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The Salads |
 A
band that you can laugh at hysterically and it will not hurt their
feelings. Boundless energy and a love of writing and performing
music. A new DVD that shows you what these guys are REALLY about.
I caught up to The Salads a few nights ago, and had an interview
that continues to crack me up as I re-read it over and over. I fired
off some questions to Chuck and Mista D, Who in turn has a great
first name, even though his parents spelled it wrong! Burn! Read on,
enjoy, and never be afraid to admit that you CAN be cool even if you
have a love of monster trucks, David Lee Roth, Heavy Metal and
mashed potato eroticism. Lock up your booze, your daughters and your
livestock! The Salads are here!!!!! |
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Toe: Mista D and
Chuck, I thank you for taking time out to have a little chat with
me.
Mista D: It's our pleasure, dude! Thanks for givin'a shit
about us! You're parents gave you a good name too. haha Except they
spelt it wrong! haha! That's not your fault though....Here, hit my
bong.
Chuck: Hold on, let me just pull my pants back up and clean
up this mess. ***lights a joint**"pfff..."
Toe: How has the summer been going for the band? You guys been
out tearing it up with some shows?
Mista D: The summer has been wikkid! We've been doing more
writing and recording than gigs, but the gigs we've done have been
very memorable! Opening for Fishbone and Slightly Stoopid in
Toronto, Scene
Festival in St.Kitts, Wakestock....all VERY kool shows!
Chuck: The summer has been very chilled. We spent some time
at Dave Z's cottage. We drank, baked at the beach, wrote music,
recorded music, and roasted wieners. We have played some pretty
great shows too. Wakestock was killer! Some girl asked dave for some
ass-fucking at this show!! ahaha... Check out wakestock.com for pics. D,
Dave, and myself have beenwriting together so well this summer and
have tons of tunes recorded on daves ibook, ready for the record!
Toe: Fold A to B was a great album. Is there a follow up in the
works?
Chuck: Like I said, We've been recording for over a year
now, have about 40 some odd songs written and finally convinced our
manager to put us in the studio! It should be out in spring so that
we can tour all next summer. We are also still releasing A to B
worldwide. Comes out in January in Australia and our tour is already
booked there! Can't fucking wait! Ahhhh...The Salads get an endless
summer this year!!
Mista D: Exactly! A good chunk of our Canadian performances
consist of mostly new material, as we really want to test the songs
out on our crowd....and they're LOVING them so far, which is
exciting!
Toe: How long have The Salads been an entity? I know that music
has been coming out since ’99, but was there any sort of previous
history?
Chuck: Dude! Watch the DVD. It is rare as far as these
things go. We gave it all up. We let everyone see us when we started
in 1987. We stunk. As soon aswe realized guitars could get us laid
we started to rock hard from '96 on. Now we are completely rocking
and are all hooked up with amazing women! haha!!
Mista D: ...AND the reason why you thought we began in '99 is
simple really. That's when I joined the band and introduced the rest
of the band to a higher ratio of female fans! hahaha But really, if
you watch our 3 hour+ DVD, "Band Gone Wild", you'll get an overdose
of who we are, what we've done, and where we've been.....and how
much yummy Canadian beer we've drank!
mmmmm...
Toe: The Roth Kung Fu is a great tune. I must admit that I have
had a love of DLR since Van Halen. But when he went solo, both
tours with Vai were amazing. Who else does some swordplay, gets
rolled in a refrigerator box across the stadium floor, only to climb
up a ladder into a boxing ring, perform a tune, and ride a surf
board back to the stage. Damn, those were the days. Kinda reminds
me of the Salads. Hyperactive as all hell on stage. I am guessing
that your favorite part of the biz, is live performance?
Chuck: I went to that DLR show twice dude! In fact, when I
saw that at the Gardens in T.O. it was with Dave and Grant. It was
my first major concert! I was 11 or 12. Unbelievable show, no doubt.
Of course that stuff stuck. watching those rock spectacle shows
inspired pyro at City TVs new years bash... Personally, I love
writing with my buddies more than anything. I love live shows too
but I believe if it were up to Grant and Darren all we'd ever do is
rock big crowds!
