Interview with Silver Haar: ‘The song is very much about escaping, just getting in a car and driving away’

Glasgow energetic indie rock band Silver Haar is working on its debut full-length album, which will likely be released in March via Glasgow’s Deliberator Records. The as-of-yet untitled album will feature their latest single ‘It’s Over’ alongside a bunch of new material which will see the band developing and refining their sound. 

Silver Haar comprises Tom Brogan (vocals/guitar), Duncan McCormick (guitar), his brother Kev McCormick (guitar), Cammy Maxwell (bass) and Danny Robinson (drums). Their name is a reference to their Scottish heritage: ‘If you look up ‘haar’, it means Scottish sea fog,’ Brogan explained. ‘I’d been looking for a band name that encapsulated the songs, the sad themes in them but where the music is its antithesis. ‘Haar’ is a dark, cold metaphor and ‘silver’ is about finding the beauty in something. It was a happy accident.’

Brogan and Maxwell have been friends for years – Brogan is also a saxophonist and Maxwell is classically trained, playing double bass – and, along with Robinson, have played together in a Bruce Springsteen tribute band, The Ultimate Springsteen Experience. Brogan has known the McCormick brothers since they were teenagers at school together and they have all played in various local bands independently over the years. ‘In the first lockdown, a year past March, I’d started writing my own songs but they were quite personal, I didn’t think they were suitable for the other band I was in at the time,’ Brogan said. ‘Through a conversation with Duncan, he had a listen, I sent him a couple of demos and he said it was right up his street, so we traded ideas and got the EP together.’

That EP, ‘Lights Out’, was released last summer. Last month, they released another single, ‘It’s Over’, which kicks off with a jingly, jangly guitar line that belies the emotional story behind the song. ‘In the first lockdown, I bought LogicPro and wanted to experiment with it, I came up with the main riff and chord sequence to that song and thought there was something in it,’ Brogan said. ‘I’d been listening to a Neil Hannon podcast (frontman of The Divine Comedy). I’d been struggling lyrically and he spoke a lot about how he’ll go in with musical backing and just improvise and I literally did that and the lyrics followed from that. They were inspired by ‘Normal People’ (the TV show based on the book by Sally Rooney). I connected with it based on my own failed relationships (laughs). It’s about two people who love each other but shouldn’t be together, it’s very heart wrenching. My wife described it to me and I said it wasn’t for me but by the end I was in tears. You feel so much for them. The line in the song “I slip inside my world again and everything is lost and then I know it’s over” comes from that. They’re not good for each other but they really love each other. I wanted to capture that feeling of conflict. The book is written from the same perspective.’

‘We wanted to shine more light on mental health, it’s very important’

Last month, Silver Haar also joined forces with other musicians, including Arcade State and Sam Lambeth, to record a new charity version of the Band Aid Christmas song ‘Feed the World (Let Them Know it’s Christmas Time)’ to raise money and awareness for local charity Tiny Changes, which helps young people deal with mental health issues. ‘We wanted to shine more light on mental health, it’s very important,’ Brogan said. ‘Then the producer Joe Adhemar got in touch separately. We all had to send him our recordings and he pieced it all together. He said he’d love to do some work with us and he offered us some production. He sent me an instrumental track and I put some lyrics over the top, it’s very atmospheric. That’ll be a collaborative single with Joe, ‘Mountains’, out on 14 January.’

Brogan describes ‘Mountains’ as ‘a kind of double A side to ‘It’s Over”: ‘It’s a continuation of the story from the perspective of someone who feels they’re trying to save the relationship,’ he said. ‘It’s got the line “I’d move mountains for you if I could”. I say that it reminds me of the Biffy Clyro song of the same name and he gets very animated: ‘My wife introduced me to Biffy Clyro and the first thing I bought her was tickets to go and see them in Manchester. I was hooked, they’re so brilliant, one of my favourite bands now.’ We chat for a bit about how amazing the Scottish music scene is and I mention Kilmarnock alt-rock band Fatherson: ‘Oh, they’re amazing as well,’ he enthused. ‘Their lead singer did Applied Music at Strathclyde uni like me!’

