Street Roots • Nov, 17-23, 2017
News
Page 11
The subtle alchemy of Three for Silver
Bassist Lucas Warford discusses music and the Portland trio's latest trip to Russia
BY STEPHEN QUIRKE
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t is difficult to do justice to the band of
eclectic misfits that make up Three for
Silver.
A full-time trio (and sometime big band)
gypsy jazz mercenaries and multi
instrumentalists, Three For Silver has won
the praise of audiences across the region
since they formed in 2012.
The trio combines the distinct vocal
styles of the sultry/sweet Willo Sertain and
the abrupt shards of Lucas Warford. The
two conceived the band while touring
Europe with the Underscore Orchestra in
2012.
Together with violinist Greg Allison, the
trio weave together an eclectic mix of sound
that’s difficult to fully describe. You could
think of it as a kind of polychronic jazz or
perhaps a folk futurism.
Some songs sound distinctly like they’re
being squeezed out of a small wooden box.
Others seem to erupt from brawlers in an
18th-century pub.
A year after they formed, New York’s Deli
Magazine named the band artist of the
month based on its album Live in the Map
Room. Years later, they were playing
resistance songs from Three Penny Opera at
Portland’s Vie De Boheme, with a full
audience stomping and g ru n tin g in tim e to
the Cannon Song.
Last year, Three for Silver was selected to
travel to Russia as part of a U.S. State
Department cultural exchange program.
This May, the band visited the bustling port
city of Vladivostok and the remote
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.
“My favorite thing about the trip was
definitely the show with the heavy metal
Ghostbusters cover,” Sertain said as others
nodded in agreement. “That and all of the
ponies.”
“There are ponies everywhere in Russia,”
Warford said. “Just about any social
gathering becomes an excuse to bring out
their ponies and dress them up. They really
love ponies.”
On Sept. 8, Three for Silver released its
third full-length album, “The Way We Burn,”
at The Old Church Concert Hall. With sound
heavily layered with ethereal qualities,
leaping from emotional ballads like
“Coracius” (from 2015’s “Bury Me
Standing”) to the gently balanced “Devil on
My Shoulder,” “The Way We Burn” continues
to expand the trio’s experimental range.
Warford is a multi-instrumentalist who
draws a striking range of percussive sound
from a custom-built bass-banjo styled after
Les Claypool and punctuate his verses with
guttural snaps reminiscient of Tom Waits.
Street Roots caught up with Warford to
hear highlights of the band’s trip to Russia,
get his thoughts on music today and unpeel
the enigmas of alchemy.
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Three for Silver -
Willow Sertain
(from left), Lucas
Warford and Greg
Allison - perform
at the Crystal
Ballroom in
Portland.
I
Stephen Quirke: “The Way We B urn”
might be your most rock ’n roll album to date.
As a rock artist, what is the state of rock ’n ’
roll today?
L ucas Warford: Rock ’n’ roll - as I
PH O TO CO URTESY
O F T H R E E F O R SILVER
IF YOU GO
Three for Silver performances:
did this influence your musical style?
L.W.: The hermetic tradition of alchemy
has long guided us not just artistically but in
all a re a s of life. I t is e m b e d d e d rig h t in th e
Nov. 17: Slim’s in Portland, 9 p.m.
Nov. 18: Kelly’s Olympian in Portland,
with The Jack Maybe Project and Feral
Folk; 9 p.m.
believe the kids refer to it - may have briefly
been a codified style of music for a moment
there in the mid-20th century, but it so
quickly exploded in so many directions that
feels ridiculous to talk about it in a unified
manner. If anything, rock ’n’ roll feels like an
attitude, and that attitude will always be alive
and well as long as someone is willing to get
ridiculous and not give a fuck.
S.Q.: What was your favorite part of being
in Russia?
L.W.: The hospitality, the food, the
superior treatment of musicians. That last
part isn’t too particular to Russia, as almost
every country I’ve been to knows how to
treat musicians better than America, sad to
say. Though there were many tense
moments on a governmental level, the
Russian people themselves were some of
the greatest audiences and hosts I’ve ever
encountered. Just incredible levels of
excitement and love. Russian hospitality is
famous for a reason.
S.Q.: Did anyone with the Federal Security
Service try to recruit you while you were there?
L.W.: No?
S.Q.: Would you tell us if they did?
L.W.: Yes?
S.Q.: I understand the band name is an
obscure reference to Rosicrucianism. How long
have you personally practiced alchemy? How
name. Silver is dominated by Luna, in other
words the moon, which is the ruling planet
of Cancer, and is exalted in Taurus, upon
whose horns we ride and you can hear
mentioned in our song Get Low (a heavily
coded anthem to Jungian self-actualization
through the conscious excavating of
unconscious archetypes acting in your life).
The desire to serve this literally lunatic
metal is triplicated, three for silver,
obviously representing both the tripartite
nature of the Judaeo-christian god (Lucas
the father, Willo the son, Greg the holy
ghost), but also the tripod or pyramid as the
most stable platonic solid.
S.Q.: Favorite Spice Girl or boy band?
L.W.: Posh Spice. Scary Spice is the
obvious choice. Too obvious. Posh always
looked like she had something devious
planned, like the Spice Girls were just Phase
One in something much more sinister.
S.Q.: Who is a better guitar player: Lucas
Warford or Yngwie Malmsteen?
L.W.: Definitely Yngwie, but you’d rather
listen to Lucas.
S.Q.: Three for Silver has done a fair bit of
busking. What’s the deal with that?
L.W.: You go out on the street and
perform for people, and they give you
money. It’s a timeless and noble tradition
practiced all over the world, and I don’t
trust any musician who can’t do it. Period. It
really cuts out all the bullshit, as it’s just you
being totally vulnerable in an environment
that is not conducive to performing (if not
outright hostile to it), and you’ve gotta
summon enough presence that total
strangers, who probably had no expectation
of encountering a performance, not only
stop to listen, but actually give you
something for it. It’s a magical and
im p o r ta n t th in g , w h ile a l s o b e i n g g r i n d i n g ,
unromantic and occasionally dangerous.
S.Q.: What’s your favorite show you’ve ever
played?
L.W.: That’s an impossible question.
There’ve been some grand moments over
the years: a giant outdoor festival on
Komsomolskaya Square in Khabarovsk,
Russia, performing as the sun set over the
huge Orthodox cathedral; a wedding party in
front of Schwerin Castle in Schwerin,
Germany; a concert in the hull of a
hollowed-out boat afloat in Deer Harbor on
Orcas Island. Those are a few that
immediately came to me.
S.Q.: What’s the weirdest show you’ve ever
played?
L.W.: In Australia at a big New Year’s Eve
festival, performing atop a converted double-
decker bus, with the audience slowly getting
more and more naked as we perform, as
there was a Naked Disco following our set.
By our last few songs, the crowd was just a
big writhing mass of nudity. Maybe not too
weird, but definitely very surreal, especially
as we had just landed in Australia less than
12 hours before that.
S.Q.: Any advice to young musicians?
L.W.: Book shows, figure everything else
out later. Don’t quite have a band ready?
Book a show, and you’ll definitely find some
people. Don’t quite have enough songs?
Book a show, and you’ll certainly get
something prepared. And if you don’t figure
it out in time, you’ll fail miserably, and that
is just as valuable as succeeding. Don’t wait;
book.
Stephen Quirke is a former housemate of
members of Three for Silver