Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Keeping The Wolves At Bay With KIM SALMON From BEASTS

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Keeping The Wolves At Bay With KIM SALMON From BEASTS · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hi, I'm Kim Salmon. I am a longtime member of the Beast Suburban
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  who now known as just the Beasts, but it's still the Beast Suburban don't
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  Let's make no mistake about that. And yeah, I'm on what are we
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  heavy? It's heavy? I love Heavy's beautiful? Thanks? Wait, I
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  have what you have not for me to say good thanks for joining us to
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  start to noon brother, no worries my pleasure hopefully. Oh as you say,
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  The Beasts stuff back on the road again this April for the appropriately named
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  a live tour, starting in Sydney on April the fifth and going through Brisbane,
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  Adela premaddled Chelsea Heights and finishing at North Cote on April the twentieth.
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  I know you've done a bit of churing and stuff over the years, mate,
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  but are you excited for this one? Yes? Very It has been
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  a while really that we've done any touring in earnest with this band. Really
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  it was just before the pandemic, so we're talking them, you know,
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  four years. So we did. We did a couple of dates last year
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  with original drummer James Baker, and we recorded that and we're so excited about
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  that. Recording that we thought we'd take it out on the road because we're
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  going to actually release some of this stuff already. We're going to release it
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  live. Yeah. I know it's that fraught thing, the live album,
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  but this is a beauty. I think. I love them. I reckon
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  they're great. Yeah, me too. There's been some good ones over the
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  years. There's been some less than good ones, but this one, I
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  think is we were going to call it or Texts and I were talking about
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  it and kind of throwing titles around, and he thought, what about the
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  best live album ever recorded on the best live album ever? But I thought
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  I had this certain thing because like this Slide Alive and kiss Alive, I
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  thought, why not beasts Alive and WOD So yes, we're doing We're putting
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  that out through a French label called Beast Records of All Things Funny that.
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  Yeah, but that won't be out till about September, I think. But
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  we've got a an EP five track twelve inch that will only be available at
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  the gig and that's some tracks taken from that recording, so very nice.
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  Yeah, So I just thought i'd put that out there. Thank you.
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  And I know people that have seen it before, know what to expect me,
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  But well, what can we expect from this show? Like you go
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  and again, dancing girls and jugglers and stuff. For you what do you
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  throught was just gonna be a straight out rock show. Well, we're not
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  really that straight a rock. We are. We are a gut bucket hardcore
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  blues based rock band, but I don't know, we're a bit there's a
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  timoths anarchy and chaos in the Beasts to call it kind of a straight true
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  I think you can expect that. You know, it won't be quite as
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  shambles, but it'll be pretty deconstructed. That's kind of what we're about.
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  We love to make things our own, but with that element of chaos,
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  so they can expect that. But the punters can also expect a selection of
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  material from all the way, all the phases of the band really, so
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  there'll be a representation of something from Axman's jazz sour mash God, I can't
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  even prattle the titles up, you know, all the way through to Beasts
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  still here, there'll be something represented. So it'll be that. I think,
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  Yeah, people need not worry. We're not. We haven't turned into
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  a covers band. Good. That doesn't bad, Like, do you expect
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  anything from the crowds? Like, is there anything they can do to make
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  sure that you have a good show or are you guys just more lost in
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  your own world up there? Well? Yeah, should we put it on
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  the audience? He stick it back? Why not? Sounds good? I
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  think I like this. Yeah, they can entertain us. You've got something
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  there, I think we might have. We'll raise the bar reverse psychology.
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  Yeah, we'll have to sort of do something to provoke them though, so
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  maybe maybe we will see. Let's see, we'll come up with something.
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  You've got a month, mate, You've got a month to come up with
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  it. Well, yeah, I think we can come up with something,
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  don't you worry? And this took came about pretty much like you said before,
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  after the reception that you got for the two fortieth anniversary shows that sold
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  out. So I know you've got to have faith any music. But these
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  days there's so much new music out there. Like, are you surprised that
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  you're enduring popularity and people don't forget about you even though you're not as in
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  your face as most fans are. No, I'm not surprised, but the
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  reason isn't out of just pure smugness. That is an element, but it's
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  mostly we got out there in a time when it wasn't sort of a complete
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  saturation of things. There weren't so many bands and it was harder to get
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  to them, so consequently, we weren't competing with every other person that can
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  possibly put stuff out there on the internet. Really, so nowadays it's how
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  you get through that. I wouldn't have a clue. So we have the
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  advantage of a reputation that existed long before that. So I don't envy anybody
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  trying to make music or any kind of performance or art or whatever in this
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  sort of realm, but we were in it. But we do have that
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  advantage now. The beast is made up of yourself, textpersons, borrows doosh
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  topic, I hope I said That're right, Charlie Owens and James. Aside
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  from tragedy losing a couple of members over the years, the original lineup is
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  still together forty years later. Made like that's a pretty good achievement. You
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  get. You've got less time for murder than that that has been said about
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  that, Like there was a what was it called? There was something called
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  ten years behind bars because behind bars, well in front of bars, but
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  in a poetic license you call that. But so that that has sort of
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  come up. But yeah, yeah, well, let's it has endured.
