All this month we are sitting down and speaking to the New England based band Salem Wolves. The band formed in 2015 and since then have been rocking the music scene with with Providence garage rock genre. This week we get to go behind the music.

How long can it take you to write a song?

It varies. Some songs emerge fully written in a single session, others take shape over a few weeks. We tend to be iterative: we’ll work on something and keep playing it and refining it, both in practice and live, until we hit the studio and things get locked in. Then we usually forget how to play it after we’ve recorded, so we relearn it and play it better than we did before.  

“…Release days can be fun, but we prefer to avoid social media the day of...”

Is there any particular lyric you have written that you are particularly proud of?

“He’s got a voice like a screen door slamming, you applaud when he clears his throat.” 

What is your favourite thing about making a record?

The chance to really drill down on the songs under a microscope; hearing nuances you don’t get to catch when you’re in the eye of the hurricane. We also love to work with talented producers like Jay Maas, who produced our upcoming record, The Psychotron Speaks, which is out in July via Tor Johnson Records. 

How do you normally feel on release day? Do you have a particular routine you go through to prepare for the reviews?

Release days can be fun, but we prefer to avoid social media the day of. It’s too easy to get preoccupied with monitoring reactions. We prefer to let things out into the world then check in on it a few days later.

“…An instrument is only as “real” as its ability to facilitate creation.…”

How do you choose what songs to put on a record?

Historically, the songs that make the record are just the songs we have ready. We’ve usually put out singles/EPs to leverage the excitement and immediacy of a new song. Our latest record, The Psychotron Speaks, we approached a little differently in that, once we settled on the concept, we tried to write songs that told the story. 

Do you still feel that using real instruments is just as important in this day and age as it was 10 years ago and why?

“Real” instruments are unimportant – they were never important to begin with and will never be important again. An instrument is only as “real” as its ability to facilitate creation. It doesn’t matter if the instrument is wood and metal or digital; as long as it helps someone express ideas and feelings, it has worth and validity. Humans are creative animals, and we pick up whatever is around us to feed the spark of creation. 

We’ve spent our entire recorded history vacillating between the utopian pursuit of innovation and the traditionalist sneer at anything we deem “unnatural.” Often, the instruments we decry as not “real” or inauthentic are the instruments that appeal to a younger generation or are especially user-friendly; this ain’t an accident. The forces of elitism and populism are constantly at war to declare certain forms of creative expression illegitimate based on everything but the art they produce. 

You get lots of rock dinosaurs saying the music made with the bleeps and the bloops is somehow lesser because the instruments aren’t “real”. We don’t buy into that: Sure, we play guitars and drums and sing real loud, but not due to any ideological motivation. We just don’t know any better, and that suits us fine. 

Finally, what is the most underrated instrument?

The vibraslap.