After a few shuffles in personnel, violin player Marcus Myers came in as the permanent fourth for the quartet. Their first album, Climbing, was released in 1997, and its unconventional follow-up, 1998's Live at Town Theater, featured a 20-piece orchestra. Those releases did well enough to garner a second trip to the studio the following year, which resulted in the 2000 release Nothing Else Beside. The next step for Silers Bald came with an offer to release a nationally distributed album, something that had eluded the Columbia, SC, band with its previous releases. Rather than push a new album into the considerably larger market before them, they chose instead to cull the best moments from their earlier efforts for a collection simply titled Silers Bald. After the busy release schedule that led up the compilation, Silers Bald took a break from recording and didn't return until 2002 and the release of the Real Life EP. ~ Wade Kergan