Dylan Silvers of Cinematic Synth-Punk Band [DARYL] Talks New Conceptual Joint Albums ‘The Wasted Casualties’ & ‘I Dream Alone’

If John Hughes and John Carpenter made a movie together, [DARYL] might just be the soundtrack.

The long-standing Dallas, Texas band has entertained audiences since 1999, harnessing their love of 80s music and cinema. They curate their energetic sound with vintage synths and catchy, ferocious post-punk rock n’ roll. And earlier this month on October 3rd, 2024, [DARYL] released their long-awaited conceptual joint album, The Wasted Casualties and I Dream Alone, via Idol Records, both clocking in with seven tracks each. Produced by Grammy-winning producer Stuart Sikes (The White Stripes, Cat Power), the albums harness an energy suited for fans of artists like The Cure, Billy Idol, Dead Boys and the like.

Conceptually, the albums’ theme is a continuation of the graphic novel, Slaves For Gods, created by lead singer and songwriter Dylan Silvers’ multimedia art project These Machines Are Winning. At its core, all of the tracks harken to the ups and downs and the pain and bliss of youth and coming of age — and it’s done in a unique sci-fi graphic novel type of way. 

After releasing albums in both the U.S. and Japan, including three full-length albums and four EPs, the band decided to go on an 18-year hiatus. Prior to their re-alignment in 2018, the band earned recognition touring the U.S. for years, sharing stages with acts like Cheap Trick, The Black Keys, Ash, Old 97’s, Spoon and more.

Silvers is an active touring member of Polyphonic Spree, and the creator and co-founder of Nuclear War Skills, a project that combines musicians, filmmakers, comic artists, and political activists. Since 2012, they’ve made graphic novels, records, hosting political festivals, humanitarian events and more. One of those political festivals he helped curate was Dallas’s Buffalo Tree Festival, which was created to inspire a movement where musicians and artists share their voices and show their support for candidates who stand up for civil rights, the environment, racial equality, gun control, and more.

We got to chat with the multi-faceted artist that is Dylan Silvers about the new joint albums, the band’s lengthy hiatus and much more.

So can you talk more about the band’s inception in 1999? How and where did you all come together, and what was the vision for the project?

I had been touring in punk bands all over since 1996 when I was a teenager. I became obsessed with a lot of 80s bands from cassette tape compilations my bass player gave me on the trips.

After getting back from a few years of long tours, I wanted to start a band that infused punk and keyboards together closer to the music that I was listening to at the time. So after a few failed attempts to make this vision come true, me and my old bandmate Jeff Parker started the beginning stages of [DARYL] in 1999. I made a few demos with a good friend Matt Riggle using my first Moog and guitars.

Once our drummer Michael Lamm and guitarist Dave Wilson joined and later Chad Ferman on keys, our sound was complete with multiple analog keyboards, two guitars, and at times double bass. Wilson being a tad older than us really had the 80s chorus and arpeggiated guitar tone. It was second nature and helped fill the void that was needed.

And what made you want to bring the band back together 18 years later?

We were offered a spot on a festival in Dallas featuring Explosions in the Sky, Roky Erickson, Black Angels, and more. Once we started getting ready for that show, we were having so much fun that we wanted to play more shows together as [Daryl]. In 2018, I started writing new songs that definitely felt like [Daryl] songs, so we started the demo process for making a new record. That really helped keep everyone excited to continue playing shows and making more stuff with the band.

What’s your role in Nuclear War Skills and what it’s all about? 

Nuclear War Skills is a project that is a combination of musicians, filmmakers, comic artists and political activists. We changed the name last year, but since 2012 we have been making graphic novels, records, hosting political festivals, humanitarian events and more. I am the creator/co-founder of NWS and use this platform to help with all the projects. Buffalo Tree is a sister company for us were we dip into for politics. 

“We are not trying to take over the world, we just love each other’s company and love the fuck out of art and rock and roll!”

And how about your graphic novel Slaves For Gods? When did you write it, and can you talk about the correlation of the records and how the songs tie in exactly? 

