Based out of Oxford, England, alternative-rock band A Silent Film is returning to Gainesville after the October release of its self-titled album.
The band will be performing at High Dive, located at 210 SW Second Ave., on Friday. Tickets are $10 in advance on ticketfly.com or $12 at the door. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the show begins at 8:30 p.m.
The band summons the ghosts of early U2 and Coldplay and has a huge live sound, Pat Lavery, the owner of Glory Days Presents, wrote in an email.
When the band played at High Dive a few years ago, Lavery joked they should be playing arenas.
Since the time the band played at High Dive, they’ve released a new album that is being played on alternative-rock radio, such as local station 100.5 The Buzz, Lavery said. They’ve also been playing festivals around the country, like Tampa’s Big Guava earlier this year.
Although they are English, they are no strangers to the U.S.
"We spend more time in the states than really anywhere else," Spencer Walker, the band’s drummer said, "so in some ways we’re kind of more of an American-based band, even though we’re English and we actually live in England."
In the beginning of A Silent Film’s career, one of the band’s songs was being played on American radio, and eventually the band was able to make it across the pond and support its song on the road.
Walker said someone very smart told them early on if they wanted to take that little foot in the door and actually use it to crack the door open, then they would really need to commit to spending time in America.
"The way that you gotta do America is you gotta get in a van," Walker said, "and you gotta just keep going ‘round, and so we did that."
They spent three years actually cracking that door open in the U.S., and during that time their second album was released. Their newest album is, in a sense, the first time they have gone home "properly," took a break and sat down.
After spending so much time in America, the experience of coming here for the first time and touring influenced their second record, Walker said, so they wanted to go home and take their time with the new one.
He said sometimes you have to "cocoon" yourself for a while.
"You have to distance yourself a little bit from everything in order to write something that’s actually you," Walker said.
Robert Stevenson, vocals and piano, and Walker have been playing music together since they were about 14 years old.
All of their lives, really, Walker added.
They had a couple of changes on their last record with a couple of band members leaving, and Walker thinks they felt that for the first time they had the truest expression of where they were at musically and what they actually wanted to deliver.
With that in mind, they knew early on they wanted their latest album to be self-titled.
"I think in some ways this new album is more of a homecoming," Walker said.
In order to do a bit of a reboot, they performed the sold-out Secret Rooms tour of intimate performances across the U.S.
When they returned home they recorded and self-produced "A Silent Film" and released it on their own label Silent Songs.
Walker said everything the band has done has always been a little do-it-yourself, which may be unusual for a band that sounds the way that they do. Even if it may be unexpected, it is the ethos they grew up with.
"There’s no reason that you should wait for anyone to do stuff for you, just get out there and do it," Walker, "and if you don’t know how to do it, learn and then do it, and everything is so much more rewarding."
And the band has never really needed anyone to hold its hand. They enjoy going into the wilderness and trying to make it out while learning how to do it along the way.
After working on the new album for the last 12 months, they now get to come and play it on tour.
Now that they are back in the U.S. and touring Walker feels like they have found a "win-win" scenario because they’re ready to be touring again and they get to tour with new songs.
"I think this tour has been particularly good because it’s the first tour of the new album," Walker said, "which is always, for every band, that’s going to be sort of one of your favorite times."
He said it’s quite nice to run around the country and play shows with the team.
"Just everything feels slightly surreal," Walker said, "and it makes the whole thing just a little more special."
Everything about their live show is directed at making a connection with "every single person" who is there and they work as hard as they can to actually make that happen.
The result is a high-energy live show with arena-level sound that will include plenty of dancing.
"It’s a really fun show, this tour," Walker said.
Alternative-rock band A Silent Film is returning to Gainesville Friday to perform at High Dive, 210 SW Second Ave. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the show begins at 8:30 p.m.
