"Hey... what about the Chicago Silents?" - Acknowledging the first The Silents

Even though this site is dedicated to the Australian Silents, it must be noted that they weren't the first band to come up with that name. That honour would go to The Silents from Chicago, a hard rock quartett with a sound that is reminiscent of 80s alternative pop and 70s hard rock, and their history is even less documented than that of our Aussie Silents. Which is a shame, because their music is just as good. You could argue about which Silents are the definitive Silents, but if anything, I think that they should be appreciated equally. Which is why I wrote this, albeit smaller, lore collection of the Chicago Silents.

The Chicago Silents, as I will refer to them in this text, were Paul Velten (Vocals, Guitar), Jacob Fish (Keyboard), Aaron Cleall and Sean Funston. Later, Aaron Vaughn (Bass) and Eric Cacia (Drums) would join after Cleall and Funston left. Paul Velten and Jacob Fish knew eachother from high school in the suburbs of Chicago, but after high school, they split up to go their own ways. Later though, the two decided to move to the city and form The Silents. The name was chosen, unlike our Aussie Silents, due to silent movies, since the band was trying to get a "cinematic feel". Around 2003, they started working on their unnamed debut LP. This LP would be known as the "secret LP", which would never get released by the band. Instead, they started working on their actual debut LP in 2006 with Andy Gerber at Million Yen Studios in Chicago. This album was called "Sleepwalker", and it would release on September 9th 2008. Throughout their quite short lived career, they have recieved praise from local music reviewers, praising the varied genres on Sleepwalker and referring to them as the potential next break out band in Chicago. It even led them to get featured on MTV! But where are they now? What happened to them after Sleepwalker?

From what I could gather, they went on smaller regional tours to promote the album. But after that, it was pretty much radio silence, Sleepwalker was the only album they've ever released. Jacob Fish did release some unreleased songs and concert recordings on his channel, but other than that I'm not sure what the other members are doing now.

You can listen to Sleepwalker here:

Apple Music (for some reason on the same profile as the Aussie Silents) • YouTube • Spotify