.  A lot of the layers and interesting accents are all Chase.

Heather Renee:  How long have you each been involved in music?

Silver Trees:  I’ve been playing since I was 8 and writing since I was about 14.  Chase has actually had, and still has, a very successful career as a solo artist that started taking off when he was in high school.

Heather Renee: Does it run in the family for each of you?

Silver Trees:  I can’t speak for Chase, but in my family it absolutely does.  Both my parents were in a folk trio in college and taught my sister and I to sing and play music at a very early age.  For me it’s definitely a family tradition.  My parents, sister, cousins and grandfather are all great musicians.

Heather Renee:  How did you come up with the name Silver Trees?

Silver Trees: Chase actually came up with the name after hearing a folk-rock song he really loves that incorporates Silver Trees in the lyrics.  I loved it and jumped on board right away.

Heather Renee:  Your sound is so polished and radio ready, who does your engineering?

Silver Trees: Chase both produced and engineered the EP in his home studio.  It’s definitely been a blessing to work with such a talented guy in both fields.

Heather Renee:  I love your video for "She."  How did you find Electric Peak Creative?  Tell us about what it was like creating your video.

Silver Trees:  I’m really glad you like it!  Electric Peak Creative was started by a good friend of mine, Thomas Gentry, who I met in college at Belmont University and stayed close to over the years.  To this day he and the two other people in his team are the best video crew I know.  To shoot the video they went on location to all those places, I think it was Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, and California, which makes me really jealous.

Heather Renee:  Wow!  That is really cool.  I'm jealous too.  Do you perform to support your new EP?  If so, when, where, and how often.  (I want to know if you are coming  my way to Washington, DC :)

Silver Trees: We don’t have tour dates set yet, but that’s one of my highest priorities for this band.  I think we’ll have the opportunity to play out more in early 2014, but we’re still nailing down the details.

Heather Renee:  Which top three artists would you love to open for?

Silver Trees:  A few on top of our dream list are Dawes, Coldplay and Macklemore.  Even though I don’t think we’d fit in sonically with any of them haha. 

Heather Renee:  Well, I checked out Speakeasier and it reminds me a lot of Macklemore.  I am impressed by the diversity in your writing.  Macklemore is one of my all time favorites and I think you definitely have the potential to open up for him considering the diversity in your music.

Heather Renee: What is your genre and who are your musical influences?

Silver Trees:  We call ourselves indie-folk, but I think it’s a lot like “singer/songwriter” with more out-of-the box production.  For this record Bon Iver was a big influence, as was Lord Huron and William Fitzsimmons.

Heather Renee:  What is your measure of success?

Silver Trees:  For me being able to tour consistently and sustainably is a huge goal.  I love getting in front of people and sharing the music in the moment, and the opportunity to spend most of my time doing that would be incredible.

Heather Renee: Where do you see Silver Trees in the next 5 years?

Silver Trees:  It’s hard to say because the band is so new, but I see it growing personnel-wise beyond Chase and I and into more of a 4-5 person group.  I’d hope 5 years from now to have a few full length records under our belt, and a schedule full of writing and sharing this music with the groups of people that are excited about it.  I have a pretty simple equation: make the best music I can, share it with anyone that’ll listen, hope to pay rent.

Heather Renee:  What advice would you give to other singer/songwriters?

Silver Trees:  Focus on your unique strengths and voice in the writing process.  It’s really easy to look at our influences and wish we could sound like them, but if you tried to be them at best you can only be a 2^nd rate version of them.  Instead draw inspiration and lessons from those people and your peers and be the 1^st rate version of yourself.  That and write constantly.

Heather Renee: What do you feel is unique about Silver Trees and/or your Paper Hearts EP?

Silver Trees:   We'd like to think that one thing that makes us unique is that all the songs can be played on an acoustic guitar in a living room and still sound right, yet we take a very intentional and out-of-the box approach to the production that makes pretty cleanly structured songs sound interesting and kind of “indie." It’s a nice balance of accessibility and artistic risk.

Heather Renee: How can we find out more about you?

Silver Trees:  Our website is:  http://silvertreesmusic.com.  You can also follow us at facebook.com/silvertreesmusic or twitter.com/silvertreesband

Heather Renee: Anything else you'd like to share or promote with us?

Silver Trees:  I’d say just stay tuned with us on social media since we’ll have some shows coming up I the near future.  Also, Chase is releasing another record for his solo career this Tues. (26^th), so definitely watch out for that!

Heather Renee: Thank you for your time.  I can't wait to hear more and hopefully catch a show in 2014!