The Silent Comedy

By Lulu McAllister

Photo by Rich Cook

There is nothing silent about San Diego’s indie-folk rockers The Silent Comedy. The creative energy coming off stage at one of their shows, regardless of the venue, is addictive and almost overwhelming. Lead man Josh Zimmerman alternates between guitar and bass. His brother, Jeremiah, tickles a piano or vintage keyboard and sometimes switches off on percussion with drummer Joey Nelson, who occasionally steps up front to play a booming trombone solo. Justin Buchanan juggles the mandolin and banjo and Timothy Graves wails on the harmonica when he isn’t strumming a guitar. Meanwhile, Ian Kesterson writhes around, ecstatically bending his long body into all angles without losing his balance – or his grip on the violin. Everyone chimes in for the rousing vocals and foot stomping. Add to this mix the occasional guest musician from other local bands like Transfer or Get Back Loretta and an intriguing throwback sense of fashion, and you get the best of a speakeasy, a gospel choir and a hoedown, with a side of San Diego hipster.

“We go through kind of a journey in our live show,” says Josh. “By the end of the set we’re half undressed; we’re all unkempt and crazy.” Silent Comedy’s audience is equally boisterous, stomping and singing with them regardless of whether or not they know the words – a behavior the band refers to jokingly as “getting folked up.”

Plenty of the band’s unusual flavor traces back to Josh and Jeremiah’s unique childhood. “Trying to describe my parents is like trying to describe 20 different people,” Jeremiah says. They participated in “very bizarre, charismatic Pentecostal groups” with “the crazy singing and services that go for four hours and everybody’s foot-stomping” thanks to their father, who was a minister for a while, according to Jeremiah. “We kind of poke fun at that good-naturedly onstage,” he says.

Later on, their father became a doctor of natural health and brought the family to Asia to do research, continuing to travel within the continent. “Everywhere we went, people performed with whatever they had. They used strange instruments that they made themselves and sang around the fire. That openness of sharing really affected me,” says Jeremiah.

The Zimmerman’s great-grandparents were vaudeville performers, a heritage their grandmother passed to them through inspiring stories and pictures. “I don’t think we want to bring vaudeville back, but I think using some of that ethic in performance is definitely attractive,” Jeremiah says.

The Silent Comedy’s nostalgia for another time and place – or “something more honest,” as Buchanan puts it – extends beyond their music. Buchanan, who donned a handlebar mustache and a respectable paisley tie for their performance at a San Diego radio station 94.9’s June music festival, says, “When we started writing songs, they had this ballad-esque dustbowl desperation to them. That’s where we got this style from – silent film-era clothing.” Members of the band wear bowlers and suspenders, slacks and button down shirts. Nelson, a self-proclaimed “coat and vest fiend,” provides the group with fancy vintage tie clips from his own collection. He says, “Many of us dressed this way before. We just kind of bumped it up a notch.”

The finished product – the look and sound – is decidedly un-San Diegan, but Josh says this idea helps the band stand out. He notes, “People are surprised when they hear that we’re from Southern California because we’re going for a little bit more of an Americana vibe – like we live in Nowheresville, a land of musical bastardization.”

Nevertheless, San Diegans have embraced this unexpected return to a time that none of them – not even the band members themselves – were around for. “It wasn’t our good ol’ days – it wasn’t even our parents’ good ol’ days – but for some reason, it leaves an imprint,” says Graves.

If you can’t catch one of their roaring shows (they will be touring the west coast in the fall), check out The Silent Comedy’s self-titled EP (which was produced by another San Diegan, Louis XIV’s Brian Karscig) – it too is sure to leave an imprint.

www.thesilentcomedy.com