May 20, 1994 issue of BAM (Bay Area Music Magazine)

Ask Matt Murdock how Jupiter Sun began and you aren’t likely to get a long story from the refreshingly soft-spoken guitarist/vocalist.  “We were sitting in the garage, and we got really bored, so…”
            This little understatement is par for the course for Murdock.  He would never declare that his band is clearly the cream of San Jose’s current pop crop (it is).  He wouldn’t fess up to writing great songs that have more hooks that Peter Pan’s nightmares (he does).  And it’s doubtful he’d admit that the band’s huge sound hinges on his letter-perfect, effects-soaked work (indeed, it does).
            Instead, the 22-year-old Cal dropout would rather talk about song-writing in general.  “Bands don’t work hard enough on their songs,” he says. “They put energy into their sound and their look, but they always seem to forget the songs. That’s what separates good bands from bad ones, in my mind. You can always become a better player, but if your songs aren’t good, it won’t matter.”
            Not that the Jupiter Sun guys need to hone their chops much.  Murdock, bassist Steve Chang, and drummer Ollie Moore form a perfect core, with the talents of each shining through. Chang, 21, used to spend nine hours a day playing by himself before he joined the band. Moore, also 21, drummed in his high school marching band before being shanghaied into a pick-up rock group eight years ago.  And Murdock grew up with guitars belonging to his brother Mike sitting around the house, and the Beatles and Neil Young playing on his parent’s stereo.
            “My parent’s had fairly good taste,” says Murdock.  “There was no Captain & Tennille, so I thank them for that.”
            It’s possible, Murdock concedes, that his parents’ unintentional musical brainwashing might have helped him develop a pop sense, but the band’s current sound combination of My Bloody Valentine showgazing and gracing, straightforward rock – is a result of more modern influences.  “We’ve been compared to Ride,” Murdock says.  “I think that’s pretty fair.”
            Murdock writes much of the music, letting the melodies inspire words.  “The music always comes first,” he says.  “It has to be that way. I consider myself a guitar player first - I just ended up singing and writing the words by accident.”
            That accident was the evolution of Silver, a five piece that all there were in.  “We kept whittling it down,” Murdock says.  Even though they looked for a second guitarist, they never found one, after learning of at least two other bands using the Silver name, they opted to rechristen the band with their current Arthur C. Clare-inspired tag.
            A five-song EP, produced and engineered by Cerebral Corps’ Jeff Saltzman, is due on the pop label Slumberland in June.  “That whole process has been quite slow,” says Murdock.  “Put me and Jeff together and it’s two perfectionist pulling in opposite directions.”  In addition to the EP, the band plans to play at the College Music Journal Convention in New York this October.  And although the bands has no gold-record aspirations, they do know when they’ll have “made it.”
            You know we’re successful,” says Moore, “when one of us is dating Kylie Minogue.”

 -Chris Bucholtz