Popular Texas Band Announces New Name and Album

Silverada’s new album titled “Silverada” is a landmark release for the Texas-based band, previously known as Mike and the Moonpies. Their new self-titled album stands out as a transformative work in their discography. While they have preserved their classic country essence, the band has ventured into new musical territories by incorporating elements of Southern rock and other genres. This demonstrated their adventurous spirit in musical expression.

The album is not just a collection of new songs; it represents the band’s renewed identity as well. With sophisticated songwriting, a refreshed sound, and cuts already climbing up the charts, Silverada exemplifies what it means for a band to grow and adapt over time.

Men’s Journal sat down with head man Mike Harmeier to discuss their new album, featuring songs such as “Radio Wave”, “Anywhere But Here”, and “Doing It Right” and what the future looks like for them.

MJ : I know it's important as musicians and as artists to always change and evolve, but you guys kind of took it one step further and changed your name. Tell us a little bit about how all that came about.

Mike Harmeier: Yeah, I started it in 2007. I was having this conversation just like two nights ago with somebody, and I think we decided that 2027 will be twenty years. I think it's been a long time coming. I mean, we've had that conversation for most of the twenty years we’ve been together. You know, when I started this thing, it was kind of just a recording project and then we got some gigs playing locally in Austin and we were doing the bar scene. It was kind of an outlet for me, a creative outlet for me. It was more of a recording project and just something we would do occasionally on the weekends. I really kind of wanted to play the dancehall circuit. I was chasing that kind of dancehall dream at the time. It just kind of fit for us, we didn't take ourselves very seriously, and it was just fun. We were having fun with it and then it kind of got legs. By the time we were a couple of records in, you know, we still really didn't identify with it as much as when it started.

Our name has always been a topic of conversation. I think just we found a moment where we felt like we had this new record and it kind of, you know, pushed our boundaries a little bit and it just seemed like the timing was right to make the change from Mike and the Moonpies to Silverada . We have a dedicated fan base all across the country and they like us for the music and they like us for who we are as people and I think it kind of gave us the confidence to pull the trigger on it. For the most part, it’s been the same guys for the whole time. So, we're kind of a character-driven group, you know. I mean everybody kind of has their own identity and it's a band effort, so we wanted to speak more to that. It’s all of us together making this music happen. It's everybody that's creating the sound that we create and that’s how we make it our own thing. It's about us being together, not just me as a guy and a bunch of just hired guns, but all of us as a band.

MJ : So, you can take yourselves a little bit more seriously now?

Mike Harmeier : Yeah. I mean pretty much. I mean, you know, we're all lifers. So, we're going to do this forever. We want to create what we want to create and do it the way we want to do it. We've always been very independent and our approach to everything from recording, to branding, to the shows that we play and kind of just do what we want to do. Why not continue that thing?

MJ : For sure. I've been listening to some of your songs, and you know, like you said, you have a huge fan base. Regardless of what you call yourselves, you're still going to have your fan base.

Mike Harmeier: Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a lot of it too is we want to grow this thing a lot and you know I know that in the past, not to say that it's hurt us at all but, there's people that kind of just judge a book by its cover a lot of times. We just want to grow our fan base and do it the way we want to do it and bring people in. Try to make this as big as we can and have everybody come along for the ride.

MJ : You used an interesting approach to making your new album, “Silverada”. You used word ladders when you were writing this in your studio by going through books and stuff. Tell us about that process.

Mike Harmeier: Yeah, it was different for me. I usually write, you know, you write what you know. I had followed a lot of the same tropes for the same number of years, you know. I was writing a lot to the set for a number of years and trying to make something work in the show. I just wanted a different approach to that. It had been a weird touring year for us, and it just wasn't clicking for me in the studio, writing the way that I used to. So, I was reading some books about it, and I read the Jeff Tweedy book about how to write one song, and he had some things in there to try and I tried some of that stuff and then I kind of created my own way to do it. I knew I wanted to write something that was a little bit outside of the box. I wanted to get a little bit more ethereal, metaphorical with what I was writing, and I would buy random books at Goodwill and just read a chapter or two and highlight phrases that I liked or words that I liked. Then I would just make word ladders out of it on notebooks and then look around the room, pick something in the room, you know, just try to put something together and it's amazing how much you can say without meaning to say it. It opened my eyes to a whole other way of writing. I don't think that it comes off as I really changed my style a lot. I mean it still sounds like me and things I would say, in fact, there might be more things that I would say. Maybe truer to who I am as a writer actually.