At the end of this month, to coincide with their next gig, they will release a CD of four track, featuring a remix of ‘It’s Over’ as well as ‘Lights Out’, a Joe Adhemar track ‘The Trip’ and ‘Mountains’. Their debut full-length album will then come out around March and will be available on all platforms along with a physical release via Deliberator Records. To celebrate this, a mini tour of Scotland is on the cards.

‘Lights Out’ was the first song that Brogan and Duncan McCormick wrote together: ‘He put his very important touches on it. We basically sat in his shed in the summer and wrote that tune together,’ Brogan laughed. ‘The song is very much about escaping, just getting in a car and driving away, that yearning to escape. It was really good fun to write together. The remix is more polished, more like what it sounds like live – the first version was recorded in here (he signals his little music room at home, where he’s sitting for our Zoom), when we had less of an idea of what we were doing!’

Brogan works as a music teacher in a secondary school and hopes that his music will inspire his students. ‘It’s nice to play them something that’s mine, to show them that it’s possible,’ he said. ‘I’ve played them ‘It’s Over’ and ‘Lights Out’. I think the YouTube vids of the song helped them to capture it. I hadn’t ever done a music vid before (laughs) and I thought “How do you do that in lockdown?” So it’s me walking around with an iPhone and one of those (selfie) sticks!’

‘Even at the end, David Bowie had it mapped out’

I ask him who he would like to see live tonight if he could and he gets very excited: ‘Oooooh, who would I like to see? Does this person have to be alive?’ I say that they don’t. ‘My instinct is to say Biffy, they’re so uplifting. They were my first gig back last year and I can still taste it! The one person I would love to have seen play, though, is David Bowie. I played for a brief spell in a David Bowie tribute band (laughs). He’s a hero of mine, a visionary, both musically and lyrically. He was constantly inventing himself from album to album. I was talking to Cammy at Deliberator Records about him. He said that even at the end, David Bowie had it mapped out. His last album (Blackstar, 2016) was almost like a eulogy.’

Silver Haar performed their first gig together in October and haven’t looked back: ‘I had never been so nervous,’ Brogan admitted. ‘It was my first time fronting a band singing my own songs but the buzz of playing that night was unlike anything I’d ever felt. We all looked at each other at the end and it was like “THIS is what it’s all about”.’

His dream line up is a thing of beauty: ‘I’d definitely need to have Biffy, a hundred percent. I’d love to have Foo Fighters, to get to have some time backstage with Dave Grohl, he is the biggest dude. I’d love to see Feeder (a Welsh rock band), I never used to be into them when I was younger. Another band that Duncan would have to say is We Are Scientists (a New York-based rock band), they’re one of his biggest inspirations, his guitar lines are reminiscent of theirs.’

If he could collaborate with anyone dead or alive, he picks Prince, Bowie, Biffy Clyro frontman Simon Neil and The Cure’s Robert Smith: ‘I often imagine how Robert Smith would write something,’ he said. ‘I was the youngest of five siblings by quite a way, so I’d be sitting on the bed singing along as the others got ready to go out (laughs). Robert Smith seems so down to earth and funny. I love his emotive songwriting. He recorded a song with CHVRCHES – funnily enough, they did the same uni course as me – called ‘How Not To Drown’. It’s one of my songs of 2021.’ We get onto Prince and how amazing he was. ‘Prince was the pinnacle for me, he goes from country rock to dirty funk to punk rock,’ he said. ‘I got to see him live a couple of times. I stood there with my mouth open. Eric Clapton was once asked – by Rolling Stone, I think – what it was like to be the best living guitarist and he said “I don’t know, you’d have to ask Prince”!’

(Photo from left to right: Tom and Duncan.)

You can see Silver Haar live at Glasgow’s 13th Note on February 5th and at Little Rooms in Newcastle on February 12th. Tickets available via skiddle.com