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Silverada singer-guitarist Mike Harmeier grew up around so much country music, it was inevitable he’d wind up singing and songwriting.
“I knew every song on country radio before I was 10 years old,” he says via phone from his home outside of Austin. Silverada performs at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22, at the Beachland Ballroom. “My dad was involved in the Houston rodeo and did a lot of talent buying, and these Texas legends would be hanging around the house playing his birthday parties. It was something I was always chasin’. There was nothing else for me. I started taking guitar lessons when I was 8 years old.”
Around high school, he had a blues band and learned to play like Stevie Ray Vaughan. He moved to Austin in 2003 and started a neo-soul group and then a folk rock band. He also played guitar in other bands in Austin, attaining some success with Mike and the Moonpies, a group that cut a few original albums, played the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and released a tribute to the great honky-tonk musician and songwriter Gary Stewart.
At one point early in his career, Harmeier played five-hour sets at local country swing clubs.
“I don’t know how we did that; I can’t even imagine doing that now,” he admits. “The set included every song that I could remember all the words to. It was all the stuff I grew up listening to. The job was to keep people on the dance floor, so it was a working gig.”
One career highlight came when Harmeier and his band recorded 2019's Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold at Abbey Road Studios in England.
“We played festivals in France and Italy and snuck in there for two days and cut that record," he says when asked about the experience. "The thing about it is that we had to do it in a short amount of time, so we had to let the weight of the room pass over us. We got in there for an hour and then took in the energy, and it was get-to-work time. I sang into John Lennon’s microphone and played on the Mrs Mills piano. It was a heavier moment than usual.”
Initially, Harmeier had trouble writing new material for the band’s latest album, Silverada. In search of inspiration, he read the two books that Wilco's Jeff Tweedy has published and then went thrifting for other books.
“[Tweedy] had some cool things he had been doing with word ladders,” he says. “I then bought random sci-fi books at the Goodwill, and I would read some chapters and pick out lines I really liked and riff off them. It was something I hadn’t done before and something that I will continue to do in the future. I was just focusing on writing the best songs I could and to try to grow as a songwriter. The goal was the let the songs be the guide. I told the guys [in Silverada] to not think of anything else they had played or what we should sound like. I wanted them to throw that out the window and just chase the songs down. Everything is for the sake of the songs. It was just playing the songs as best we could.”
The moody, self-reflective opening number, “Radio Wave,” possesses the kind of alt-country edge for which icons like Steve Earle and Uncle Tupelo are known. The band recorded another album highlight, "Stay by My Side," live during a tour, capturing it in a single take at Capricorn Sound Studios in Macon, GA.
“We cut the song live a few times at Yellow Dog [studios] and never got it right,” says Harmeier of the tune. “We started to play with it in the show and figured it out on the road. We played it on the bus and snuck into the shows. When we were in Macon, we got into Capricorn and recorded it in a hour. It was pretty cool.”
The live show will feature most of the album's 10 tracks. Tunes such as the slow-building "Eagle Rare" and old school country-sounding "Stubborn Son" should translate well live.
“We play 95 percent of this new record,” says Harmeier. “We play all the classic stuff too. We’re having a lot of fun, and the new stuff expands the dynamic of the show. There’s a lot of jam stuff, and we can extend songs, and it’s been a cool evolution of the show. We still play the hits, and it’s high energy and everything our fans like about the show.”
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“I knew every song on country radio before I was 10 years old,” he says via phone from his home outside of Austin. Silverada performs at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22, at the Beachland Ballroom. “My dad was involved in the Houston rodeo and did a lot of talent buying, and these Texas legends would be hanging around the house playing his birthday parties. It was something I was always chasin’. There was nothing else for me. I started taking guitar lessons when I was 8 years old.”
Around high school, he had a blues band and learned to play like Stevie Ray Vaughan. He moved to Austin in 2003 and started a neo-soul group and then a folk rock band. He also played guitar in other bands in Austin, attaining some success with Mike and the Moonpies, a group that cut a few original albums, played the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and released a tribute to the great honky-tonk musician and songwriter Gary Stewart.
At one point early in his career, Harmeier played five-hour sets at local country swing clubs.
“I don’t know how we did that; I can’t even imagine doing that now,” he admits. “The set included every song that I could remember all the words to. It was all the stuff I grew up listening to. The job was to keep people on the dance floor, so it was a working gig.”
One career highlight came when Harmeier and his band recorded 2019's Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold at Abbey Road Studios in England.
“We played festivals in France and Italy and snuck in there for two days and cut that record," he says when asked about the experience. "The thing about it is that we had to do it in a short amount of time, so we had to let the weight of the room pass over us. We got in there for an hour and then took in the energy, and it was get-to-work time. I sang into John Lennon’s microphone and played on the Mrs Mills piano. It was a heavier moment than usual.”
Initially, Harmeier had trouble writing new material for the band’s latest album, Silverada. In search of inspiration, he read the two books that Wilco's Jeff Tweedy has published and then went thrifting for other books.
“[Tweedy] had some cool things he had been doing with word ladders,” he says. “I then bought random sci-fi books at the Goodwill, and I would read some chapters and pick out lines I really liked and riff off them. It was something I hadn’t done before and something that I will continue to do in the future. I was just focusing on writing the best songs I could and to try to grow as a songwriter. The goal was the let the songs be the guide. I told the guys [in Silverada] to not think of anything else they had played or what we should sound like. I wanted them to throw that out the window and just chase the songs down. Everything is for the sake of the songs. It was just playing the songs as best we could.”
The moody, self-reflective opening number, “Radio Wave,” possesses the kind of alt-country edge for which icons like Steve Earle and Uncle Tupelo are known. The band recorded another album highlight, "Stay by My Side," live during a tour, capturing it in a single take at Capricorn Sound Studios in Macon, GA.
“We cut the song live a few times at Yellow Dog [studios] and never got it right,” says Harmeier of the tune. “We started to play with it in the show and figured it out on the road. We played it on the bus and snuck into the shows. When we were in Macon, we got into Capricorn and recorded it in a hour. It was pretty cool.”
The live show will feature most of the album's 10 tracks. Tunes such as the slow-building "Eagle Rare" and old school country-sounding "Stubborn Son" should translate well live.
“We play 95 percent of this new record,” says Harmeier. “We play all the classic stuff too. We’re having a lot of fun, and the new stuff expands the dynamic of the show. There’s a lot of jam stuff, and we can extend songs, and it’s been a cool evolution of the show. We still play the hits, and it’s high energy and everything our fans like about the show.”
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