The band met back In the summer of 2013 when Dan Wall, a then carpenter and street musician from New York, found his way to the world music conference ‘Etno Histeria’ and ‘Floating Castle Festival’ in the Istria region of Slovenia. During this two week period he met and collaborated with many talented and inspiring musicians from around the globe some of whom backed him up on his first festival show. Among them were later to be Old Salt members Anton Teljebäck, Dave Barfoot, Lotte Remmen and Johannes Wannyn.
Not long after their adventures in Slovenia, they were able to rendezvous in February 2014 when invited to a music festival in Umeå, Sweden. This road wound down to Ghent (Belgium), where bass player Lara Rosseel joined the group and where the band is based today. In 2016 Old Salt released their first album ‘Up River Overseas’, which was recorded in Umeå.
In 2017, French cellist Toby Kuhn entered the band during ‘Floating Castle Festival’ in Slovenia, the festival where the band was formed. In that same year the band won the ‘European World of Bluegrass Award’ in Voorthuizen (NL) with an overwhelming live performance. In the summer of 2018 they recorded their second album ‘Commons’ in GAM Studio (Belgium). The album was released in June 2019 and took off with two singles, Grow and Shades, that got picked up right away in the Apple playlist of the week. In 2020, Berlin based double bass player Tomás Peralta joined the Old Salt family. Ready to cross new borders the band members were excited to start touring Europe in 2020, when they saw their ‘Commons’ release tour fall flat as we all entered the pandemic. Old Salt got back in the studio in 2021 and will release a new EP in 2022.
Old Salt has performed as a septet on several occasions, but today they mostly perform as a quartet featuring the core trio with Dan, Johannes and Lotte, joined by Toby or Tomás. Between street performing, numerous festival stages and folk venues the momentum has naturally grown to bring them to the fore as a band that pushes the limits of folk music.
Dan Wall (USA): Lead Vocals - Banjo - Violin - Blues Harp.
Lotte Remmen (Belgium): Violin - Vocals.
Johannes Wannyn (Belgium): Guitar - Vocals.
Toby Kuhn (France): Cello or Tomás Peralta (Chile): Double Bass.
The other original members of the band:
Anton Teljebäck (Sweden): Five String Viola
Lara Rosseel (Belgium): Double Bass
Dave Barfoot (Scotland): Bodhran and Percussion