Q&Arts: The Sylvia Platters
Because you have probably never heard of Power Pop
By Bigoa Machar
The Reflector recently spoke with Nick Ubels, vocalist and guitar player for The Sylvia Platters, a Power Pop band from Langley, B.C. With their debut album Make Glad the Day set to release on Nov. 27, Ubels told us about the band’s rise in popularity and their unique sound.
The Reflector: How did the Sylvia Platters come together?
Nick Ubels: Well my brother plays drums, so we’ve been playing music together forever. We were in a band in University together. When that ended, we were looking for another way forward to show some of the music that we had written and some of the other ideas we had. I’ve also known our bass player Simon since Kindergarten and we started off as a trio and played music together as kids. We recorded this album as a trio. Simon studied at the Art Institute of Vancouver, so he knew turn the dials and turn what we wanted to do into something listenable. This is really the first time we pursued a serious-ish band. His family has a cabin near Mount Baker in Washington, so we went down there to record the record and did all the mixing back at his place over the course of six months. We’ve recently added Luke at guitar. Luke has known our drummer Tim since high school.
TR: After adding these guys to the band and taking music more seriously, what have you discovered about the music industry that you couldn’t learn anywhere else?
NU: There’s a lot that goes into writing and arranging songs, like how to convey a feeling in a song and having to think about the frequency spectrum. You have a couple pieces sitting on the low-end and then you gotta find something that’ll fit on the high end and brush it out a little more and trying not to crowd things a little too much because when it comes time to mix it, you’re gonna have to sort of sacrifice some things if you want it to sound good. We also realized that if we want things to happen, we can’t just wait around and wait for it to happen. Rather than just saying ‘Oh hey, we’re doing this now,’ I think we’re being a little more proactive in reaching out to people about shows and our new album and stuff like that. We’re kind of learning how to do that so people can hear what we’ve worked really hard on.
TR: Talking about being proactive, how do you guys stay motivated to not only reach out to people, but to make quality music?
NU: As far as what we want to do, we just want to make the best music we can and so on that level, it’s about becoming better as a band. We listen to what other people do and say ‘Wow, that’s so much better than what we’re doing’ and that’s just how it goes. You never feel like your stuff is up to par, but that’s good because what’s motivating us to do better and do more and write more. That’s what helps us become better. I just want people to hear what we’re doing. We don’t have any crazy aspirations, we just want people to hear our music and like it. We’d love to have a small following. I don’t know if we can pull it off, but the more people that hear our music, the better chance we have to pulling that off.
TR: Your album has a very unique sound to it. Going back to the point you made about listening to other bands, are there any specific groups or singers that influenced Make Glad the Day?
NU: Well it’s a little all over the place, and the album kind of collects the eclectic group of people that have influenced and shaped the way we make music. Specifically with The Sylvia Platters, guys like Flying Nun Records to other bands in Australia and New Zealand, as well as other Power Pop bands we like. These guys are able to pack power into really melodic music and evoke emotions into songs.
TR: So given that emotion and layering of sounds, how would you describe Power Pop to someone who’s never heard of it before?
NU: Power Pop kind of came out from the 70’s. The 70’s was really dominated by heavy and hard Rock, so Power Pop was kind of an alternative that leaned towards melodic yet propulsive music. It’s still very guitar and drum driven music, but really focuses on the melodic aspect of it, but quite as hard as rock. There’s bands like Big Star and The Nerves who were at the forefront of Power Pop. It kind of leads into other genres like Punk and new wave stuff. We really could have fallen into a different genre, but we feel our music fits best into that Power Pop mold and it really sums up what we do.
TR: Where did the name The Sylvia Platters come from?
NU: Well we had a couple different names before we settled on this one. We played a few shows under our old names and turns out they were being used by other bands. We really didn’t want to fight that battle, so we narrowed down our list of names that was around 100 different names. The Sylvia Platters was one of the first we thought of and we came back to it. It’s kind of a mash up of Sylvia Plath, who is an author that we love, and a record store in Seattle called Silver Platters.
TR: So aside from learning from other bands and what not, what other advice would you give to someone if they wanted to start their own band?
NU: I think recording and mixing audio is key. I know Simon has professional training, but there’s a lot of free tools you can use to record yourself and work on learning how to make arrangements because leading up to this album, we had a few EP’s with our other bands and even songs that have never seen the light of day because you learn more and more. I tried some things and it didn’t work. I tried different ways of layering things, so you should just try recording and mixing different things. I had the opportunity of trying different things and learning what didn’t work and there’s really no risk in that.
After messing up multiple times, Ubels and the band are ready to showcase what power pop is all about. Be sure to check out their album when it drops, as well as follow them on social media to keep up with everything The Sylvia Platters has going on.
