We continue our series of Bands of the Day, introducing you to new acts, with Saltlake who don’t come from Utah…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are from all over the south-east really. Based around Kent, Sussex and South London.
How did you meet?
Liam and myself are good friends from school. We’ve known each other probably the best part of ten years. John we came to know through some mutual friends about a year and a half ago and became good mates soon after that.
How long have you been playing as a band?
Despite some lineup changes, Saltlake has probably been going for about four years now. A lot of stuff has happened in those four years but it’s all been great fun!
Before you get sick of being asked. where does the band name come from?
The band’s name is something that we can never really remember how it came about. I remember we needed to change our name and had made plans to do so but after about three months of coming up with ideas we were completely stuck. We had a single coming out and had made a big announcement we were changing our name and the day was nearly upon us when we were supposed to release and we didn’t have anything. Our old guitar player at the time came out with it and it just stuck. We liked the kind of obscurity of it and we just rolled with it. It’s done us proud so far.
What are your influences?
We are influenced by so much different music, it all helps create our sound. We take our inspiration from modern alternative rock bands such as Bring Me The Horizon, Pvris and Don Broco.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our main aim with our music is to create really catchy rock songs that people want to listen to. We want the rockers to love the riffs and we want the pop listeners to dig the melodies and the lovers of electronic music to love the synths and polyrhythmic side of things. I think incorporating these aspects in the way we do makes our music unique.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
I don’t think we have any particular theme, usually we just write about what we are feeling at the time or events happening at a certain time, or sometimes maybe certain memories and stuff like that. Whatever we might be feeling.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
We’ve played a lot of shows, some amazing and some not so amazing but that’s the joy of being a small upcoming band. I think our favourite sort of shows are busy club shows where everyone is so close together, hot and sweaty and everyone’s just having a great time. They are usually the shows we look back on with great memories.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
To be honest we tend to just go as crazy as we can all the time at our shows. That’s the way we like to do things. It almost becomes a bit of a competition between us.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Currently I am using a few different guitars in Saltlake. My main gigging workhorse is a great beaten up old Fender 72 Deluxe Telecaster that I use for most of the set and then I’ve got a beautiful Gibson 335 and a Les Paul I swap around. All being played through a Fender BassBreaker amp. Sounds lush!
Liam is using a Music Man sub series bass through an Ashdown rig, and John has a beautiful Tama kit that he beats up.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
We have a new single coming out called “Dreaming In The Dark” which lands on 1st June. We are super excited to be releasing it as we are really proud of how it’s sounding.
What are your plans for 2018?
Once the single drops we’ve got some cool shows and a tour to announce and then hopefully after that we can get another single out and do it all over!
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
There are so many great upcoming bands out there but the bands we’d love to get the opportunity to play with would be the likes of Arcane Roots and Pvris. Those two bands are pretty awesome and we look up to them a lot!
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