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  I sort of dipped out there for a few years, but I'm back.
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  I was. I sort of left in about ninety five, and mainly because
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  I had too many things on the go and it was sort of like I
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  had to pick and choose a bit, and I thought, well, if
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  I stay in this band, it'll kill me. Because it's so I thought
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  i'd give it a rest for a while. I with the hope that i'd
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  come back, and I did, so, you know, I concentrate it.
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  You know, it's sort of do it, you know, so I
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  think out of Yeah, I'm just trying to think. Charlie took over from
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  me basically, but now we're working together. That's great. I love working
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  with Charlie. I did mentioned this may the band has broken up more times
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  than I've had hot showers, but you seem to come back stronger than ever
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  every time. I like, it's almost been a cycle of albums split,
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  albums split, but in a strange way, it's worked, and it's it's
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  unified. You want you's got back together? Yeah, well it's luck.
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  It alludes back to that thing about the chaos that I was talking about in
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  the anarchy. Really, we just sort of it. We just sort of
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  go and then kind of crash and burn and then you know, we can
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  romanticize and say we rise like the phoenix at but it's really just we do
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  what we can and then then it seems time to come back. It's not
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  like we really do break up. But yeah, that's how it looks.
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  That's how it looks and whatever suits. But in actual fact, we just
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  go hard at it and then come back a bit later. So maybe it's
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  because we've got other things that we do. We'll sort of it's not just
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  that band not so you know, it's kind of oh god, I'm not
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  saying something boring here. It doesn't take all of your attention basically, Yeah,
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  yeah, we just can you do it when we can really all focus
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  on it. One of those rebursed in twenty nineteen is when you change your
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  name from the be Suburban to the Beast. Like I'm sure there's a good
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  reason for it, I just haven't heard it yet. Well, it's a
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  certain discussion that's gone on within the band, and I won't say my views
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  because I should speak for the band, but it was out of respect for
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  members who had passed more than anybody. I am Spencer P. Jones because
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  the first when the band came into being, it was Spencer and Text and
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  Boris and they had the original drummer from the thing that Text had before Text
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  deadly in the dumb Dumps. So it was just that and it's sort of
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  out of respect for Spencer. It didn't seem like it was the Beasts of
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  Bourbon because it was really It's the way it started out was kind of like
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  this interaction between Text and Spencer and I got involved and pretty soon because I
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  don't know, I write a lot of songs so and they seem to they
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  seemed to be prepared to take my songs, so I like them. Yeah,
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  I had a lot of songs in there, so I'm kind of and
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  I was in there so without really yeah, it just happened that way.
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  So but that is the reason. I don't know if you think that's a
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  good reason or not, but that is the reason. It's out of respect
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  for Spencer. I don't think the reasons come much better than that, brother,
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  Thank you. You released your debut album, The X Men's Jazz in
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  nineteen eighty four. But so, looking back at that album with benefit of
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  time, are you still happy with it as a debut album. Yeah,
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  I think I think it's fantastic. I think I think it's that's what the
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  recording we did, we just did live. It sort of captures that same
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  thing. It was like when we recorded that album, it basically went straight
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  to tape. It was the band was I think Spencer had just come off
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  the road touring with the Gun Club. We had to track him down.
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  We didn't know where the hell he was and he was still hungover from his
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  last night he was in. He was dragged out of bed, so and
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  he was quite in a mood. And so but that that's all there,
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  That's that's kind of what's it's palpable these feelings and you can but it's kind
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  of you can feel it when you hear that, hear it, you can
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  hear it in the reverb. That's just the kind of seediness of it all
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  and just that kind of Yeah, it's so so I think this live recording
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  it really captures things. It's a bit of a train wreck, but it
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  all hangs together always, it never actually completely comes off the rails. I
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  think music is missing that a lot these days. So like too many people
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  are after perfection with their albums and they just tweak at that a little bit.
