With debut album HAZE now out in the world and just-announced slots at Download and 2000 Trees, Isle of Man five-piece SILO talk friendship, riff wars, and the group chat messages that keep changing everything…

Words by Tanita Hingerty | May 03, 2026

---

It’s the week HAZE finally lands. The album that SILO originally recorded for themselves (just so they wouldn’t lose the songs to time) has dropped to the kind of reception nobody in the band saw coming, including a glowing five-star review in these pages a couple of days ago. Festival slots at Download and 2000 Trees have just landed in the inbox. The Isle of Man has a habit of producing artists who punch well above the island’s eighty-thousand-strong population, and right now SILO are the latest case in point. We sat down with Kriss, Chris, Dario and Darren (with guitarist Lar holding the fort elsewhere) to talk about how five mates from a small island ended up here.

Your debut album HAZE has just landed. There’s a lot of depth to it. Can you tell us about the themes and inspiration behind it?

Kriss: Lyrically, definitely, it’s got a lot of heavy subject matter, and this all comes from real-life stuff. I’ve always enjoyed doing music, and to make music you need some lyrics, and I end up writing about personal experiences. Some of the things just rhyme and they’re in the right context, but for the most part it’s definitely from a very personal place. The music the guys are writing perfectly lifts the lyrics off the ground, and it’s a nice base to jump off.

Chris: One thing I think is pretty cool, typically we all get in the room and start making music, and it’s all very in the room for us. These days, with modern bands with Ableton and all the digital stuff, bands will sit in the room all day and refine stuff again and again until they’re happy with it, but with this whole album, literally every single song has just been done in a room with five lads. Normally it’s probably within the first three things we try is what will end up there. Lyrically, Kriss will listen to us and then disappear and come back, he’ll be on his phone scrolling through his typed lyrics and voice note lyrics. He’s got a treasure trove of lyrics, and whatever he does will usually stick. Some of the songs are quite aggressive and the vocal delivery and lyrical content match that, but some of it’s softer and more introspective. It’s almost like Kriss has a bottomless pit of lyrics that will fit almost any kind of vibe of music.

Kriss: Yeah, I’m always writing. I picked it up, writing lyrics, and I realised I can do this, so I just never stopped. I can just open my phone and start doing it, and then somewhere down the line, Chris will have a riff and I’ll just kind of let loose on it. It always works.

Chris: On the lyrical theme, there’s some stuff on there that’s really, really heavy. From an outside point of view for me, as I didn’t write the lyrics, it hits me hard, and when that happens, I think you’ve touched on something there. There’s a lot of heart and soul from you in there, Kriss. That’s what makes it what it is.

Kriss: I really want to think the messages in the songs resonate with people. They’re very open to interpretation. It’s still very emotional and heavy.

Darren: I’ll chime in and say, and if I’m wrong, correct me, Kriss. The lyrics aren’t just from over the time we’ve been working as a band and writing an album, but the lyrics themselves go way back, probably twenty-odd years some of them.

Kriss: Yeah, man, you’re totally right.

Darren: The lyrics express everyday life. That’s what I’ve noticed from it.

That’s amazing that you can look back at lyrics from twenty years ago and realise what they mean to you now. Within the album, there’s so much heaviness, but also at the end, there’s a surprise acoustic song. The album is such a versatile journey. What was your creative process like?

Chris: There’s no real pre-planning for a lot of this stuff. Someone will have an idea, a riff or something, could be anything really, and we’ll just get into a room. We’re five working normal lads. Hopefully there’s something in it, but we’re not career musicians per se. So it’s just an outlet and a release. We’ll get into a room and express things going on in work or in our personal lives, and we’ll express it in a way that typically, stuff will come out, and before we know it, some of the songs will be written in one session, sometimes refined over two or three. I’ve been in loads of bands with the boys, and they have been as well before, and I have to say this is probably the one where things just click the quickest. We’re on the same page, and I’ve never been in a band before where you can have one song from concept to finished in one practice session. We just feel them out. I don’t think there’s a particular formulaic approach, or anything like that. Some of the songs do have a pretty typical song structure, but some of them are just wild and go off on a bit of a journey. We’ve never sat down and said, okay boys, let’s do it this way, this is the approach with AABA and all that nonsense. We’ll just go in and give it a go.

Dario: Apart from Lar, who this is his first proper band really, the rest of us have been in bands since we were teenagers and have known each other for over ten years, even two or three decades. But this is the first band where there’s not been any compromise to the sound. We’ve all been in previous bands where we’d listen back to the music we made and be like, “I’d change that, or wish we didn’t do that.” But because with SILO there’s no compromise, it all just falls into place quite effortlessly, and in the space of every practice you drive home with a new song that literally came out of nothing. Another cool thing, apart from Darren’s video doing quite well on our socials playing the guitar, the other four of us also play guitar, and we have this thing called “riff wars.” If we’re stuck on something, we’ll just pass the guitar around, and everyone’s little own style will come out, and we’re like, oh, we didn’t even think of that, let’s do that. There was a fair bit of that while we were recording, also.

