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The Gothamist Band Interview: Bravo Silva

Jen Carlson

Published Aug 22, 2005

Modified Mar 7, 2008

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Jen Carlson

Published Aug 22, 2005

Modified Mar 7, 2008

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Bravo Silva snuck up on us not so long ago. We hadn't heard of this band, but a good friend with great music sensibilities had. We listened, and instantly knew we had to get a hold of their debut album. Not more than a few days later was it in our mailbox, and we booked them for Movable Hype. Self described as making "rock music in the spirit of Chekhov" (their band name is actually a line from Chekhov's The Seagull), they manage to combine rock with theatrics, resulting with a sound that often channels early Police. From catchy upbeat pop tunes that will run around in your brain for hours to haunting melodies that will get under your skin, these boys deliver lyrically and sonically layered songs that we instantly loved.
Below, Henry Silva answers some of the questions you're used to seeing here, and after the jump we dive into topics that can only come up over midnight drinks - which we had recently with both Bravo and Silva.

Let's get this out of the way, where did your band name originate?
at the old sly fox

What is your first conscious memory of living in New York?
i lived in a house with my family when i was three years old. and it was really old with lots of wood. we called it splinter city. once my little sister got a big splinter and it was bloody.

What is your favorite/least favorite memory involving New York?
aaron boone hitting that home run two years ago/ 911

What is your favorite place to drink in NYC, and what's the best night to go out?
in bed/ wednesdays

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about playing shows in New York? Is there a difference between shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn?
there are lots of places to play. least favorite: loading our equipment back into the practice space.
shows in manhattan are farthur away.

Do you think your New York connection shows in your music? If so, how?
yeah, i think so. we set high standards for ourselves.

Now its time for some fill-in-the-blank action

"You know you've made it when..."
you get an intern
"It'll be time to pack up the gear for good when…"
when?
"I'll never forget the first time I…"
went to college
"I'll never forget the first time [insert another band member's name here]…"
wolf

Late one night in the basement of our favorite local, we had some drinks with Bravo Silva and discussed things that one discusses while drinking beers. Below are some outakes:

Bravo Silva on...

...Malachi DeLorenzo
Our producer, Malachi, he's the best. He's only 21 and he did it [the album] all in his basement. He set it up and did it all himself. I think he'll be one of the best producers around.

...Brad the band intern
Well we had a band intern for a day. For ONE day. I know someone who's fiance works at Essence magazine. And this kid was interning there. He's like 16. He told this guy there, "what i really wanna do, is i really wanna get into indie rock and intern for an indie rock band".
I got his email, and we got in touch with him, it was great for us because we thought we'd have someone to help out up flyers, move our drums, update MySpace.
So the first night we needed him, our drummer couldn't rehearse and he happened to play drums. He set up like 6 drums. Anyway, the next morning I have this email from a person I don't know saying "Emergency, this is Brad's mom. Please call me immediately. I did not give Brad permission to go out tonight, I don't know where he is." She had to get the email from the website.
Joel talked to him on the phone the next day and I guess when he got home, there were cops waiting for him. He sent a sad email saying "Joel, dude, looks like I'm grounded for the next century man. But it was ALL worth it. - Brad"

...nearly needing to drop out of Movable Hype 4.0 to shoot a movie for some guy named Robert Dinero [but luckily the it all worked out!]
I'm an actor, and I started working with this manager who would send me out on auditions for a lot of things...and for a whole year I was doing this...and the culmination is that I was cast in this role in this Robert Dinero movie. And it's great, but in the last couple of months I've been more focused and committed to trying to sort of get out there a little bit with music. I'm just committed to the band. I would have dropped out of the movie if it wasn't too late. It's a really good movie...It's called The Good Shephard.

...on their band
We've been playing together for a while, 6 years. We met in college. We started the band a year ago, and we recorded our album like 4 months ago. Now there are 5 people in the band. We're going to record our 2nd album in January in LA. We're an unsigned band, so...we don't know when it'll come out. We're just going to see what happens.

At this point we unplug the speaker at lolita so we can get a better recording quality on the digital recorder. However, the conversation turns toward digital watches, college and getting more beer.

Tagged

band interview

bravo

Bravo Silva

Movable Hype

Music

new york

nyc

police

The Seagull

Jen Carlson

Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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