There is something so terribly right about a man fronting a rock n' roll band with a Josh Todd body, all ribs and seething veins, and a Layne Staley face, white chin hair included. And backing the quintessential classic rock Christ figure is four other basement-dwelling, hippie rock apostles who are nothing short of resurrected saviors of sleaze, pure and simple. Crawling out of a gutter somewhere in South Philadelphia where they spend most of their time in a haze of pot smoke with some of the cities desperate 30-something single moms who sport a slight accent, long nails, leather pants and cleavage, and a penchant for better days gone by, is Silvertide, who embody those ever elusive days gone by when it comes to big belt buckles and big belt buckle music.

Silvertide's three-song EP, "American Excess," is a short but supercharged stab at classic rock immortal, which is, of all things, worthy of Sleazegrinder's prestigious Slabbage of the Month honors. A new album from Walt Lafty (vocals), Nick Perri (lead guitar), Mark Melchiorre Jr. (guitar), Brian Weaver (bass), and Kevin Frank (drums) is expected soon and let me be the first to say, 'Hallelujah!' So, to find out how the lesser-half lives, we enticed Brian Weaver, Silvertide's resident jazz expert and pistol-packing melody-maker, to talk to us by assuring him that having Silvertide featured on Sleazegrinder.com is like a match made in heaven, or rather, a shotgun wedding in hell where both parties are bombed out of their fucking minds. 

Whereabouts are you right now? Are you in Philly? In LA?

We're in Philly right now.

Were you out in LA?

Yeah, we were in LA writing and arranging and doing some pre-production for the record.

How's that coming along?

Good. We've got like 30 songs to choose from now and we go back to start really getting into the record. We'll narrow them all down, cut about 16, and after that choose about 11 or 12.

What will you do with the extra ones - the next record?

You never know. They'll probably be for the next record. There are definitely ones we don't think will be good for this record but definitely for a second or third record. I mean, we already have some ideas what we're going to do and what we might not do for this record and what we could do for a later one.

So what can we expect?

It will be a little bit more focused toward a rock n' roll type vibe. It will stand out. It won't just be straight ahead rock n' roll stuff. There'll be a couple acoustic songs on there. There'll be a song with a Fender Rhodes in it. It will be more of a trippier thing. It'll span out a bit more than those three songs on the EP.

Will they be on the disc?

They're being considered. They might be, they might not be. We haven't really decided yet. It all depends on what the other songs bring to making a great album and would the songs be good for that album, you know.

So are you guys going to sit down as a group and go over this or do a couple of guys do it?

All of us would sit down together and have all our ideas for it. Also, the label would have their ideas of what they think would be good. I mean, it's going to be a mutual decision between everybody working on the record but we'll have the final say. We'll take everybody's opinions but we're definitely going to have our opinion up there. We have no idea exactly what's going to be on there yet, we still have to sit down and talk about it and go through everything.

How was LA compared to Philadelphia? Did you guys stick out like a sore thumb there or what?

We were working pretty much the whole time. We were just basically sitting in our apartment writing or going to the studio the whole time. I mean, we'd go out every once in awhile. We've been there before. It wasn't a weird situation. It was cool. It was fun being out there.

Is there much of a music scene in Philly?

Not from a rock n' roll aspect. There's a big R&B scene and a big Hip Hop scene. Not much of a rock scene when we first started. It's actually been growing. It's a cool little town for music but it wasn't big in what we were doing at the time. We were the only people doing our type of rock n' roll.

So how has it been received?

It's been great. I mean, at first it was two drunk guys at the bar we were playing at who weren't even there to see us but then as time went on over the first six months it slowly started to build and then after that, in the Philly area, it just started to boom and every show we played would be packed at the door. It was great. It was a lot of fun.

Have you basically built your success on drunk people?

There's a wide array of people who come see us. There's the 15-year-old high school kid who comes to see us up to the 50-year-old parent, you know, who just want to go see a rock n' roll show. All types of people come to see our shows and everybody has a good time. We do and it seems like the crowd does.

Lots of chicks too?

Yeah, there are a lot of girls that come see us.

The title of the EP is "American Excess." What kind of excess are we talking here - rock n' roll?

Basically. That's pretty much the concept. It just seemed like a cool thing. Somebody just blurted out the name once - American Excess - that whole rock n' roll thing, the vibe of rock n' roll excess.

Are you guys living the American excess dream?