Chris: Whatever sounds serve us best is what we’ve got to put down, quite frankly. Often, if during the riff wars something came out, it was like, that’s the one. It’s that person’s riff who actually laid it down that plays on the record, even though it’s got names against guitar on the record. All of us are playing guitar on there. Darren’s a trendsetter on Instagram, and his guitar riffs made it onto the record. There are tons in it. Some of the bands we’ve been in in the past also reflect the diverse nature of it all. Kriss and I are both massively into deathcore back in the day, bands like Black Dahlia Murder. There are loads of post-rock influences also. I’m a massive post-rock fan. It’s a bit of a melting pot of stuff. It was never trying to be anything else, so I don’t know how it would be anything other than that, really. It’s not like we went in with the intention of being a hardcore band or anything else. It was interesting going in to record the album with Kel (Pinchin, producer on HAZE) because we didn’t really know what we were.

Dario: Kel spun around in his chair on day three in the studio and was just like, “What are you, boys?” He was a lot of fun to work with. He had some great ideas, but it was funny, he was like, “I’m very intrigued by you five boys from the Isle of Man.”

You’ve spoken about being in other bands together before. How did you all meet? Is there any band lore? Tell us everything!

Dario: I sat next to Kriss in high school. Chris and Kriss used to skate together. I was in high school with Darren’s younger brother. It all ties in from skateboarding and school.

Darren: It’s kind of the Isle of Man to a tee. It’s quite a small place where everybody kind of knows everybody. People have been in bands with other people. Between us, there must be ten bands that we’ve all been in and out of, and this one came together where we’ve all kind of got something from this one.

Chris: I’m still technically a loan stand-in bass player, believe it or not. That was my role. I’m still in two other bands. I’ll come out, I’m a guitar player, and I thought I’d play a bit of bass for you, sure, no problem. That was three years ago and one album later.

Dario: Kriss and I did a Weezer cover band in high school. It was a lot of fun.

Kriss: Early days. There have been a few different iterations of SILO regarding the personnel. It started out without me, Dario, and Chris.

Darren: I don’t think any of us on this call were in the original band at all. It was Lar and Hounsley who started it. Nick Edge came in, they started it, and then they dropped out, and then we just kind of all fell into it.

Dario: I think the cool thing is there are a couple of demos recorded from that original line-up, and the SILO foundation was definitely laid from the very beginning. The first demo, “Sonder,” which we’ve ended up reworking, has the sound that was there from the beginning. It’s just kind of refined itself into its own lane now and become more of a polished thing, but from the very beginning it had its own sound. Just a slight direction change. Danny Hounsley has a really unique kind of voice, and then he left the band, but you know how one person leaves and it just changes it. But it didn’t change it either. They basically built the foundation that HAZE has been born from, essentially, which is really cool. From what they’ve heard, Danny and Nick really like it. They’ll probably be stoked that we’re not going to change the whole thing.

Chris: Any other lore… there’s probably loads of stuff you wouldn’t want to publish! Bit of a back story also, so we wrote all these songs for ourselves. This all came from us writing these songs for ourselves. We literally recorded them on our phones as videos or voice notes and grafted that way. It sounded terrible sometimes quality-wise, with all the noise, but we used to love it, and we’ve been in so many bands within the Isle of Man that you end up writing loads of original music. You never record it, it never gets put out anywhere, and then suddenly the band splits up, everyone goes their separate ways, and that’s all lost to time. You’ll never get it back, and that’s happened so many times, and we all said we don’t want that to happen. Let’s get it recorded. Lar, the principal album guru, somehow found Kel Pinchin, who recorded the album for us. Lar is really tuned in and has a really clear vision for SILO and its sound, and Lar looked at Kel’s track record, the bands he’s worked with, and resonated with him. So we drummed the money up to record with Kel, and we recorded it basically just for us so we didn’t lose the music, and that was the height of the expectation we had of it. We just wanted to listen to it and for it to sound good and not off a phone. So for it to get to where it is now has caught us off guard a little bit, if we’re all honest. We’re all very new to this, and we didn’t expect it.

Darren: The Isle of Man is a small place, eighty-odd thousand people, it’s an island at the end of the day, it’s pretty insular. We punch above our weight musically, I would say, as an island, and it’s such a shame because it’s so expensive to get on and off, so Manx bands typically don’t really get a chance to break through. We’ve all been in bands for the best part of however many years, since we were teenagers, really, and this band is a result of an accumulation of all of our experiences and the various bands we’ve been in. We fell into place with this one, and it seems like something has clearly clicked, which is nice.

