Interview - Salsola

First where did the name Salsola come from? The name came from weeks of trying to come up with a band name and then settling on the least terrible one. There is a joke in there that you might be able to find out from Googling but I won’t tell you what it is because the joke is so poor it would make the band name seem even worse. It’s a bit like where Led Zeppelin got their name from, but worse and more plant related.

Who are the bands biggest influences? We all like lots of different bands, artists and even genres so it is difficult to say what are influences are because there are so many. Song wise we like a good old fashioned catchy chorus, that love probably comes from Pete being into the 90’s britpop stuff when he was younger. When we get drunk together as a band we quite often get into groovy stuff, we really love watching the funky NPR tiny desk concerts like Anderson Paak and Roots and I think that love for a groovy sound does pull through into some of our songs. Basically, we like loadsa stuff and mishmash it all together to make our stuff for better or for worse.

How would you describe your music to someone who may not have heard yas yet? We struggle, being a group of incoherent Teessiders. Catchy, sometimes groovy, sometimes fuzzy, sometimes both. There is so much variance in the descriptions of our music when we get reviewed, the word jingly has come up more than once. The description that comes up most of all is female fronted, which drives me up the wall as it is not a genre. Unless you are going to describe every band with the gender of the front person, then please stop.

You’ve played gigs and festivals all over the north east. What have been some of your favorites? This may be a curve ball but Barrels Ale House in Berwick upon Tweed is always fun. We first played it supporting our good friends Twist Helix and have played since. There are always people in there that are up for hearing live music, which gives the place a great atmosphere which is always really fun to perform to.

Our most frequently played venue is The Green Room and we have never had a bad gig in there. We played Stockton Calling last year on that stage. We always love Stockton Calling as we drink beers and have a bloody good time. We were devastated that the pesky COVID ruined it, and many things, this year. We also did our single launch there which was really successful.

You’ve released three singles so far including the latest “Deconstruction”. How do you feel the reactions have been to the three releases have been? Decent enough, we always feel we could do our campaigns better each time. It is hard work doing DIY releases and you build up more contacts and more knowledge each time. We were really pleased with all the reviews that have come in. We’ve had some really kind words about all of our singles which is always really nice to read. Chris McManus in Blank Studios does all our singles and he is exceptional at capturing the ‘big’ live sound so it’s great to hear when reviewers pick up on this.

In the back end of last year you held a launch for the single Cass. Do you have any plans on putting on anymore shows or releases once this whole lockdown is over? We have nothing planned. Planning seems too dangerous at this point. Who knows when we will be allowed to gig again? Vicky is involved with Art Mouse so will be helping with their gigs and other events one normality ensues. We will definitely do more of our own DIY gigs at some point, we really enjoyed the single launch and were blown away by the crowd that night.

How have yas been keeping yourselves busy creatively during the lockdown? Luke has been relentlessly drumming and is now developing his skills recording and mixing them so that we can put some music together separately in lockdown. I don’t know about these bands that are saying they are rehearsing through group video chat, either they have the best internet connections in the land or are lying because the lag makes it impossible!

We have also been using this time to write some lockdown anthems. Or normal songs that we are calling lockdown anthems due to circumstance and it makes them sound cooler.

Finally if you had to pick five northeast acts to recommend who would it be? It feels like it’s been so long since we’ve been out to gigs, we were just back after the Christmas and New Year slump and then boom! Lockdown! Our last gig was in Newcastle a fortnight before this whole thing that was luckily with one of our favorites Eddie and The Valkyries who are always fun to gig with as a bonus Twist Helix came down to see us to – who we also recommend. Some of our other favorites are probably Martha Hill, Motel Carnation, Ceiling Demons, Wax Heart Sodality and Ghost Signals. We are also going to recommend Spiders from Saigon for fans of the heavier stuff and it is not because of who their drummer is… We’ve recommended way more than five there… meh.

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