Sylar came into Silver Spring bringing their unique sound mixing rap, rock and metal into a chaotic yet beautiful arrangement. Empire Extreme got to sit down and have a good and thoughtful conversation with singer Jayden Panesso after the set.

EE: How you doing today?

JP: I’m doing great because not only is tonight our release night for our new album Seasons, but that set was crazy. People showed so much love, our boy Caleb from Beartooth came out and I didn’t even know. Maryland made us feel like home tonight.

EE: Are you good friends with those guys?

JP: For sure, Caleb was the first to be interested in us as a band, before that we were playing small gigs in basements and he saw something in us as a band. It felt special with us.

EE: What can the fans expect with the new album?

JP: Overall I feel like Seasons is its own little monster, which is what I’ve always wanted to do with Sylar. I listen to the record and it’s weird, I say damn, I expected to write this album four years ago. Even before I knew if the band was going to be signed. We are not a band that started from the top, we were In the bottom for so long. We use to pay to play show and having to sell tickets. We always wanted to play big venues, but we had to work as hard as we could.

EE: Yeah, I’ve always respected that more than the “factory” made bands because when the shit hits the fan and you’re not on top anymore and you’re down in the dirt, bands that have been in that situation for many years aren’t going to break at the first sign of heartache.

JP: That’s the beauty behind all this, I appreciate all the stuff that we’ve gone through. When you’re a small band like us and you’re on tour, you’re kinda homeless. We just stuck to us, and did our time.

EE: Are you guys psyched about doing the Rock Allegiance Show tomorrow?

JP: oh yeah, if you’re a huge Sylar fan and know what got me into the music was Limp Bizkit. I came from a family that didn’t care for rock, I all I knew was Hip Hop. I’ll never forget I was watching Wrestlemania 17, massive event, but the thing that got me was My Way was the theme song for that PPV, I never heard that before and heard Limp for the first time, and it was the first time hearing something that has a lot of roots in hip hop which I was familiar too but also something so different that I’ve never heard before. It blew my mind. Thanks to them I was able to backtrack to so many bands like that. Linkin Park, Deftones, POD, Ill Nino.

EE: And you guys are kinda like a resurgence of that era sorta.

JP: Yeah people always talk about that. To me all the kids that grew up listening to that music and now have their own bands, and yes Sylar is its own entity but you can’t deny we weren’t included by bands like that. That’s why that show is going to be so special to me.

EE: So you’re from Queens NY, which has such a range of great musicians like Run DMC, The Ramones, Sworn Enemy.

JP: Don’t forget Gene Simmons from Kiss. He graduated from the same high school I went to. Newtown High School one of the most urban, when I found out about going to that school after junior high, I cried, I was trying to get a computer science degree but because of the lottery I had to go to my local high school and it had such a bad rap. I was so bummed about it, but years later I look back at it now and I’m thankful I went to it, that hard knock life and that school taught me to be the man who I am today.

EE: If you could bring back one dead musician who would it be?

JP: For me it would be XXXTentacion, he got murdered. He had tons of bad history around him and that guy to me was a phenomenon, he clearly committed a lot of mistakes, but he got killed and didn’t get a chance and people were judging him for stuff he did when he was 15-16. He had a soul for music and a soul for empathy. He had a good heart but he was troubled, but who doesn’t. I would love to sit with him and ask a lot of questions about how he influenced a new generation. I’ll always remember when we was recording the new album in California, I was in the studio and our guitarist told us that he got shot, and people rioted about his death and coming out saying this dude touched my life and he was still considered underground.

Jayden also told me that he recently just had a baby girl. Congrats to him and Lexie.

About Author

Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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