Photo Caption: The Sylvia Platters debut album is set for release on Nov. 27 (Photo Courtesy of Nick Ubels)
The Reflector recently spoke with Nick Ubels, vocalist and guitar player for The Sylvia Platters, a Power Pop band from Langley, B.C. With their debut album Make Glad the Day set to release on Nov. 27, Ubels told us about the band’s rise in popularity and their unique sound.
The Reflector: How did the Sylvia Platters come together?
Nick Ubels: Well my brother plays drums, so we’ve been playing music together forever. We were in a band in University together. When that ended, we were looking for another way forward to show some of the music that we had written and some of the other ideas we had. I’ve also known our bass player Simon since Kindergarten and we started off as a trio and played music together as kids. We recorded this album as a trio. Simon studied at the Art Institute of Vancouver, so he knew turn the dials and turn what we wanted to do into something listenable. This is really the first time we pursued a serious-ish band. His family has a cabin near Mount Baker in Washington, so we went down there to record the record and did all the mixing back at his place over the course of six months. We’ve recently added Luke at guitar. Luke has known our drummer Tim since high school.
TR: After adding these guys to the band and taking music more seriously, what have you discovered about the music industry that you couldn’t learn anywhere else?
NU: There’s a lot that goes into writing and arranging songs, like how to convey a feeling in a song and having to think about the frequency spectrum. You have a couple pieces sitting on the low-end and then you gotta find something that’ll fit on the high end and brush it out a little more and trying not to crowd things a little too much because when it comes time to mix it, you’re gonna have to sort of sacrifice some things if you want it to sound good. We also realized that if we want things to happen, we can’t just wait around and wait for it to happen. Rather than just saying ‘Oh hey, we’re doing this now,’ I think we’re being a little more proactive in reaching out to people about shows and our new album and stuff like that. We’re kind of learning how to do that so people can hear what we’ve worked really hard on.
TR: Talking about being proactive, how do you guys stay motivated to not only reach out to people, but to make quality music?
NU: As far as what we want to do, we just want to make the best music we can and so on that level, it’s about becoming better as a band. We listen to what other people do and say ‘Wow, that’s so much better than what we’re doing’ and that’s just how it goes. You never feel like your stuff is up to par, but that’s good because what’s motivating us to do better and do more and write more. That’s what helps us become better. I just want people to hear what we’re doing. We don’t have any crazy aspirations, we just want people to hear our music and like it. We’d love to have a small following. I don’t know if we can pull it off, but the more people that hear our music, the better chance we have to pulling that off.
TR: Your album has a very unique sound to it. Going back to the point you made about listening to other bands, are there any specific groups or singers that influenced Make Glad the Day?
NU: Well it’s a little all over the place, and the album kind of collects the eclectic group of people that have influenced and shaped the way we make music. Specifically with The Sylvia Platters, guys like Flying Nun Records to other bands in Australia and New Zealand, as well as other Power Pop bands we like. These guys are able to pack power into really melodic music and evoke emotions into songs.
TR: So given that emotion and layering of sounds, how would you describe Power Pop to someone who’s never heard of it before?
NU: Power Pop kind of came out from the 70’s. The 70’s was really dominated by heavy and hard Rock, so Power Pop was kind of an alternative that leaned towards melodic yet propulsive music. It’s still very guitar and drum driven music, but really focuses on the melodic aspect of it, but quite as hard as rock. There’s bands like Big Star and The Nerves who were at the forefront of Power Pop. It kind of leads into other genres like Punk and new wave stuff. We really could have fallen into a different genre, but we feel our music fits best into that Power Pop mold and it really sums up what we do.
TR: Where did the name The Sylvia Platters come from?
NU: Well we had a couple different names before we settled on this one. We played a few shows under our old names and turns out they were being used by other bands. We really didn’t want to fight that battle, so we narrowed down our list of names that was around 100 different names. The Sylvia Platters was one of the first we thought of and we came back to it. It’s kind of a mash up of Sylvia Plath, who is an author that we love, and a record store in Seattle called Silver Platters.
TR: So aside from learning from other bands and what not, what other advice would you give to someone if they wanted to start their own band?
NU: I think recording and mixing audio is key. I know Simon has professional training, but there’s a lot of free tools you can use to record yourself and work on learning how to make arrangements because leading up to this album, we had a few EP’s with our other bands and even songs that have never seen the light of day because you learn more and more. I tried some things and it didn’t work. I tried different ways of layering things, so you should just try recording and mixing different things. I had the opportunity of trying different things and learning what didn’t work and there’s really no risk in that.
After messing up multiple times, Ubels and the band are ready to showcase what power pop is all about. Be sure to check out their album when it drops, as well as follow them on social media to keep up with everything The Sylvia Platters has going on.