Epsom Salts : “ The community in Brighton is lovely ”
With recent gigs at The Hope and Ruin , Green Door Store , and with ambitions of entering the studio and releasing some music out on Spotify , Epsom Salts are cementing their position in Brighton ’ s punk music scene
They are a punk band based in Brighton ; they describe their music as eclectic , heavy , punk , and postpunk . I had the fantastic opportunity of interviewing 3 of 4-piece band , Kristian Floate the bassist , Robin Marsh the drummer and Shea Harding , “ the screamer .” We chatted about the highlights of their journey so far , recent gigs , being recognised , the origin of their band name and being welcomed into Brighton ’ s punk community .
How would you describe the genre of your band ?
Kristian Floate : “ It ’ s hard really because , I mean we ’ ve said eclectic before . Just how well-known punk is as a genre , but then obviously you dip into post punk and noise and a lot of different sorts of sub genres . So , we sort of say punk to keep it broad , but we kind of dip into different things really .”
Shea Harding : “ It ’ s just easier to say punk band , but just anything , really .”
Do you align yourselves with Heavy Metal music ?
KF : “ Oh , for sure . The louder , the better . If your vocal cords hurt afterwards then you ’ ve done a good job . Otherwise , it hasn ’ t been worth it .”
SH : “ Oh , a hundred per cent . I want to make sure that I have no voice by the end of the year . I ’ ve already lost it so many times .”
How do you let your voice recover after 30 minutes to an hour-long gig ?
SH : “ Oh , sometimes it ’ s like three hours if we rehearse , and if it ’ s really bad , I just have to shut up for like three days . If it ’ s sort of there , that ’ s good enough .”
KF : “ The thing is , we usually rehearse at Brighton Electric just down the road and they allow us to book three-hour sessions . They are probably really fed up with us ; three hours straight we ’ re causing absolute havoc and just shouting . But Shea didn ’ t really properly train his voice , he just ran in there and learnt the hard way really . He lost his voice on the first session that we did . It ’ s only been about three months or so , so it ’ s a long way to go .”
SH : “ I mean , I haven ’ t improved at all , I ’ m still destroying my voice as much as possible . I just have a nice hot cup of tea before and after .” How is the Brighton music scene ? KF : “ We are heavily influenced by a lot of local bands that we listen to . I think quite a lot of the music that we listen to is local Brighton bands . We are quite connected with a lot of musicians and it ’ s just a nice scene to be in . I guess because there ’ s a lot of really accepting people . You would expect other musicians to be quite critical or judgmental , but it ’ s just a really nice group of people . We ’ ve just built this kind of connection of bands .”
Robin Marsh : “ Especially in such a short period of time . I feel like you ’ re welcomed quite quickly by people . Each of us had a couple of friends in other bands , but we ’ ve since played with bands who have just listened to us and have been like , oh yeah , we want to play with them . They ’ ve just been so welcoming to us . The community in Brighton is lovely .”
SH : “ I think that it helps that we ’ re in a punk band as well , everyone ’ s in the same fucking boat .”
What is the best / craziest gig that you have done ?
RM : “ The Torrid Horror gig at Green Door Store .”
KF : “ It was about two weeks ago today we performed at Green Door Store , which was our biggest one . We performed with two local bands , one
- interviewed by Isabella Womack
called Torrid Horror , they ’ re from Eastbourne and we also played with a band called Electric Cowboy Club . The energy was fantastic ; these are two local bands that we have connected with now . We didn ’ t know how many people were going to turn up and we performed to almost a full venue and that was really nice . We bumped into one of the drummers in Morrison ’ s last week , so it ’ s nice and casual , it ’ s a nice little community .”
RM : “ We also had a gig a few days before that with a band called Joe and The Shitboys from the Faroe Islands and that ’ s been one of the highlights . We saw them a couple of months before at The Great Escape and we are thinking these guys are amazing . Never assuming that we would be able to play with them . So , to get a chance to play with people that you listen to , that you love , is mental .” What ’ s the best song to play live ? SH : “ Everyone that listens to us will say Blue and Green , the song about blue and green coke . Mine is a song called Masochist , because it just goes fucking hard .”
KF : “ We can agree with Masochist because the way that it is structured ; it was a random base rift that I was playing during one of our three-hour sessions at Brighton Electric . We ’ re two and a half hours in , we ’ re already deafened . Robin started playing some drums to it and Shea shouted over the top and it just fell into place . It ’ s one of those really fast paced songs .”
RM : “ I ’ m stuck between 20 Second Job ; we call it that because we don ’ t have a name for it .” Have you been recognised yet ? SH : “ Yeah , it ’ s crazy . I don ’ t know the guy , but he said I saw you at The Hope and Ruin . Then going to Green Door Store again , somebody who worked at the bar was like Epsom Salts , right ? I ’ ll come to see you .”
KF : “ Yes ! It ’ s amazing and it happened just down the road from my