Mike and the Moonpies started their musical journey in 2007. They released their debut album The Real Country in 2010. Since then, the band has released a total of seven studio albums and two live records. Earlier this year, the band changed its name to Silverada. Today, they released their first album under the new moniker. So, it is both their eighth studio album and their self-titled debut record.
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Ahead of the release of Silverada, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader Mike Harmeier sat down with American Songwriter to discuss the new album, the name change, and more.
Mike Harmeier on Writing the Songs for Silverada
Harmeier admitted that writing for Silverada was a difficult task. He stepped into the small backyard studio where he wrote Mike and the Moonpies’ final album One to Grow On to start work on new songs. However, the magic was no longer there.
“I was kind of having trouble getting started, really. I was kind of freaking out about it,” he said. “Because I wrote One to Grow On in the same place, this little studio behind my house, and when I started trying to write for this record, I felt like I had kind of tapped it out,” he added.
“Sometimes I’ll start writing songs for another record and I’ll realize ‘Oh, that’s just what should have been on the last record.’ It’s like I’m still in that mindset so my brain is still trying to write like that. It was giving me trouble,” he explained. “So, I had to explore other ways of getting kicked off. That’s what got me reading that Jeff Tweedy How to Write One Song book and I also read Jeff’s autobiography at the same time. I read both of those simultaneously and that kind of changed it for me,” Harmeier added. “Just reading other random books and taking passages out of them. It helped me to jumpstart the process.”
Why the Name Change?
The transformation from Mike and the Moonpies to Silverada took the band’s fanbase by surprise. However, it was something Harmeier and the band had been discussing for years.
“The name change thing is something we’ve wanted to do for a very, very long time. Not long after we really started the band,” Harmeier revealed. “But as time went on, the less and less we kind of identified with that name. It’s been a conversation for a long time. It was a really heavy conversation back when we were making Cheap Silver. The records we were making didn’t really match with the name of the band and we just didn’t feel confident about the name and we didn’t feel attached to it,” he added.
Why Silverada?
He went on to explain that they were planning to change the band’s name to Cheap Silver before making their 2019 album Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold. “We were all about cheap silver tequila. That’s what we all ordered at the bar. We’d always just order a beer and cheap silver. That was really going to be another name. Then, we made that record,” he recalled.
“Really, we just wanted a fresh start and to wipe the slate clean. We’re evolving as people and musicians and stuff so we wanted it to fit us a little better,” Mike said. “We wanted to keep the ‘silver’ thing around. Silver was pretty important to us and where we were going. Then, I kind of wrote One to Grow On about my Chevy truck. So, we kind of put those things together. And, we wanted something that sounded Texas, too. We don’t want to be just a Texas country band but we’re proud Texans. So, we kind of put all of those things together. It’s an amalgamation of Cheap Silver and One to Grow On. That’s where we evolved the sound of the band and figured out what we really wanted to go,” he explained.
New Name, Same Band
When Mike and the Moonpies announced that they were changing their name to Silverada, it shocked fans. However, most longtime listeners didn’t care much about the name change. They knew the music would stay the same. This, Harmeier said, is what he expected.
“We felt pretty confident that we could call it whatever we wanted to. We’re not changing the band, we’re not like all of a sudden a hardcore band. We aren’t changing anything about it except for the moniker. There were more reasons to do it than there were to not do it in our minds,” he said. “We had the confidence in our fanbase that nobody was going to run away. I anticipated some discourse with fans. And it was what I anticipated—a couple of keyboard warriors out there. Other than that, nobody really cares. It’s the same music and the same band,” he added. More importantly, though, he pointed out, “It’s better for us and we feel better about it. If it gives us the confidence to make the music we want to make, that’s what we’re here for.”
The Evolution of a Band
Anyone who has listened to the Harmeier-fronted country band for any amount of time knows that no two albums sound alike. This, he said, is by design. “I don’t want to make the same record over and over again. We consciously evolve because we don’t want to get tired of doing it. We also have to make it interesting for ourselves,” Harmeier revealed.
“For this record, we were not trying to think about what would fit in the current show or what would sound like how we would sound like in our minds. Everything was for the sake of the song. It was like, ‘Throw away any kind of preconceived notions about what we should sound like. You don’t have to sound anything like anything you’ve played on any record before.’ It was all about what the songs deserved,” he recalled. “We let the songs build the record. This record is going to sound like what this grouping of songs sounds like with us letting the songs take the forefront.”
Mike’s Feelings on Silverada’s “Debut” Album
This is both the band’s eighth studio album and their debut. So, we asked Mike Harmeier how he felt about the dual identity of the record. “It feels pretty relieving to me, honestly. It feels like we get to set a tone again,” Harmeier said. “There are a lot of preconceived notions about our band and I think to have a fresh outlook on that is pretty invigorating for the guys. We play a lot of these songs in the show currently. We’re just more excited about it and we’re trying to build this dynamic show that we didn’t have material to do that with before,” he added.
“I think everyone is having fun rediscovering the way that they’re playing and the music we’re making as a band. It’s exciting for us.”
Silverada is available across all streaming platforms now.
Featured Image by Eric Cain
