Interview | Questions & Answers With The Silver Snails

Here’s everything you need to know about The Silver Snails. Over the past few years, this creative husband-and-wife duo brings positive vibes to the world with their family-friendly music. Not to mention, their latest clip for “Dancing With The Stars” will make you fall into a fantasy world. Get all the details in this exclusive interview!

1 — I enjoyed watching the fantasy-themed video for your latest single, “Dancing With The Stars”. What was the inspiration for it?

I have always been inspired by fantasy and science fiction, and also a fan of glam and psychedelia within music. With respect to the astronomer sequence at the opening of the video, here we feature my wife’s late father Rino, with his actual handmade telescope heralding the arrival of The Silver Snails from outer space. The ‘angelic nebula’ shown is a Hubble image of the M42 nebula in the constellation of Orion.

Since living in the country in Italy under bright starry skies for the past 15 years and observing the rings of Saturn etc. through Rino’s telescope, the stars and planets have become like neighbors or friends, constant companions and inspirations for us. At the same time, we live and work among the bones of classical civilization (the province of Romagna, Italy), the very same neighborhood where Dante wrote ‘The Divine Comedy, and there are too many old castles and cathedrals to count. This backdrop lends a note of baroque or classical inspiration to the otherwise glam space-pop theme of our first music video. Note, we have a new video in the pipeline, which is intended as a ‘sequel’ to the “Dancing With The Stars” video, ie. same ‘universe’.

2 — Did you guys do your own cosmic makeup or did you hire a makeup artist for this clip?

My wife and co-conspirator, Elisa Fantini does much of the make-up, costumes, and sets, and we hire help for concerts and video shoots. All of our videos have been home-made, hands-on affairs…

3 — Who wrote the lyrics and what exactly is this song about?

I, Lucas Ward composed the words and music for “Dancing With The Stars”. Similar to “Isn’t She Lovely” (by Stevie Wonder), the song attempts to convey the sense of joy and amazement that some of us new fathers feel as witnesses to the miracle of life… The song started with lyrics, which I began at a certain moment in time, taking my daughter Jasmine who was 5 at the time to Rome on the train. I noticed her dancing and singing as if to an internal tune, oblivious to the fears and pressures weighing on me at the time. Thus, both the song and the video feature the actual Jasmine (‘lai lai lai’), within the theme of a glam-rock troubadour family from space, landing on their flying piano to recover their children.

4 — Why are you targeting international audiences and singing in different languages on your debut album, ‘The Seven Melodies’?

Our goal is to spread love and joy through music and media to people around the world. In service of this objective, we strive to write and perform in multiple languages in order to send a message of inclusion and also to appeal to more than just English speakers with our media. This is also ‘who we are’ in the sense that we are multi-lingual people raising our children in a multi-lingual household and our media reflects an appreciation of global culture.

We are not alone or first to mix languages in Pop (Manu Chao, for example, has released LPs with songs in 6 or more languages), and of course, even OG pop rockers such as the Beatles have been singing and writing in other languages since the beginning of the art (e.g. ‘Michelle’). I personally believe that lyrics are the most important component of a song for the listener, and understanding at least the imagery of the lyrics is important to fully embracing or adopting a song. That being said, there are international artists that I listen to who sing in tongues I don’t understand, and of course, melody, harmony, and rhythm constitute a global lingua-franca.

6 — Why is it called ‘The 7 Melodies’? Where can we stream it?

The LP title was Elisa’s idea, and to me it connotes both the ‘lucky’ association of the number 7, (‘The 7 Melodies’ is intended to bring good things to the listener like a good luck charm), as well as the ancient connotation of 7 indicating ‘perfection’ or ‘completeness’. Finally, as with almost everything we do, the title carries a hint of irony or silliness, as there are at least 8 tracks on the LP, and many many melodies, depending on how you count. The LP will be streamable on Spotify and other platforms on October 26.

7 — What was the original purpose of starting this husband-wife musical project?

The mission of The Silver Snails is ‘to open human hearts through Sound, Light, and Word’. We hope to accomplish this specifically by creating, marketing, and performing the world’s finest Pop-Rock music. It is our way to feed ourselves and our kids, bring value to the world and enjoy our stay. Since when we started The Silver Snails we were already in the parenting phase, we decided to do what felt natural and make the project an all-ages, family affair. As such, we can perform as a ‘front family’, i.e. we are all pro singers and frequently sing in harmony.

8 — What has remained the same?

Despite nearly 10 years in incubation, The Silver Snails project has remained remarkably faithful to its original blueprint and continues to grow rapidly and organically, like a well-tended plant. The children get bigger, our skills improve, we create more media but otherwise, it has been a surprisingly steady and slow gestation.

9 — So far, has there been an unexpected challenge in your music career?

Everything about my music career has been an unexpected challenge, from finding the guts to keep going over and over again, to improving vocals, to learning how to write, produce and perform professionally, to building a presence on social media, to figuring out the marketing, to navigating and integrating wrenching new awarenesses generated along the way, all while trying to take care of self and family. It’s difficult for me to imagine a more challenging (or unexpected) career path than the one I chose, and I see that the personal growth afforded by the very challenge of it is one of it’s biggest benefits for us.

10 — What are your future plans for the rest of 2018?

We are in the middle of relaunching ‘The 7 Melodies’ in the US Indie channel with professional distribution, publicity, and promotion, while at the same time working to complete our new LP (number 2) in time for a 2019 release. We have a new video in the pipeline and are also looking at testing the waters for live touring in the next few months.

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