Silverada drop their self-titled album, their first since changing their name from Mike and the Moonpies back in January, on June 28. Ahead of the release, the Texas country band issue one more song from the LP, and it’s a shot across the bow of those who dare to call “country music” anything but.
“Radio Wave,” written by Silverada’s Mike Harmeier, is an intricate, wall-of-sound opus with shades of alt-rock that would fit right in on your country-rock playlist. Just don’t label it “Americana.”
“If there’s a weapon you can’t trust me with, it’s a major third, the perfect fifth/Americana is a myth, I told ya,” Harmeier sings in one verse, issuing the most forceful declaration that country is country since Tyler Childers’ infamous 2018 Americana Honors & Awards speech. “As a man who identifies as a country music singer,” he said then, “I feel Americana ain’t no part of nothing.”
Since announcing the Silverada name change and new album at Mile 0 Festival in Key West, Florida, earlier this year, the band has released the songs “Anywhere But Here” and “Wallflower,” the latter of which arrived with a video featuring the Cornbread Cowboi (if you know, you know).
“We have been talking about name change for many, many years,” Harmeier told RS about the decision to rebrand as Silverada and retire the Moonpies tag. “The climate for the music that we make is very good right now. This scene that is happening now is a mainstream country scene. When we started out, it wasn’t really that way, and here we are — old hat at it now. It’s like we’ve climbed to the top of a ladder and there’s no escape hatch up there. How do we go to that next level? It seems to me like I need to refresh the idea of what we’re doing to new listeners.”
After releasing the album at the end of this month, Silverada will headline the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on July 5, with Uncle Lucius and Town Mountain also on the bill.