As indicated by its name, which suggests both agrarian populism and impending apocalypse, the band shows influences of post-punk East Village experimentalism as well as the nascent country-rock revivalism that would return at decade's end.
Conceived in Havana, Cuba and born in New York City, Walter Salas-Humara grew up in South Florida with his two older brothers after his family relocated to Ft. Lauderdale when he was three.
In 1982, he moved to New York to pursue a career as a visual artist, where he completed a year of graduate study in fine arts at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
[6] In 1990, the band released their major-label debut on RCA, simply called The Silos (more commonly known as The One with the Bird on the Cover), which also featured Amy Allison on vocals and J.D.
Relocating to Los Angeles in 1991, Salas-Humara reformed the Silos with bassist Tom Freund, singer-guitarist Manny Verzosa, drummer Darren Hess and sometimes guitarist Jon Dee Graham, all of whom hailed from Austin, Texas or later spent time there.
A third album, Heater (1998), was released on the Checkered Past label and featured guitarist Gary Sunshine after Verzosa died in an automobile accident while on tour.
[7] Opting for a more aggressive, stripped-down sound and a more experimental approach to the songwriting, Salas-Humara returned to New York and refashioned the Silos as a power trio with Drew Glackin on bass and lap steel guitar and Konrad Meissner on drums.
This configuration appeared on Laser Beam Next Door (2001, Checkered Past), When the Telephone Rings (2004, Dualtone), Come on Like the Fast Lane (2007, Bloodshot) and the live This Highway Is a Circle that same year (Blue Rose).
The would-be supergroup was conjured out of thin air when Hall was informed by Transatlantic phone call that he wouldn't be invited back to the Berlin Independence Days Festival, which only booked first-time bands.
His songs have appeared in the films Girl (1998) and Takedown (2000), and he has created original compositions for episodes of Sex and the City and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Citing as his heroes 1950s minimalist painter Ellsworth Kelly and Pop artist Jasper Johns, Salas-Humara's early paintings were primarily large abstract color fields.