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Billy Hamilton From Silverstein On This Month’s Groove – The No Treble Podcast

“Wait… did I miss something? Why is there an article about a bass podcast on Six Pixels of Separation?”

Here’s why:

In the late nineties my first job was as a music journalist (actually, my first interview was with Tommy Lee from Motley Crue right before the band released Dr. Feelgood).
I spent many years interviewing musicians and artists for local weekly alternative newspapers, national and international magazines (and even published three music magazines – before we had the Internet).
I also studied and played the electric bass (in high school and post-secondary) and always felt like bass players never really had a chance to tell their stories.
So, about ten years ago, Seth Godin introduced me to Corey Brown (founder of No Treble – one of the world’s biggest bass platforms – and he also worked on Squidoo with Seth).
From there, Corey and I decided to try this monthly podcast where I would interview bass players and talk about their music, art, creativity and more.
I’m hopeful that these conversations will inspire your work, creativity and innovation as much as they do for me…

Billy Hamilton from Silverstein is this month’s conversation on Groove – The No Treble Podcast.

You can listen the new episode right here: Groove – The No Treble Podcast – Episode #130 – Billy Hamilton.

Billy Hamilton has spent nearly his entire life inside the walls of Silverstein. When he joined the band back in 2000, he was a teenager hanging around punk and hardcore shows in Ontario, looking for a way in. He wasn’t a trained bass player. In fact, he admits that at the time he thought bass would be “the easiest instrument” to pick up, only to quickly discover how wrong he was. That raw enthusiasm and his “fake it until you make it” mindset were exactly what Silverstein needed. Those early shows (wrong notes and all) launched a 25-year career that’s seen the band release twelve albums, play close to 3,000 shows, and become one of the most enduring voices of a scene that blurred punk, emo, and hardcore into something entirely new. In this conversation, Billy retraces that journey- from trading flyers on local message boards to signing with Victory Records before he even finished high school. He talks about the courage it takes to walk onstage when you don’t feel ready, how Silverstein’s sound came together by fusing influences like Green Day, Rancid, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Lifetime, and how the bass became the glue between chaos and melody in those formative years. What stands out most is his honesty about aging inside a genre built on youth and energy, and how Silverstein continues to balance relevance, nostalgia, and growth without losing the community spirit that defined them from the start. Billy reflects on the support of his parents, the importance of connection in local scenes, and the questions the band still wrestles with today about identity, creativity, AI, and coping in the digital age. With Silverstein celebrating their 25th anniversary and releasing two new mini-albums, Anti-Bloom and Pink Moon, Billy remains as thoughtful about the craft of bass as he is about the community it serves. Sometimes the best careers start with a leap before you’re ready. Enjoy the conversation…

What is Groove – The No Treble Podcast?

This is an ambitious effort. This will be a fascinating conversation. Our goal at Groove is to build the largest oral history of bass players. Why Groove? Most of the content about the bass revolves around gear, playing techniques, and more technical chatter. For us, bassists are creative artists with stories to tell. They are a force to be reckon with. These are the stories and conversation that we will capture. To create this oral history of why these artists chose the bass, what their creative lives are like, and where inspiration can be found.

Listen in: Groove – The No Treble Podcast – Episode #130 – Billy Hamilton

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends).

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.