Mista D: You got that right! I fucking LOVE performing live.
I feed off the audience. I do also love the recording process very
much..and I'm startingto enjoy writing more and more I think.
Writing for commercial work with other friends and businesses has
also encouraged me to develop my writing skills, which has been
beneficial when writing new Salads material with the band.
Toe: To date, in Canada, what is your favorite city to rock out
in? Do you have a favorite venue in BC?
Mista D: My favorite city to play would probably be
London, Ontario. That city has SO much love for us, it's amazing! We
get the most spins on their radio station, FM96, and the folks at
CallTheOffice have always been real swell with us. A favourite venue
in BC? hmmm VanCity is a kool place! Palm trees in Canada.. Who
would'a thunk? haha The Commodore is a dope place, and there's this
big bingo hall venue that we played with Simple Plan and Gob that
was kool too...
Chuck: BC is simply a wicked cool place! We've had a great
time everytime we've played there. Whistler was great with our boys
in Billy Talent. The Ballroom is incredible. What a fun show! The
cultural centre, i think that's what its called, is awesome too.
Kinda like a huge school gym! We played an awesome show with Simple
Plan there and then later got to see the genius guitar work of
Dimebag Darrel there with Damage Plan. He was killed a few days
later so this was a real godsend while we were in BC to be able to
catch him shredding one last time! Other than this, I LOVE to play
in London Ontario. It's got a great vibe. Kind of a 2nd home for us.
In addition to this, Jasper was so fucking beautiful I named my son
after that town.
Toe: I just finished interviewing Bif Naked. You guys did some
shows with Her Bifness. How was it on the road with her? That must
have been a great 3-4 hours of music on those nights.
Chuck: They kicked us off that tour dude! We were
persecuted by their tour manager. Our hour of music as a
co-headliner was cut back to 15min to make more room for Bif's tour
manager and the tour manager's sisters boyfriends that were in 2 of
the bands on that tour...ahem. Unfortunately not ours...hahaha. Her
tour manager had some serious issues and used us as her punching bag
on a daily basis. We still had a great time regardless! 'Her Bifness' has
a really great following out west. Her entire band and herself are
very cool people and were tons of fun to party with every night. It
was really unfortunate about her tour manager though. Social Code
and us go way back as well. We'll take any shows we can with those
gents. Its always good times. Out Of Your Mouth are fucking great
too! The singer is totally crazy, in a good way. I heard a rumour he
married the person that kicked us off. Maybe we should of sent one
of our boys in for the kill with her and everything would have
turned out alright. lol... We used a photo from the night we were
kicked off on the back of our DVD. Check it out. Funny shit. It was
a really fun tour. I hope we get another chance.
Mista D: You said it man. haha I'd do another tourwith Bif,
even though I don't really dig her music too much...and obviously
her business team. Like Chuckie said, that tour was a blast because
the SocialCode boys were on it with us. As for Bif and OOYM, very
very nice people, but I'd have more respect for their music if they
laid off the dat machine during their live shows. Yeah, I said it.
haha I'm not sayin' nuthin' new! haha
Toe: Tell me about Emac studios in London. I am a recording
junkie, so I like studios. I wish I played well enough to justify
more time in them..BUT..that is the good work of guys like
yourselves.
Mista D: We LOVE working at EMAC studios. It really has
become a very comfortable environment for The Salads to record in.
The studio is so slick, and we are always made to feel very welcome
in London. Once again, London's the shit. What can I say? haha!!
Chuck: EMAC is a great environment. We all work together very
well there. It has a huge NEVE console. We do most everything in
Pro-Tools but get some really broad range drum sounds through that
incredible vintage board. Also, London is such a wicked town that at
night we can really tear it up after long working days as well.
Toe: Dan Brodbeck co-produced a bunch of tunes with you. Was he
good to work with? Did he hit that same creative thread that you
guys were on when you finished writing and hit the studio?
Mista D: Dan Brodbeck is THE man. We all work so well
together with Dan. This next record we're working on will be solid
proof. Previous to these recordings, The Salads had never
experienced "pre-production" with
a producer, and now we truly see the importance of the whole
process. Plus he gets our twisted sense of humour, so it all works
out very well!
