Singled Out: Band Of Silver's El Magnifico

12-18-2018

Band Of Silver released their new EP "In Space" and to celebrate we asked singer Avery Silvernagel to tell us about the song "El Magnifico". Here is the story:

El Magnifico started as just the intro guitar piece and melody. We write all our songs on an acoustic guitar first to get the song structure down and add the production elements later. One day we sat down to work with some lyrics I'd written. I handed Alex the guitar, and he got this big goofy grin on his face. As soon as the instrument was in his hands, he looked down dramatically and began to play the intro to "El Magnifico". He started wobbling his head side to side, up and down as he sang, as if he was in a trance. Everyone in the room began laughing. I assumed it was a song he'd heard on the radio since the Latin sound and nonsensical lyrics were so random it didn't strike me as something he would write. At the beginning of the next few more songwriting sessions, he would break into the song almost as soon as he picked up the acoustic guitar. Eventually I asked where he'd heard the song, and he told me it was just something he came up with. We knew then that we had to do something with it. After some brainstorming, we decided to make the song into a kind of "The Most Interesting Man in the World" story about the titular character, "El Magnifico." We rocked it up and used Alex's original part as the intro and outro to the song. Overall we wanted to write something goofy and fun, like Alex noodling on guitar. We had a lot of fun coming up with the crazy adventures of El Magnifico when writing the lyrics. Originally, I was supposed to sing the song, however, a few of the notes in the verse were a bit low in my range, so my voice would sound gravelly whenever I hit them. The solution would typically be to tune the song up, but to keep the Latin feel, the song worked best in A minor. We thought about it for a bit, and decided to let Alex sing instead. It was a great decision since he sells the story so well. Additionally, I got promoted to tambourine player, which is a lot of fun. I'd played cowbell before with ease, but tambourine is a whole other beast. The sixteenth notes on the chorus left my forearm surprisingly sore the first week I played it.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself right here!