Mike and the Moonpies Have Rebranded, and They’re at the Top of Their Game.
After 17 years as a band, Silverada, formerly known as Mike and the Moonpies, still love the game. They’re playing dates all over the country this summer and fall. By now, the theater and dancehall circuit is a well-worn track. They know the crowds, they know the songs that will get them riled up, the songs that will bring it back down and they know what bars to party at after the encore.
“We do the hottest 90 minutes in country music,” frontman Mike Harmeier chuckled during a call with Bandwagon.
Earlier this year, the band changed its name and released a new album as Silverada. The 10-track LP may be the band’s most ambitious project yet. It draws from divergent lineages of Americana, in one moment invoking the Allman Brothers and, in the next, outlaw country.
At this point the band has a hit list of fan favorites to run through at shows. Yet, they regularly find themselves bumping old tunes out to make room for the tracks on Silverada. And people love it.
“We do pretty much every song on the record in the show now,” Harmeier said. “We have a rabid, kind of cultish, fan base. No matter what, they just like us as a band. It gives us the freedom to explore.”
This month, Silverada will return to Denver, a city they’ve been gigging at for more than a decade. Once upon a time, they were regulars at the Hi-Dive. Now, they’ve moved on to bigger rooms — they will play the Oriental Theater on Sep. 22.
Harmeier never knew he was going to be a rock star, but he always knew he was going to try. He dedicated himself to music at 10 years old and never wavered.
“I’ve done odd jobs, but I’ve never really had a real job other than this,” he told Bandwagon. “It started as a kid for me. I was just infatuated with music, and I’ve been chasing the lifestyle ever since.”
His earliest influences came to him over the airwaves of late ‘80s/ early ‘90s Texas country radio — George Strait, Clint Black and Randy Travis. As he gained skill on the guitar, he found himself gravitating toward classic rock and blues. That rich vein carried him into his early 20s, when he found work as a session player for blues bands in Austin.
In 2007, Harmeier got the itch to make an album. A collection of country ballads had been living in his head for years, and he needed to get them out. He gathered friends and acquaintances to back him in the studio — a group that went on to become the Moonpies and now Silverada.
In addition to Harmeier, Silverada includes drummer Taylor Englert, guitarist Catlin Rutherford, bassist Omar Oyoque and steel guitarist Zachary Moulton. The quintet has been together for so long, they’re family. And, even after 17 years, they’re not tired of each other. After a long stretch of tour dates, they’ll vacation together — usually a big, families-included trip to a lake house.
“It’s just a non-stressful way to keep hanging out,” Harmeier said.
From the beginning, Harmeier found bandmates with his same, unique attitude. Music was never a side hustle, nor was it a pipe dream. It was everything.
“We’re all lifers,” he said. “There’s nowhere else to go. This is what we’re doing.”
It’s this attitude that has carried them through nearly two decades of breakneck touring (and partying) together. And it’s paying off. Silverada, the album, showcases a band with a deep mastery over the country form. The songs are earworms that touch on familiar sounds and themes with an added layer of unbridled creativity.
“I hate the way I play the blues. One four five with a minor two,” Harmeier sings on the opening track “Radio Wave.” It’s how I learned to tie my shoes and color inside the lines.”
“Radio Wave” is a perfect country anthem about wandering around the rural American west. It’s sure to please a crowd, but before the listener gets too comfortable, Silverada follows it up by coloring outside the lines — just a bit. “Anywhere but Here” covers some of the same material thematically, but it takes a left turn into a wild Allman Brothers-esque jam. It’s a chance for the band to show its formidable chops — built from nearly two decades on the road.
When Harmeier sings “I’m still livin’ on a two-lane road that takes me anywhere I want to go,” he means it.
They might have kids and a lake house, but the members of Silverada will always be a hard-touring band at heart. The kind of band that can’t resist an encore. The type of band that invites a fan onto the tour bus if they’re feeling friendly and they’ve got a bottle of liquor. The type of band that makes a home wherever they go.