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  So music wasn't meant to be perfect. Okay, I'll get back.
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  Yeah, that's right. Well, that's that's a performance. I think that.
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  You know, it's not a production. You know, production goes into
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  performance, but it's actually it is a performance. A live performances this theater.
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  So the kind of theater we have is that kind of theater where it
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  is about it could could fall apart at any second. It's sort of,
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  you know, a bit like somebody on the tightrope. You know, it's
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  that sort of thing. It was like a bit more like we're a bit
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  more like a circus than some other things. And your second album, Style
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  Mash, was said by one reviewer to redefine the parameters of guitar based rock
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  and roll. Is that a sentiment is that the sentiment you shad oh could
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  do. It could be it could be talking talking about things like Steve Vai.
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  When you say things, somebody und so you're allowed to agree with it.
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  Yeah, yeah, we're not. We're definitely not Steve Vai or that
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  kind of thing, although we did do a Zappa cover on the last album,
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  interestingly enough. But yeah, it depends what they mean by that.
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  I suppose I could interpret it as that. Yeah, I took it as
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  a compliment. Yeah, okay, well yeah, yeah, I owned it.
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  Well, I owned that ship. Yeah. Yeah. Looking back over
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  the course of your records, like, how would you say the band's sound
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  has changed or grown from the debut The X Men's Jades to most recent album
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  Still Here, hasn't changed a bit? Exactly what I was hoping you'd say,
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  mate. I think we've tried different things over the years, and sometimes
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  the failure has been the whole point of it. I mean, on the
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  third album with Black Milk, we pretty much tried our hand at just about
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  every genre, and I kind of like the failures on that album. We
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  thought we could play jazz, we thought we could do zyderco, and I
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  listened to those things and they don't sound like failures. They sound really interesting,
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  kind of well, I use the word deconstructions, but it's like that
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  they're kind of interesting explorations to the form to sound all arty. It'd be
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  good for you looking back to you because, like people are said, it's
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  a cliche, but every album is a snapshot of that period of your life.
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  So when you're looking back and having albums like that one and going back
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  to that time, when you're having those figs, it'd be a buzz.
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  Well, that's how I look at it, exactly. That's a good that's
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  a good analogy because I look back and think on that particular album, Black
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  Milk, we did think we could do just about anything. You know,
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  we thought, oh well we could try that, don't You don't have to
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  be Steve Vie. He come here, he's rearing his ugly head again to
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  do this. You know, we we were qualified with our meager skills.
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  So I think the audacity of it and the fact that we yet were the
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  hootspa, the fact we just thought we could so and we did. And
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  I go back and listen to God, that attitude we had it. You
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  know, we put pretty changed pretty quickly after that album, and when we
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  did The Low Road, it was a much more of a hard rock kind
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  of, you know, no nonsense kind of thing, much more sort of
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  not quite metal, but kind of verging on it. You know, it
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  sort of was like that that kind of yeah yeah, really hard edged rock,
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  whereas it was getting into some other direction. And like the first album,
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  you know, it's a mix of kind of psychobleian swamp rock, and
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  the second one had this sort of blues thing going on it, you know.
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  So but it's always the Beast Suburban, you know, it's always got
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  that. Even now, it's the Beast Suburban, even though we called the
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  Beasts. That's actually one thing I've always loved about you guys over the years,
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  Like you're one of those bands that you know what to expect from your
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  albums and from your live shows. But it's not all the same, if
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  that makes sense. Like a lot of band like not not hasslo metallic at
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  all, but you know what you're going to get with them, and it
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  all sounds the same these days, but you guys, you know what you're
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  going to get. But it still covers a broader spectrum, which you you
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  know, the philosophy. I think people know the philosophy and they you know,
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  then they get what they we give them. Then they realize, oh
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  yeah, that's what I thought they were about. They would do that so
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  I think they get surprised, but they then they then they kind of take
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  it on board and realize that's what I that's what I'd like to believe.
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  That's what I do believe. Well, second that was second that nation.
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  Brother, Well we will end or I'll end on a happy note. Thank
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  you mate, a pleasure talking to you. If that's the end of this,
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  that is no thanks there, thanks for joining us today. The chore
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  does kick off on April the fifth, so check out the socials if you
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  want to know the day. So we've just found out there's a live album
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  coming out this year too, so plenty to like. Bro and I'll come
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  along to the Brisbane show and if I spot you will have a beer.
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  Yeah we will certainly. Look all right, brother, thanks your time,
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  an, it's been a pleasure.