Me, Jason Godi, and Ryan Hartsell wrote the book in 2013-2014. We were published by Hermes Press in 2017. The book was always meant not only to tell a story that starts decades long of our own fiction and sometimes historically correct universe, but also as an art and music vessel.

We had variant covers with the artist Jock and Charlie Adlard. Each variant had a different record. After [Daryl] broke up in the mid-2000s, I started a project a few years later called These Machines Are Winning, which was a darker brother of [Daryl]. Each of the These Machines Are Winning records were lyrically connected to the storyline of Slaves For Gods. When [Daryl] started back up and TMAW took a break, we continued where it left off on the ongoing storyline that dates from the 1940s to present time. Daryl and Jenny are also the main characters in the book. (“Jenny” is one of [Daryl]’s more popular songs from early 2000s)

In a nutshell, the timeline of the new [Daryl] records starts in October of 1982 in Kingman, Arizona. That’s the location the Slaves For Gods book starts, but in 1953.

What are a few key tracks on each album and what are they about?

On I Dream Alone, “Mindy” is about a lonely girl who is contemplating suicide but falls in love and is ultimately saved by her new relationship. “Entertain Me Tonight” revolves around two drunken homecoming dates that are hanging out in the parking lot of their high school, wanting to stay with each other all night and never go home.

Off of The Wasted Casualties, “No More Secrets” is about teenage love, and desperately wanting to take a certain girl to homecoming. The protagonist would go to great lengths to make that happen. “The Wasted Casualties” touches on the most precious and sometimes most painful memories of teenage youth. From the death of a friend, to having your heart broken, to suicide.

What was your favorite part and the most challenging part of making these albums?

My favorite part: We did the bulk of the tracks with Stuart Sikes at his new studio in Austin. We had done previous records with him in the past, most notably our 2004 record Ohio. Getting in the car with my best friends and sleeping on floors and going to the studio for multiple days with everyone was so great. Felt like we were back on tour, and we were making a record, not just tossing tracks back and forth. It was a shit ton of fun!

The most challenging part: After we finished I Dream Alone, some of my bandmates decided they wanted to make another record right away. One that was a little more raw and guitar heavy. So I took the writing challenge. Two weeks later we had most of the working tracks for The Wasted Casualties. Everyone helped refine and add their superpowers to it, and that’s when we took it down to Austin and to Stuart. It was challenging but fun to go right back to it!

What do you hope listeners take away from listening to these albums? 

Speaking for myself, I get so much emotion and feeling from 80s music and movies. Of course I love the 60s and 70s as well, but I suppose it’s a childhood thing with warm memories, but some that are also really dark. I take from this concept of fictional story telling mixed with real life pain and blend them together. I HOPE the listeners might feel something familiar to them. A place in time that could be present, or it could be decades ago. It could be painful or a happy memory.

What are one or two pinnacle moments for you as an artist? 

Putting on The Buffalo Tree Festival, where me and my [Daryl] bandmate Michael were able to mix art, music and humanitarian causes all together the way we wanted to, which was crazy. And by crazy, I mean crazy luck that we pulled it off, ha!

Being able to have a band that started in the 90s with some of my best buds and still be able to make music, play shows, and be excited to do all this together is another. I have been in about a dozen bands. This is rare, and I can speak for everyone that we are damn lucky to have [Daryl] in our lives. For the good times and the bad, we stuck with it and stuck by each other, even during the hiatus years. We are not trying to take over the world, we just love each other’s company and love the fuck out of art and rock and roll! 

Will you and the band be taking these songs out on the road? Any tours or runs of shows in the works? 

We plan on playing a lot more shows in the area and definitely some small regional runs, but that all depends on schedules. We did tour a lot back in the day — for long periods of time — and we absolutely love it. We’re all a bit scattered geographically now and have other responsibilities, so a full-blown tour is probably not in the cards, but you never know! Going on the road together has helped define who we are as a band and helped me personally get so much real-life experience. Like the time we went to Graceland at 4 AM, ha! That’s another story… to be continued.