Why Vicor’s new artist Silas labels his music ‘alternative’

MANILA, Philippines — Vicor Music’s newest artist Silas opined that “music genre is kind of dissolving” nowadays, although he labeled his sounds leaning towards “alternative as both the word and the genre itself.”

Nevertheless, Silas asserted that we live in a “very progressive age now” and genres are melting out. He noted how Shawn Mendes’ self-titled third studio album is a mixture of various sounds, like a taste of very Latin and groovy (Señorita) and heavy, very rock (In My Blood) as well as Billie Eilish’s rock and bossa nova tones.

“I think a lot of kids right now are making music just to make music and not because, ‘Oh you’re a soul artist, you gotta make soul music,’” explained Silas in a virtual call. “For sure, there are artists where their main identifiers are, ‘Oh he’s a P-pop artist’ and it falls under pop. But then again, pop changes over time. Pop used to be rock, the Elvis Presley time and then it became hip-hop. And so, yeah, I think pop is a very broad collection of other genres. And genres are really not a thing anymore. It’s more of, kind of about the artists themselves and the art they create.”

He further elaborated, “My thing with genre is, we live now in a world, where genre is kind of dissolving. And you know it would be helpful if you’re going to a record store and like, ‘This is the rock section, this is the pop section.’ But there’s this genre called alternative and it’s on the softer rock I guess, and I like to categorize myself in the alternative space because I like the word ‘alternative’ itself because, you know, we use it as an ‘alternative’ for what we can’t describe and I think I can’t put myself in a box so I use the genre ‘alternative’ as both the word and the genre itself.”

When it comes to his craft, he wants to be simply known as “I guess, I’m an artist,” adding that “I just like to tell people that I create art ‘coz I just love art, and whatever we can consume and we can create, that’s it. I’m all about that. I guess there’s no off-limits.”

A sample of his work is an “80s-flavored pop-rock” song called Hauntingly, which he penned in July 2021 amid the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic cases.

“I was stuck in quarantine and I think most of (the) songs that I write, I write them out of frustration. For this one, I was alone in my bedroom and I was thinking about my childhood and about how much of it I kind of remember,” he recalled.

“I thought it was this saddest song ever and you know, we were all sad in quarantine and I kind of revisited this song and decided to make it into this danceable tune and I wanted to spread good vibes. I didn’t want to go back to that (emotional) space and the writing was very personal so I thought of bringing the ‘happy, good vibes’ element to it.”

Interestingly, he experienced a condition called synesthesia while hatching his debut track. “Synesthesia (is) where I see sounds as colors. At the time when I was writing this (Hauntingly), I had like a LED light in my room. (It was) purple and then (it) kind of turned yellow after writing the song. One from being very purple into like a sunshine… I saw what the song looked like before I wrote it. The inspiration (for the song) was the vaccine.”

A Scott Pilgrim-inspired music video, “with a lot of visuals,” is in the offing for the said single.

Just a quick background about Silas: He was raised abroad and grew up in a musical family. Discovered by Vicor through social media, he previously starred in movies and TV shows, but is more inclined to pursue his passion in music than acting.

He told The STAR that he is more comfortable as a solo artist than being part of a band.

“I think as an artist, I’m more comfortable (being) solo,” he asserted. “But performing, I love having a band. I think if you really wanna see a Silas show or performance, it’s gotta be me with a band. I don’t think I’m much of a minus-one person, I just love the energy of a band and you know, when you’re connected with the drummer and the bassist, it’s a vibe. I would love to perform a lot with a rock band.”

Silas also admitted putting pressure on himself for conceiving Hauntingly as echoed in the lyrics, “The pressure that I put on myself is killing me (Why do you do that, why do you do that)/ And the box that you’re living in but not with me (Why did you do that, why did you do that)/ I’m tired of speaking to myself and hearing me (How do you do that, how do you do that).”

“It’s kind of a self-sabotage thing,” he told this paper. “But with (those) lyrics, it’s mostly, you know, expectations from a lot of people. And them going like, ‘Oh you’re already like 18 or 19 and you’re still not in show business,’ and I’m still not in TV series or whatever. And I think I really did try to take my time to figure out how I’m gonna do things. And when nothing or no labels were kind of aligning with what I wanted to do, I just made it myself and I put it out myself.”

“With the pressure, I guess I try to enjoy the pressure with putting out Hauntingly. I love working. I like to believe I’m very hardworking. I’m non-stop. Whenever I kinda wrap up a project, I go work on the next one. Again,” he said.

(Stream Hauntingly on all streaming platforms. Its official lyric video and the upcoming music video will premiere on Vicor’s YouTube channel).