Salt Money’s Love of my life LP is out now on Bad Habit Records and we couldn’t be more stoked. The band will be on tour throughout January, including a very special Nambour Matinee with supports Slowcut and Old Home.

We hit up vocalist Dean to talk to us about love, sharehouses and Brisbane screamo…

BAD HABIT: Most people seem to be ready with a late 90s / early 00s screamo band to reference when they talk about Salt Money. Are you happy to fly that flag? Are there influences from the past 10 years we’re missing?

DEAN: I like the fact that our music seems to invoke comparisons to what I would consider the most expressive ‘glory days’ period of this genre. It’s deeply flattering when people make those comparisons to the greats, so in that case I’d say I feel comfortable to fly that flag. But I’d also like to hope that what we’re doing isn’t strictly backwards-facing. I think we sound like a 2020s band. I want to sound like a 2030s band.

BH: I had a great uncle in Ireland who was mad about sailing. People used to say he never married because he could never love anyone as much as he loved the sea. Is it weird if the love of your life is not a person?

D: Certainly ain't weird. I named our record ‘love of my life’ after writing and rewriting it like three times. I recognised that I just needed to write a record that was a gift to myself. It sounds somewhat conceited to call oneself the love of my life, but after pouring so much of myself into the project, I felt like I needed some consolation. I feel like this type of music can be such a cathartic opportunity to let go of so much. If you ain’t singing for yourself, what’s the point?

3. What was childhood like for you? How did you come to engage with music?

A somewhat open-ended question and I don’t wanna write you a novel, so I’ll try keep it brief. I think the most impactful elements of music in my youth came from hardcore bands. I suppose I have always been primarily focused on people and ideas, and it excited me when I saw people using music as a vehicle to express those ideas. Hardcore does that perfectly. It gives an opportunity for some middle-class vanilla kid to become a monk. Obviously not in a literal sense, but in the sense that it can give life a whole new meaning. You can see the world through a completely new lens. That’s why I fell in love with hardcore music. Through that I found more tightly-defined sub-genres of hardcore like screamo etc. It’s possibly just a coincidence that hardcore was the particular subculture that found me, owing to the fact that I was from a regional town and it seemed like the most thriving and accessible youth-culture that was around at the time.

4. I hear you live in a sharehouse with your bandmates, that must be really fun but I imagine could get pretty intense at times. Where do you think you’ll all be 10 years from now?

We’ve lived in this house for about 2.5 years and it has certainly meant an acceleration of creative output over that period. We all inspire each other with our shared bands, as well as our various other bands and solo projects. Over time things change, and now I only live with one member of the house is in Salt Money, but all members of the house contribute to various other musical projects together. It is hard to say what things will look like 10 years from now but I can say that the last few years have been such a creative explosion for me and I owe so much of that to the influence of the members of this house. I guess I just hope the groupchat is still going strong. 

5. Does living in Brisbane provide enough for the band, creatively?

It certainly makes it somewhat difficult to connect with the wider world. Brisbane isn’t exactly renowned for its creative exports (obviously with exceptions, Savage Garden rule). I can see the future of this band becoming a little less localised and perhaps more of a long-distance relationship. But Brisbane will always be home. We are deeply lucky to have such a vibrant scene of hardcore and screamo in our local area right now. It inspires us, drives us, and supports us endlessly. 

6. Thanks so much, we can't wait to welcome you to Nambour! Have you been here before? What are your thoughts about Nambour?

No, thank you! Nambour is going to be so fun. We’ve never been as a band, and I have only been like once or twice before personally (and that was forever ago). I have heard that Slowcut are tryna get a crappy hotel after the show and have a sleazy time. That sounds fun as hell and potentially a very ’Nambour-esque’ experience? Maybe I’ll try grow a seedy moustache for a greater immersion. Can’t wait.

Salt Money perform live at Morts Brewing Co at 2pm on Sunday 8 January to celebrate the release of their debut LP Love of my life, along with support acts Old Home (Sunshine Coast) and Slowcut (Brisbane). Tickets are on sale now at: tinyurl.com/saltmoneynambour