Our final Q&A in this year's series from the Rotterdam festival.
Photos: Marcel van Leeuwen | Words: Elvis Thirlwell
London duo Silver Gore – aka Ethan P. Flynn and Ava Gore – introduced themselves to the world in 2025 with a handful of immaculately conceived alt-pop cuts that straddled the line between yearning indie nostalgia and weird, glitchy modernity. These were packaged together on a self-titled debut EP in September, and since then they've hardly been off the road, supporting, Water From Your Eyes across Europe, headlining London's Lower Third and playing a number of festival slots.
For the last of our series of Q&As at Left of the Dial festival, we relay our conversation with the pair just moments before their first set of the weekend. We were hoping to chat to them a day earlier, but they'd been stranded at sea by the raging Storm Benjamin.
How are you? Word is you've been stranded at sea - could you tell us more about that?
Ava: We were stranded in a tempest. Storm Benjamin.
Ethan: I didn't even know it was called that! We got stuck at sea. We couldn't dock with the boat so we just did a bunch of massages on the massage chairs.
Ava: We had about 10 massages each on the chairs, and we realised we'd probably given the chairs so much money, but we thought it was worth it.
Ethan: Over a hundred pounds!
How have your tour dates been!
Ava: Really Good. We had a headline London at the Lower Third. It was really good. Sold out, packed! Our first London headline!
So your EP came out in September. How are you feeling about it now?
Ethan: Good, yeah! It's an EP, innit? We're doing stuff. We're making more. We feel pretty good that it's out in the world.
Ava: We wrote those songs ages ago. A really long time ago. We wrote them before we knew we were going to be a band. We were just writing together because we liked it, and then we were like, oh, we should probably start a band!
How would you describe the music you make to your Grandma?
Ethan: Pop. Pop music for kids to enjoy.
Now for the question randomiser! What's your ride or die snack?
Ava: I love beef jerky a lot. But not when it's too processed. I like it when it's not been mushed up and cut up. I like it when the bits meats of meat are still what they were.
Ethan: I don't really know. I'm a big snacker – as I'm sure you could tell – but my thing is: always a different snack. If it's the same snack twice, game over for me. I like basically every snack but I'm not tryna get the same thing every time.
Would you say there's a snack you would want to erase from history?
Ava: Nobby's Nuts!
Ethan: I don't know what that is, but it sounds bad.
Which fruit is most likely to get an ASBO?
Ethan: Maybe Pineapple? They're quite sharp, they could cut someone, and they're quite difficult to get into. Fruit's supposed to be: pick it up from the ground, eat it. Maybe coconuts? Coconuts actually kill people.
Ava: Oh yeah, Coconuts kill. They fall. And they kill.
Last song you listened to?
Ethan: When I was on the massage chair on the storm-at-sea-boat – which was not only rocking as a chair, but the boat was also rocking, which was interesting – I listened to 'Wichita Lineman' by Jimmy Webb, which was awesome.
Ava: Last song I listened to was 'Someone's Missing' by MGMT. It's on 'Congratulations'.
Ah! I'm sleeping on 'Congratulations'!
Ethan: It's a 10.
Ava: It's the best one!
I've been really enjoying 'Little Dark Age' recently. There's definitely some out of pocket moments, like 'When You're Small'?
Ava: I only ever listen to that album when I listen to the whole album. I always put that on when we're doing cards. It's a really good card game album, each song never gets boring.
Ethan: On 'When you're Small', I'm pretty sure there's a line, "When you're small, you're not very tall", which is pretty fucking epic.
What's your perfect Sunday!
Ava: Maybe a nice crisp walk, then going to Rowan's in Finsbury Park in the daytime to play air hockey. Eating some grilled meats.
How would you rate your air hockey skills?
Ethan: She's pretty good.
Ava: I'd say quite significantly better than him.
Ethan: She guards.
Ava: No I don't! I'm more on the attack.
Ethan: There's ways to play that are fun, and there's ways to play that make sure you win every time. And Ava plays to make sure she wins every time. But that's fine. That's a valid approach to the game.
So what's your perfect Sunday?
Ethan: It involves making music, but not only doing that. Maybe have a roast, see some people.
Ava: What roast?
Ethan: It depends on the day. Some days, it's like Hawksmoor, and I go and get the best roast, and it's amazing. And some days, it's wherever people are at. Some kind of Pub. homemade, you know?
What's your favourite element of the roast?
Ethan: I really like Yorkshire puddings. That's the thing I enjoy the most. I like cabbage an' shit. I like the carrots. Sometimes the meat is just bad, because someone has done a bad job. But sometimes it's good, and it's the best bit.
For me it has to be roast potatoes every time. If the roast potatoes are bad, it's really going to colour my experience of the roast as a whole.
Ethan: You need some crunch.
Ava: I'd say bread sauce is my favourite element of a roast.
Least favourite colour?
Ava: Maybe purple? I feel like a lot of people like purple the best, but it's not a primary colour. I like the reds.
Ethan: Maybe right now, because I'm looking at this van, it's green. [points to van across the street, which featured a very confused palette of greens on its livery].
So there's multiple shades of green here that you don't like?
Ethan: They just don't go together, either in style, or in colour.
So your least favourite colour is the one that doesn't work.
Ethan: 1000%.
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