Branching out was best move for Antlers

IN 2009, The Antlers’ Peter Silberman wrote a concept album about a woman dying in hospital. Her malady was a metaphor: the LP was really about the breakup of a relationship (the particulars of which Silberman would rather not divulge). But he chose to call the record Hospice and critics assumed the story it told was true. That’s where things got complicated.

“It was weird — the biggest response I thought I would receive was someone coming up saying ‘Hey man, your record’s kinda cool’,” recalls Silberman, with the hint of a sigh. “All of a sudden I had these people telling me their stories — how Hospice had brought them through a difficult time. When you don’t know them at all, that’s a strange situation.”

Many of the fans who shared their pain were grieving loved ones who had passed away in circumstances similar to those recounted in Hospice (the female protagonist has terminal bone cancer and dies at the conclusion of the album). This threw Silberman for a loop. The LP had painted vivid scenarios with which listeners had empathised — did it matters that the whole thing was fiction? It took a while for him to puzzle through the conundrum. In the end, he decided that what was important above all else was the emotional connection.