Chuck: The first record was done very quickly. One song a
day. Dan didn't have much chance for input on the songs but worked
at making us sound live,
loud, and tighter than your Grandma's butt-hole! Dan is basically an
honourary fifth member of our band now. Our new record includes his
ideas and writing style a lot more. There is so much respect going
on we should
probably all be living together in Jamaica. Ras-pect!!!
Toe: Any wish lists of studios you guys would like to record the
next album at? Maybe.. Metalworks in TO or Little Mountain in
Vancouver?
Chuck: We've done a lot of work at Metalworks. Our first
record (meanwhile) was mixed there. We also had a metal band back in
1994 that recorded a pile of demos there with Mark Peters. Little
Mountain would be cool to check out. I think our wish is to get good
enough at it ourselves to simply work up at the cottage full-time.
Once again...The Endless Summer! Permanent Vacation brutha! That's
what it's all about. Enjoying your life!
Mista D: It would definitely be an amazing thing to build up
our own flashy studio, and work on our own terms. Only time will
tell!
Toe: Seeing my site is mostly based on Canadian bands and
artists, who over the years in Canada have you guys looked up to in
the business?
Mista D: Hmmm...As a kid, I used to listen to Canadian
artists like Bryan Adams, Kim Mitchell, Gowan, and Glass Tiger. Haha!!
As for now, a few Canadian bands/artists that I really dig....Pocket
Dwellers, illScarlett, Cheap Suits, Joel Parisien, Social Code,
Bedouin Soundclash, Dodger, The Flatliners, Flashlight Brown, Inner
City Surfers...shit man, I could go on and on! Canada is bursting
with killer talent!
Chuck: I'm not sure if I even like the business. It's great
to get it done and work hard at but liking business vs music....they
aren't even in the same category for me any longer. The "Idol" shows
are all business and shameful. All I can say to the winner is
"Congratulations Redneck!". Although, INXS was a fun show. The house
band was killer! It was all good, up until INXS picked up their
instruments. Gawd...horrible...we all got duped by the biz again.
lol...I'll always be a musician first. My favorite Canadian Musician
is Kim Mitchell. He is the Canadian maestro!!! We've been trying to
work him into our next album. The coolest thing is that he's a big
fan of ours. Especially Dave's guitar playing, which is so
flattering for all of us. I really like Sass Jordan's record with
Stevie Salas too. Incredible tunage!
Toe: If you had some dreams come true for a future album having
some guest slots on it, who would you want in the studio to record
some music with?
Chuck: An Idol of course...hahaha...I just said one, Kim
Mitchell. Ummm...I would love for EVH to rock a solo on the record.
It would be super cool to have Phil Anselmo to come scream his face
off. Devon from Strapping Young Lad is a mad scientist. His input on
our record would be out of this world. Or, having Mike Patton sing a
track. Jesus Christ playing a tambourine
solo would be a good addition as well.
Mista D: yeeeah, Mike Patton would be a good one! I'd love to
work with Angelo Moore from Fishbone. No Doubt would be a blast to
work with. So would 311. I'd love to do a track with an older reggae
legend, like Luciano....That'd be dope!
Toe: You have a couple of dates listed on your site for gigs, are
there any plans of getting out on the road and heading West any time
soon?
Mista D: We've been dying to come back out west again!
We'll mostly likely be back after the next record is released.
Chuck: Summertime baby!
Toe: Guys, I hope we can do this again soon. My viewers are
really going to enjoy this interview, as well as your showcase on
the site! Can’t wait to hear what you have to offer on your next
release!
Mista D: Thanks again for the interview, Darrin! And
thanks to everyone for taking time to read this. Cheers! I'm out.
Chuck: Get ready to be blown away and feel great
motherfuckers! ***Lights another joint and tears his pants off
again*** "pffff...rrriiip!!"
Mista D: Oh really?! Had I known it was that kinda party,
I'd have stuck my dick in the mashed potatoes! Ahahaha!! Pass me
that spliff! pffff..... |
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