Chris: First and foremost, we’re all mates, and the band was an outlet. Hopefully it comes across in some of the music that it’s not trying to be anything apart from five lads getting together and having a jam and enjoying the music we’re writing. We hope that comes across, it’s sincere but not trying to be something in particular.

How do you feel being from the Isle of Man has influenced you musically?

Chris: The name SILO, there’s no big backstory. Retrospectively, in hindsight, it’s quite insulating here. Maybe the isolation feeds into it in some way. It’s a lovely place and a big community feel, but it can be quite lonely and isolating at times, so I think SILO is probably quite an apt name in hindsight, but it works.

Dario: Because the music scene here is small, there’s a lot of variety over here and original bands. You can’t really go to shows and hear stuff and be influenced by other bands or anything like that, you end up just doing what you’re doing. It’s relevant to music, sport, athletes, art. The Isle of Man has such an incredible roster of people that are at world level: musicians, athletes, and more, who are from this island. Maybe it’s something that’s in the water, I don’t know, but it does punch big time for the size of it.

Chris: Music over here has a solid scene, but in terms of leisure, it is a small place, and the people that are into music pour themselves into it big time. It’s almost like a really tight-knit community, all the bands bounce off each other, no band wants to sound like each other either, because it’s a small pool in a small place, everyone is fighting for individuality and their own space. Some bands have really wacky sounds, and some bands we’ve played with are completely unique. I don’t think you’d hear them anywhere else, especially not in the UK, and actually I don’t even think globally. Shout out Shady Acres, they’re some Manx music royalty, and some of it’s extremely heavy, and then suddenly it’s cabaret crooning, but it works. It’s like Queens of the Stone Age mixed with Queen, and I don’t think you’d see that anywhere else. It’s almost been forged by the Isle of Man. It’s just a unique place that spawns unique things, including music.

Do you have a favourite song from the new album, and which one are you most looking forward to performing live?

Kriss: For me, it’s “What’s Left of Me.”

Darren: Yeah, that’s my vote as well. Track seven on the album, there’s something about that song that’s very nostalgic for me, and it’s got a nice bridge to it. We should have done this as a single, in my opinion, so for me, it’s track seven.

Chris: For me, it’d probably be the second track or the first real track, just because we open the live set pretty much like the album, not to give too much away. The first song, “Static Screen,” kind of gets us into position, and then the first thing you’re met with is a spin, balls-to-the-wall song. It’ll always be a shock playing this live, and seeing people think, bloody hell, what is this.

Dario: I’d probably say for me, “Ill Intent.” I’m a big, big fan of hardcore music, and I think it’s a very hardcore-sounding song, but it’s also so different how it builds. I want to know what hardcore music fans think of that song, I think it’s so different. The way Kriss’s vocals start, and it goes like that till the end, and it’s amazing to play live. It’s a proper stomper.

Chris: What song would you like to hear live?

The acoustic one at the end, do you think you’d do that one live?

Dario: I’d love to see Kriss play that live. It’d probably be at a specific event or a gig. I’ve watched Kriss on his own with an acoustic guitar, we all have, and it’s flipping brilliant. It’s whether Kriss wants to or not, but I’d love to see it.

I do love the song “Bai Lan” as well.

Chris: That’s interesting, that’s one of the older songs on the album. It goes off in a bit of a mad direction, doesn’t it?

What do you feel has been your defining or favourite moment, or biggest achievement, as a band so far?

Chris: They seem to just keep coming.

Dario: There’s a funny sort of thing that happens. Lar is sort of in charge. He mainly manages the emails, and he’s fantastic at the admin. We owe a lot to him for what he does behind the scenes, the stuff you don’t see. But every now and then, you get a message that says, “Boys…” and he makes you wait. Everyone sends eyes emojis back in the group chat, and then he’ll be like, “this has just come in,” and every time that happens, it’s something more crackers than the previous time, and each time our minds just keep getting blown. This was never the plan. So yeah, when that message comes up saying “Boys…” you know something’s coming.

Darren: The Download logo, and we were like, “What?” and he said Download has just offered us a slot!

What can we expect from seeing you live? You’ve just been announced for Download Festival and 2000 Trees this summer.

Dario: We’re working on it at the moment. As this has all happened so quickly, we’ve gone from here to there. We’ve had to completely change how we perform; we’ve had to get an in-ear monitoring system, which we’ve been dialling in, and we’ve had to change some of our equipment. We’ve got the set, we’re just refining it at the minute and learning all this new tech that we’ve got to use. We’re very excited.

