Entertainment Features

The Silverhearts:

The Silverhearts:

By David DeRocco

There are things you should know about The Silver Hearts before you see them – make that, experience them – live. There are the obvious things, like how they became local legends as Peterborough’s original “beer hall orchestra,” drawing standing room only crowds during their weekly residency at The Montreal House. Or that on stage they’re one huge collective, with a rotating cast of musicians that can grow to 12 or more. You should also know that the music of The Silver Hearts is a melange of brass and piano, beer and smoke that’s as mournful as it is joyous. They’re the kind of house band you’d expect to be spreading joy through music during the Great Depression – part celebration, part requiem.

However, to really get a feel for The Silver Hearts – Charlie Glasspool (trumpet, piano & vocals), Wyatt Burton (electric guitar), Trevor “Tiny” Davis (acoustic guitar & vocals), Jay Swinnerton (organ & vocals), Greg Marshak (bass guitar) – there’s likely three important things you should know about them according to percussionist Jay Peters.

“Probably number one is the friendship of the core of the band,” said Peters, who along with his Silver Hearts colleagues now count Serena Ryder and Ron Sexsmith as fans along with audiences as far away as Japan. “Myself and Trevor Davis, we’re cousins. We’re born a month apart, we grew up together. Wyatt Burton, I met him when he was three years old. He was a family friend of my cousin’s parent. And Charlie Glasspool, he’s been around for years. Peterborough’s a university town, and it just kinds of sucks people in. People come here to go to Trent University and 10 years later they’re still here, working and doing their art. It’s cool and creative.”

That breeding ground of creativity included a local open mic night at which many of the eventual members of The Silver Hearts attended and performed. Some impromptu jam seasons lead to the idea of forming a band, and that lead to their historic run each week at famed Peterborough pub The Montreal House.

“For whatever reason my cousin went into talk to them,” said Peters. “They had no live entertainment there. My cousin said, ‘listen, I can pack this place, give me Wednesday nights.’ For about four or five years The Silver Hearts packed it out.”

Using that Wednesday night to hone their unique and musically chaotic hybrid of rootsy rhythm, blues and soul, The Silver Hearts eventually developed a sound that’s all their own, which is the second thing Peters says you should know about them.

“What sets us apart is, we’re definitely not a regular band because of our size and our dynamics,” said Peters. “Our sound isn’t what we try to do, it was kind of an accident. The band itself is an accident, and that’s pretty cool.”

In 2017 the band released their first album in a decade, a typically rambling collection of old standards called Golden Favourites. It included their own unique take on songs plucked from history, including the classic Leadbelly song “In The Pines,” Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “One Kind Favour” and a gale-force version of the centuries old “St. James Infirmary Blues.” However, if there is one definitive song you should listen to help you understand what The Silver Hearts are all about musically, Peters has a suggestion.

“From the last album, if somebody said ‘hey, what do you guys sound like,’ we do a cover of a very old song from the 1920s called “Hot Time.” It’s a very up-tempo barn burner. It’s got your honkytonk piano, trumpet, all the horns. Almost everything the band has to offer. It’s just such a joyful tune and an energy all its own. When we play it, people just love to start dancing and having fun.”

That leads to the third thing you should know about The Silver Hearts, which is the fact they’re best experienced live the first time you hear them. With the ebb and flow of their members, the variety of influences and personalities woven into their sound, and a passion for performance, every show from The Silver Hearts is an original creation.

“It just makes every show absolutely different,” says Peters. “You can go to five Silverheart’s shows and not one of them will be the same, which is great for fans. We have the core rhythm section of Trevor and Charlie. We have a rotation of other instrumentalists that can come in, different horn players, different string players. All of a sudden the songs take on a whole different life. Then there’s always room for improvisation and extending songs. It can get pretty interesting. That’s one of the things people really love about The Silverhearts.”

The Silverhearts perform in St. Catharines April 28th as part of the 10th anniversary of the amazing IN THE SOIL festival, part of three days of music, media, theatre, dance, installations and one-time, out-of-the-box performance experiences. For full schedule of performances, visit: https://www.inthesoil.on.ca/