MJ : That’s very cool. I don't think I've ever heard of such a fresh approach before. You’re right, there are metaphorical things in the new album that are sure to get people thinking about different things that they normally wouldn't.

Mike Harmeier: Yeah, you know, that's one thing about my records and other records that I listen to is sometimes I'm done with the record before I think I should be done with it. I feel like I've grasped everything out of it because everything is very literal and to the point. You know, once I've heard the story, then you know the story. But I'm kind of drawn more, especially now, to records where maybe I can take that song and I can listen to the same song and it means one thing to me one day and something completely different the next. It’s just how you perceive it. So, I kind of wanted to open up that thought process too for me and listeners.

MJ : You’ve already been playing some shows under your new name. Have you gotten any feedback?

Mike Harmeier: It's really been great. I mean you know; like I said, you know we’re still kind of the same show. You know we play all the same songs that everybody still wants us to play. Nobody really has complained about it too much. You know, I get the offhand jokes, like we're a moon pies cover band thing or something like that. You know people like to have fun with us anyway. We still don’t take ourselves that incredibly serious you know, just hanging out with people and talking. That stuff just rolls off our backs. The show, to me, for this record at least, kind of opened up another dynamic to the show and we've added some acoustic stuff in the show. I have this kind of theme of linear on this record, with a few of the songs. It's allowed us to kind of dive into changing our dynamics a little bit and letting songs breathe a little bit more on stage. Instead of doing twenty-four songs in a ninety-minute set, we do twenty. We let some play a little longer and It's been fun. It's been a cool experiment for us, and I think the band's having a good time playing with this new stuff.

MJ : You co-produced your new album with Adam Odor, right?

Mike Harmeier: Yeah, Adam Odor. Adam and I got together. He engineered a record for me that we did live years ago at the Winstar Casino, and I really liked what he did, and I wanted to try to capture the live band sound with us on that record that we made and he was the co-producer as well. Our work ethic and the way we worked just really flowed naturally for us, so we have continued to make records with him. We just have a good rapport, the band and us. We hang out a lot together, so I think that Adam gets us and knows where we want to go and that kind of helps lead me in that direction. It’s fun, you know, like I said, it's a group effort, so it's kind of produced by all of us.

MJ : Do you feel more freedom producing your own records?

Mike Harmeier: I do, and I really like making records. I mean I'm very passionate about the recording process. I kind of look at the two things like live shows and producing records completely differently. I love them both a lot. But I'm just really into making records. I remember years ago I saw the Wilco documentary “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” and it was all about them making “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and I was obsessed with how they made that record and all the different approaches they had. So, for me, it's just a really creative process. I'm just into it, you know, I mean, I can't wait to make another record. Even as far as now Adam and I have also been co-producing other people's projects. Adam and I have a little record label called Praire Rose Records and we just made a record on a guy named Rob Leines. Adam is married now to Darby Sparkman and we made her record too. I'm kind of diving into the production thing for other people too as well. I'm just having a lot of fun making records.

MJ : I know you shared how the band got started, but was singing, songwriting, and performing something that you did growing up, or did it just happen?

Mike Harmeier: Yeah, for me, I mean, I started doing it early on. I took guitar lessons when I was eight years old, and I had a standing gig by the time I was fourteen. So, that's all I've ever really done. You know, I've had a couple of odd jobs here and there, but for me I’ve been chasing it forever. I think a lot of the guys too, like Catlin, my guitar player, grew up with his parents owning a dancehall. So, he’s been surrounded by it too being a guitar player and performer forever. It's always been in my blood, and I think pretty much everybody in the band feels the same way. That's why I think we're all lifers and just doing what we all want to do.

MJ : I know you said that dancehalls were your favorite places to play, is that still the case today? What would be your favorite venue ever?