Chris: As we’ve said before, we’re quite a basic band. We just get into a room with amps, nothing miked up, nothing fancy, no digital model, just raw sound. I guess now we just can’t travel with that stuff, so we’ve had to go digital. It’s a lot of moving, but the same energy, and the main thing for me is the authenticity will come across. I really hope that does. We’re not trying to be anything in particular. This music has come out of something quite organic, and we hope that comes across and translates. Lots of energy, a bit of variation dynamically, start the set strong, then we’ll slow it down a bit, amp up something quite dynamic, a few more production elements, hopefully a good show is what we’re hoping for. Catch us there if you can.

Kriss: Today’s announcement of Download and 2000 Trees festival sets means our live set now is going onto bigger stages, so we want it to be clear, it’s got to be fully here. You’re half an hour, we’ve got to get it in that block. The information that we’re playing these festivals is unfathomable to me. It just got announced today. I didn’t expect it. It’s a big unit and all of the different patches, but we’re getting to grips with it. It’s pretty cool. I’m massively looking forward to it. I’ve never actually been to Download Festival. It’s on the RIP stage, the industry stage, where on Thursday, like a VIP thing, where a lot of labels are scouting, or you play on this stage and get put into the roster.

Who would your dream collaboration be with?

Dario: Title Fight.

Chris: Lar would say Comeback Kid, that would be Lar’s vote. For me, there are far too many, purely from a sound and scale thing. While She Sleeps would be good. Those shows would be amazing, full of energy.

Kriss: I’d like to work with Loathe. That would be sick, to be on the same bill as them, that would be insane, big show. The Great Nothing as well. They’ve gone in that direction with shows and stuff and connections, so I feel like it’s not massively unrealistic that someday we’d put on this crazy show together.

Dario: Anyone on the bill of Outbreak would be ace.

Who are your musical influences?

Chris: If you look at who Kel has worked with in the past, bands like Thornhill and that kind of sound, that’s definitely part of it. There’s a definite hardcore streak in it.

Dario: If you’re into those bands, you can definitely get on with us, and you’ve got your Deftones, Superheaven, Basement, all of those marry together nicely in our eyes as influences. Each individual member of SILO loves that music, but we’ve all also got our own little niche pockets. For me, I love thrash and anything really fast. Some of the boys like doom, and then there’s death metal, and there are little bits we all love, and that’s where the massive variety in the sound comes from.

If you could only tell the world ONE thing about SILO, what would it be? What’s the most important thing at your core for you to get across?

Kriss: For me, that’s something that came into my head, and Darren and I had a chat about it on our way back from practice. We’re doing music, we’re all in the same age bracket, we’re doing music that we all really, really enjoyed back then, and it’s a melting pot of all of that we loved, and now it’s like a resurgence of that era. It feels nostalgic, although it’s new music, in a way.

Dario: It’s hard to pick out the main thing.

Chris: It’s born from friendship. We’re five lads who are really busy with normal life, who use this as an escape and outlet, and to come together and connect through music, and each other. That’s why we’re still doing it years later. If that wasn’t the main purpose, I don’t know if we’d still be doing it three years later. You’ve got bands that go out and hunt for members, for jobs, and try to make the best band they can make. That was never the intention here. This all spawned from the fact that we’re all mates and want to do something cool together and get together, and I hope that will continue. In terms of its main purpose and main message, I’d say it’s connection. I look forward to practice, getting together, and letting loose.

What does the future hold for SILO?

Dario: I guess it ties back into Lar’s “Boys…” moments. We don’t know, until that next message comes in and the one after that. Anything from here is literally a bonus. We never thought we’d be signed, playing 2000 Trees, Download, even making music videos. Everything is a bonus at the minute. We’ve all got things we’d like to see happen. I’d love to play Outbreak, that would be sick. We’ve all got a couple of bands it would be cool to support, but anything from here is good for me.

Chris: Trying to get across to the UK more and play more UK gigs outside the festivals, and try to see if we can play with some bands like While She Sleeps. That would go down really well. Playing some good shows in the UK, playing some of the bigger venues, would be nice. Having travelled from the Isle of Man for gigs to watch other people play, it would be amazing to then go over there and play ourselves. We’ve been going for ten to fifteen years, and one day we can get there, fingers crossed. All of this has happened so fast. We recorded the album in the best part of a week last autumn/winter, and now we’re on a label with festival announcements and music videos. We hope to continue and have a second album on the go as well in the near future. We hope to keep going and see where it takes us.

Is there anything else you’d like to chat about or promote today?

Dario: It’s all happened so quickly. Plenty of eyes and ears that can look at the record and have a listen would be great. We just need to keep grafting and spreading the good word.

SILO’s debut album HAZE is out now. Catch them at Download Festival and 2000 Trees this summer.