Silica is a synthesized rock band from Providence, Rhode Island. Coined by many as "Dance Punk", their emotional mix of punk rock energy and indie rock innovation creates a captivating experience whether you are watching their high energy performances or listening to their debut album, "Genesis" on your own. Their innovative mix of genres includes obvious influences from punk, to indie, to pop, whilst walking along the boundaries of the space-rock category.

Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.

SILICA is
Lauren Cloutier - Vocals, Synth, Guitar
Mario Lima - Lead Guitar
Andrew Robinson - Bass
Andrew Lima - Drums, Vocals

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to SILICA? How long has the band been around?

The band itself has been around since March 2018. The music however has been around since October of 2017, as it began as the solo project of the bands front woman Lauren Cloutier. 

Lauren and Mario met playing in a cover band called “Gravity” a few years back. Mario was also a part of the Providence based Rock band “Ones Will”. And Andrew Lima has an explosive Progressive solo project called, “I Among You”.

What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?

There’s no crazy origin story for it, but Silica is one of the most common and oldest materials found in earths crust. Lauren was learning about it in a college geology class and thought it would make a cool project name. 

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?

The “Genesis” album was written and recorded in its entirety by Lauren as a solo project. Once it gained traction, she recruited a band to play the music live. The band is currently working on more collective music, and we’re very excited about it. 

The music is very emotional and pretty intense. All the songs have particular personal meanings to me (Lauren), but I really enjoy the fact that other people have their own meanings for the songs I’ve written. I like that it can mean one thing to me as the writer and another thing to whoever listens. So I don’t like to directly say what they mean to me, I don’t want to ruin that dynamic. 

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?

Twenty One Pilots, The Killers, Enter Shikari, Bleachers, The 1975

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?

We all come from relatively different musical backgrounds, with all different reasons for why we’ve started playing music. The artists that first inspired us range from Rush to Blink 182, and even Dave Matthews and Guns and Roses. 

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect …

Those of us who sing usually do some vocal warm ups, and we all like to drink green tea. Which is really good for you not only vocally, but health wise as well. We stretch out a little here and there, and sometimes we put our hands together and like to pump each other up before we go on stage. 

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?

We were just recently asked to play The Strand in Providence on September 26th for a local artist showcase and we’re really excited about it. We’ve all seen some of our favorite artists perform there and it’s going to be really crazy to be able to play on that stage.

We’ve also gotten some pretty great written reviews from different music blogs and review websites. One in particular called Dark Life Experience, is based in Germany, so the whole review was written in German. We had to use Google translate to figure out what it said but it was a really fantastic review. 

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?

Artists that would make the most sense would probably be The Joy Formidable, Chvrches or PVRIS, just based on genre and female leads. But it would be amazing to play with Bleachers, Twenty One Pilots, or even The Killers. 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

You can find all of our music on Spotify, iTunes, and any other download and streaming site. Also, we’ve got some really cool events and releases coming up towards the end of the year that we’ve yet to announce. All of our announcements are made on our Facebook and Instagram pages, keep updated!