Mike Harmeier : That's a tough one. You know, maybe I haven't found it yet. We're still doing the dancehall thing occasionally, but, you know, I think we kind of got that out of our system a lot. Early on we played every night, seven nights a week on the dancehall circuit. It was cool, I mean, the dancehall scene here in Austin really supported us for a long time and that’s how we actually started to grow a fan base. But now I mean, I like doing rock clubs, I mean, I like four walls and a stage. We have a pretty high-energy show and it's not as conducive to dancing as it used to be. So now I just like everybody right up front, you know, pack them in as tight and as up close as we can get them and it really helps our show. That's what we're wanting now is, we want everybody crammed into a small room. With that being said, you know we've done the Ryman and we're having a release at the Ryman and that just carries so much weight. They’re all great and they’re all different. I think that we've become really good at playing to whatever room that we're in. We can morph our song choices and our show to suit the crowd.

MJ : Your new self-titled album coming out, “Silverada” that’s out June 28 ^th is this your ninth album?

Mike Harmeier: That sounds right. Yeah, I think that's right. There are some live albums in there too, but yeah, I think it's our ninth record.

MJ : How have you seen things change from when you guys started to now as far as getting records out and the whole process?

Mike Harmeier: I mean, we're still learning, you know, every time it gets a little bit better, you know we’ve figured out a couple of new tricks. When we did the “Cheap Silver” record, we just decided that we were just going to drop that out of the sky and not do anything prior to it and just kind of have a surprise release. So, we're always trying to get a little bit experimental with our releases, but you know I'm learning how to do it the right way and things that I like about that, but it's always changing. There’s always talking to PR and radio and stuff like that and getting their thoughts and ideas about it, and social media is such a big part of putting out a record now and virality is a big thing. Video content has become huge, you know, not necessarily music videos, but just, snippets of content. So, we try to focus a lot more on that these days than we used to. I mean, it's ever-evolving. So, I think we have to evolve with it and continue to come up with creative ways to put out records.

MJ : Were all the songs on the new album written from ideas from the books and process you used, or were some from kind of a life story?

Mike Harmeier: “Stubborn Son” was kind of my follow-up to the “Steak Night” thing. At the time that I put out “Steak Night”, that song, which was just about basically me and that gig when I was fourteen and my dad gave me that gig and growing up in the bars with him. I had previous songs, “Mockingbird” is a song that's kind of similar to that same thing from a record years ago. So, I just naturally when I'm just sitting down to write, I can guess where my head goes first before I try to peel away and try to find something else to talk about. That kind of just naturally is my first instinct. That song is very true to my life and my past. Then you know, I just naturally write sad country songs. “Doing it Right” is a song on the record that I think really follows a lot of what people expect from us. That was just a natural write. That came straight out of my brain. The one that we just put out, “Stay By My Side” we wrote and recorded it on the road. We were touring a lot at the time we were making the record and that's just a true story about our existence.

MJ : I know you said that you've been producing some other folks, is that something that you want to expand on looking five to ten years down the road?

Mike Harmeier: I really do. I mean it's another creative outlet for me and it's something that I really do enjoy, and I like working with other people. I mean most of the time we're going to work with somebody it's because we toured with them and I liked them as people. They're good hangs and I'm interested in what they're doing, and they're doing cool stuff. Getting to pick and choose is fun for me. It's kind of getting to curate my own catalog. I enjoy that aspect of it and I want to diversify myself in the music industry and do other things. Hopefully, we're not doing a hundred fifty, two hundred shows a year, and I can focus a little bit more time on other outlets like that. So that's the way I see my future going, more producing and other artists involved.

MJ : Do you keep your eye out for new talent that you can kind of mentor and help?

Mike Harmeier: I do. I mean we try to take out a new band on the road supporting us as direct support as much as we can and with people that we think deserve to be recognized and heard. Our only outlet has been to do that through touring. That's kind of all we do. This gives me another way to maybe shine some light on some artists that aren't being heard or seen right now.

MJ : When you get down time, what are some things that you like to do?

Mike Harmeier: Lately, it's been baseball. I have a six-year-old and he's been in tee-ball for his first year. A lot of tee-ball games, a lot of backyard catch and taking him to games. We live close to the Dell Diamonds field, where the Texas Rangers have their farm team, so taking him to the Dell Diamond games is fun. If I'm here, I'm hanging out with the kid. I also have an old ‘85 Chevy truck that I have no idea what I'm doing but I enjoy tinkering on. That's just another way for me to kind of clear my head and dump some money into something.