Not right now. I would say we're kind of basically working a lot. We're just trying to get this record done and trying to get all the songs ready. I mean, it's a lot of work right now. We've basically been cooped up in a studio and an apartment most of the time.

From some photos I've seen of live shots of concerts and stuff, there seems to be a lot of wild shit going on. Tell me a bit about your live show.

I would say our live show is a high-energy show. Whenever we go up there we have so much fun playing a show, with the music being so loud and the crowd being so into it, we just go up there and do what we do and just play and people have a good time and we have a good time doing it. I would never say anything we do is planned. We just go up there and play. It's kind of like letting everything out. All of our frustrations and all of our passions just come out on stage when we play and I guess that's why it would seem like it's a raucous thing, something pretty big and spectacular, but we're just having fun up there.

What's the wildest thing to ever happen at a Silvertide concert?

We opened for Journey in New York and Walt, every once in awhile he likes to light himself on fire, and he would usually use Zippo fluid and pour it on his paints and light it and it just goes up for a couple of seconds and goes out, but he didn't have any Zippo fluid so he used charcoal fluid and it didn't go right out and just kept burning so he started burning his leg and a friend of ours had to run up and throw water on him. Walt normally does the crazy things like jumping up on the speakers. He would stand on these piled-up stacks of speakers and one time they almost fell over and thank God they didn't because he probably would have killed himself. People had to run over and hold up the speakers, like the big PA speakers on the side of the stage, stacked maybe like 15 feet high.

Have any crazy Silvertide fan ever lit themselves on fire?

No I haven't seen anybody who has done that.

So, what about from a fan standpoint - any crazy stories there?

I wouldn't say yet. There haven't been any crazy fans yet. It's been kind of the local thing, so, I mean we haven't seen anything that crazy yet.

Now, the type of music you guys play is not too common these days as far as maybe mainstream success is concerned. Is it important for you guys to do the classic rock thing?

We kind of just get together and play whatever comes out. We're not trying to do a specific type of music. It's just the influences we had growing up and it's just when the five of us come together and play that's just what comes out. We never thought it's important that people need the type of music we play right now, it's just people seem to like it so we are going to keep doing it, you know.

Does the band have a drink of choice?

Most of us drink beer. Nick drinks Jagrmeister. Every once in a while we all have our thing but most of the time it's beer.

Drug of choice? Mary Jane maybe?

Yeah, Mary Jane. There's nothing more than Mary Jane.

I read that you guys played a couple shows with Aerosmith. How did that go?

The first show we played with Aerosmith we were playing on the side stage at the Tweeter Center in Camden, New Jersey, and that was actually six months into us being a band and that was probably one of the things that actually sprung our success and sprung the attention that we started to get. At that time we were still playing our weekly gig at a bar on South Street in Philly and we got a call that day from our manager to do the Aerosmith show. He said, "Do you guys want to open for Aerosmith in two hours? The band that was supposed to do it dropped out." We went there and it was amazing. We started playing and like half way through the set more and more people started coming and just standing around watching. You had to walk by the side stage to get to the main stage and people just started to hang around and by the end of our set there was about 1,500 to 2,000 people just standing around the side stage. Then we went to our weekly gig on South Street, and up until that point the shows were about half full in the bar, and that night people had already heard that we opened for Aerosmith on the side stage. The guys outside the door were like, "Come on in and see Silvertide who just opened for Aerosmith," and from that point on that's when the labels started coming. I wouldn't say that's how the labels heard about us but after that everything started to come together and A&R guys every week would come to the shows. We were getting interviews to do with people and people were writing columns in local newspapers and everything. That show was the first time we ever seemed like a small part of success, you know.

Did you get to meet Steven Tyler?

We never actually met any of the guys in the band because we had to run out so quickly after the show.

Who is the best band you've ever played with?

There's a great band here in Philly that we actually are really good friends with and we've played a lot of shows with them called Pepper's Ghost. They are a great band and we love playing with them. Another really fun tour we did was playing with Alice Cooper.

Did he kill any live animals?

No. He actually cut off Britney Spears' head. He had a girl run out dressed as Britney Spears and he chased her around the stage with a scythe and went backstage and came out with a plastic head that looked like Britney Spears.

Are you guys going to be cutting up Britney Spears anytime soon?

No, no. We won't be doing that.

(Ed. Note- Ok, so they don't exactly talk it like they rock it. Big deal. Just feel the goddamn groove, wouldja?) www.silvertidemusic.com - JW Warren