1. Hello my friend, pleasure to have you on Rotten Pages ´zine. How are you doing today? Let us set the scene first. Where do we find you right now? Please describe your surroundings.
[Addi]
Hello Edu, thank you so much for having us on Rotten Pages and also on your Rotten Ears Podcast, we’re feeling very honored. My name is Addi, I’m the drummer and a co-founder of Secret Salt Squad, and I have the pleasure to answer your questions, but my bandmates are also joining in here and there as you will see.
We’ve currently taken a few months off from playing live in order to be able to focus on writing new songs. We’re also designing some new merch products. So, most of the time you’ll find us working in our rehearsal room these days.
2. Band is coming from Lower Saxony… What genre of metal is most popular in Germany among younger generation of metalheads?
[Addi]
Basically, it’s all sorts of metal, from old-school classics to young new bands that add their very own spin to their respective style of metal.
3. What was your personal journey like in discovering heavy metal – can you tell us about some of the early bands that captivated you and then provided the impetus to pick up an instrument and play?
[Addi – drums]:
As a small kid, I used to bang the hell out of everything within reach, sofas, pillows, pots, pans, buckets. Back then, I dreamed of being the drummer in KISS. So, they were amongst my very first inspirations to become a drummer. Also Ringo Starr (The Beatles) and Keith Moon (The Who) were amongst my early influences. In later years, others also became important to me, such as Simon Phillips, Mike Portnoy, Dave Weckl, Cozy Powell, Eric Singer, etc.
[Walt – guitars]:
Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Dave Gilmour, Glenn Tipton
[Böhri – guitars]:
Rush, Randy Rhoads, Dio
[Chris – bass]:
The Beatles, Queen
[Andy –vocals]:
Mike Howe (Metal Church), Neil Fallon (Clutch)
4. You are an independent band, are there any difficulties in Germany for such an act? What could be better or worst in Germany?
[Andy]
As a small independent band it’s very difficult to obtain good promotion in the media. Also, it’s quite hard to get good gigs. Nonetheless, we keep on reaching out to promoters and venues, of course.
5. Speaking of, you guys recently had your debut album “Ghosts Of The Machine” released a couple months ago. Have you seen a big increase in exposure since that happened?
[Andy]
Following the train of thought of the previous question (No. 4), we’re advancing in rather small steps. At least we keep moving, and we’re doing it in the right direction! [laughs]
6. Given that the record took so long to write and record, did you encounter any technical challenges in the process?
[Addi]
The whole thing was a challenge in and of itself since we had decided to record the album all by ourselves, with no outside producer, and not even go into a professional studio. We had to cut costs wherever possible. The drums and most of the bass tracks were recorded in our rehearsal room, most guitar tracks were recorded in the home studio of our guitarist Böhri, and the vocals were recorded in the home studio of Henning Basse (lead singer of bands such as Metalium, Firewind, Withering Scorn, etc.) who’s also featured as guest background singer on our song “Returned Broken”. The final mix was done in the studio of one of our friends. Considering the circumstances of the production, we are very proud of the result.
7. It sounds like you guys had a lot of work making this album – what was the writing process like for this one?
[Addi]
Our way of writing, composing and arranging our songs is always very organic. Every band member is coming up with ideas. We’d jam together until suddenly a certain riff or groove pops up and we’re like “Wait a minute, that sounded cool, let’s play that part again and expand on it.” Sooner or later we have the basic structure of a new song. Our lead vocalist, Andy, is writing lyrics all the time, independently from songs that we’re actually working on. And so it happens quite often that once he hears us jamming around a certain motif, he’d say “Hey, I’ve got a song text that could fit just perfectly for this tune! Let me dig it out and show it to you.” Then he'd give his lyrics draft to me (Addi) for some refinement. Finally, music and vocals are blended with each other, and voilá – a new song is born.
8. I'd like to refer a quite important thing: your lyrics. Do they have a storyline? Any message that you guys are carrying out to the world?
[Andy]
Oh yes, the lyrics are very important! We want to paint “musical pictures” where music, sounds and lyrics align. Some are of a very personal nature. About things that happened in our lives or maybe will happen at a later point. Things you see and hear. But the final message behind all those songs is: Never surrender!
9. Was it difficult to release the album while being without a record company? How did you guys overcome the challenges?
[Andy]
We could only make it real with efficient, focused and hard teamwork of all the bandmembers. Apart from that, we also had good help from our team and friends.
10. I believe that digital is killing the album format. People’s changing habit of how they listen to music will result in there being no albums. Is there anything good with releasing digital albums only?
[Böhri & Walt]
From the listener’s/consumer’s point of view:
Everything is available always and everywhere without having to store or even carry around with you tons of physical media (records, CDs, tapes) and the respective hardware needed to play them. Furthermore, the quality of the data compression used for the digital releases are nowadays luckily improving and clearly moving away from the inferior 128-mp3 format. Higher resolving formats such as FLAC, AAC, ALAC and the like are on the rise.
From the artist’s/label’s point of view:
International, even global distribution is accessible much easier these days, as opposed to the “old” times when you had to involve partner labels and pressing plants in foreign territories.
[Addi]
So, there are undeniable advantages of digital releases. However, amongst the German and European metal community, physical media, especially vinyl records, are still being preferred over digital.
11. How much of a live band are you? How important is playing live? What have been some of your favorite shows or touring memories as Secret Salt Squad?
[Andy]
After we had a first, short live set put together, we played two shows. Just to see how we play together. And then came Covid and we practically came to a halt for about two years.
Then, when had left the pandemic restrictions behind us, we played a few shows, We were craving for the live stage after the imposed abstinence, as you surely can imagine. Unfortunately, our then Bass player Rob left the Band after those few shows. We were only able to play further shows with various guest bassists. Now, since Chris joined us, we have the reassurance to be a full band again and can continue with our live activities and also complete our new songs together.
12. You seem pretty mature and experienced persons, how do you see the scene nowadays in comparison to what happened a decade and even two decades ago?
[Andy]
The hard’n’heavy genres will always exist. Sometimes on a larger scale, sometimes a bit smaller. The big players are dying one after another. I think that in the future it’s gonna be very difficult to grow to a big one like Priest, Metallica, Slayer, Purple and the like.
13. As a metal band do you feel that you’re a part of a greater worldwide community of metalheads?
[Andy]
Yes, of course! The best examples are you guys! We’re receiving good reactions to our album from all over the world. That feels great and makes us proud to be part of this great scene.
14. It's time to conclude, perhaps you could tell us about your future projects or something?
Of course, we’re tyring to gain more public recognition, especially by reaching out to interesting venues to have them add us on their bills for upcoming live events. Apart from that, the old saying is true: “After the album is before the album.” So, the new songs that we’re currently writing will find their home on our next album for sure.
Thank you again very much for having us, this means a lot to us!
And a big shout out to all the metalheads in the world who are keeping the spirit alive – stay heavy!
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