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