Now the band has constructed an environment, in tandem with their new partnership with Hopeless Records, where they are free to release the special 7" singles they want, to put on the special shows they want, to create new forms of media. They've stepped back after a whirlwind decade and figured out how to keep it all pure.
What's kept Silverstein surviving and thriving as much as the strength of their songs is the stability of their relationships.
The band has had only one lineup change in their eleven year career, which took place before they had even toured. Many groups in the scene with these kind of stripes have only one or two remaining original members.
Each guy is different. Some are straight edge, some party. Some are really into sports, some couldn't be bothered. But there's a unity within their diversity. They have been able to meld a common vision from the spare parts of their differences, cobbling together their various points of view and specialties for the greater good.
"I've seen it with so many of our peers that we've toured with -- they have two or three different members," Paul says. "Especially with these younger bands, they have a new member like every year, or every tour!
I don't get it. I don't know if it's egos or people just going in different directions. The key thing is that all five of us have always been focused on the same goal and the same direction."
This positive mental attitude and devotion to Silverstein has sustained them since their first self-released EP, the subsequent genre redefining albums When Broken is Easily Fixed (2003),
Discovering the Waterfront (2005), Arrivals and Departures (2007) and A Shipwreck in the Sand (2009), Warped Tour, Soundwave Festival, Scream It Like You Mean It (which they headlined) and endless international tours with bands like Rise Against, A Day To Remember, August Burns Red and Hawthorne Heights. Arrivals sold over 27,000 copies in its first week in the US.
Incredibly, in 2011, they've done the unthinkable: they've crafted a definitive work in the form or Rescue, an album that summarizes the best of their past while looking decidedly forward to the future.
"Scene" bands aren't supposed to stay relevant this long but somehow this band has, proving there's gas in the tank for years to come.
"We've seen the trends come and go; the music trends, the fashion trends," Shane points out. "We've seen a band show up in the scene and become huge for literally just a few months and then disappear. We've never latched on to the trends."
At the end of the day, Silverstein will continue to make albums as vital, as urgent and as impressive as Rescue because they set out to please themselves first.
"We ask ourselves: 'What are we going to do? What do we like? What do we care about?' We don't ask: 'What's the cool thing right now?' or 'What's going to help us sell records?'"
"There will always be progression in our music," he continues. "We're getting older and our influences have changed and there's different things we want to do.
But we are what we are. We love the natural progression we've had through our records. But we're not going to make a massive change to appeal to anyone."