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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Sal
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 19 August 2009
Formed in 2001, Welsh rockers Sal released their second album, ‘Conversations With My Therapist’, in June via Copro/Casket Music. Amongst the tracks on the album is the band’s own Bond theme, ‘Devil May Care’, which was selected as the theme song for the audio book of Sebastian Faulks’ James Bond novel of the same name. The album is currently available to download for free via a BitTorrent link on the band’s MySpace page. We spoke to frontwoman Cat.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I had singing lessons at eight years old. The story goes, I asked my mam to take me to this huge mansion in the street above us as an opera singer had moved there. She wasn’t teaching at the time but agreed to take me on as her first pupil. She became my mentor and it was there I learned breathing techniques and a whole repertoire. She played me a lot of classical music, and this is where my love for opera comes from. At home I listened to my dad’s rock albums, Bruce Springsteen and The Beatles etc. My mam was into Mario Lanza and musicals, I think I must know every song from every old musical. My love for harmonies came from singing Welsh hymns at chapel every Sunday. As a teenager I got into pop and Motown, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and was a huge Suede and Radiohead fan.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Speaking for myself, a lot of emotional turmoil! I’ve been suffering with bad headaches for the past two years. I’ve tried almost every type of medicine and remedy known to man looking for a cure, and on this journey I started talking to a therapist. She’s helped me gain a lot of perspective on things that have happened in my life and how they’ve shaped me as a person. From those sessions came a lot of inspiration lyrically, hence the title of the album ‘Conversations With My Therapist’. We wrote and recorded a song which became the James Bond theme tune for the audio book of Sebastian Faulkes’ ‘Devil May Care’. It took two weeks from the first riff to the final version. We captured some real energy in the recording and that was something that had eluded us a little on our first album so that was the main aim this time.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Usually the music comes first – melodies and chords or a riff – and then we start jamming until a song starts to take shape. We work on the arrangement as a band while the lyrics evolve underneath. Noog, our guitarist, wrote most of our first album, ‘Dysfunctional’, but this time we wanted more of a band effort and I think the songs are much stronger as a result. Once we’ve got the main structure together we demo them just to make sure the arrangements are tight and tempos are right.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
There’s a lot… Biffy Clyro and especially their album ‘Puzzle’, which was pretty inspirational stuff. Billy Talent is another band we love. Noog is into his punk, our bassist Chris loves his indie, and drummer Den… well, best not go into what he listens to, but all those influences come together as a hybrid which makes Sal.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I’d much prefer for someone to really listen to us and absolutely hate us than just to put it on in the background and talk over it or start vacuuming the carpet. We’ve had reviews in the past (naming no names) in which it’s pretty clear that they’ve only listened to the first 30 seconds and skipped the rest, but feel they know enough about our music to review it! We’ve put a lot of time and effort, a lot of “us”, into our music, and it’s really annoying to have someone not even give us the respect of listening to it properly. Some people also have a lot of preconceptions with female fronted rock bands, and have a ready formed opinion before they’ve even pressed play. So I guess the message would be to listen to us properly, with an open mind, and enjoy!
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
To get a lot of airplay so everyone out there gets to hear the album. It’s the best thing we’ve done and so it’s really exciting. I can’t wait to get people as excited as we are about it. I’m looking forward to going on the road with my bandmates touring the album, that’s always a lot of fun. After that start getting creative again and writing the next album.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/saltheband
