Travis Wiggins: bass, vocals
Mike Rice: guitar
Luke Krause: drums
Influences
Death Cab for Cutie, Minus the Bear, Bloc Party, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Franz Ferdinand, Mew, The Clash, Of Montreal, U2, Police, Buddy Guy, Wilco, Jimmi Hendrix, David Bowie, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The Salts (previously The Summer Salts, changed in 2009) are a 3-piece indie/rock/alternative musical group based in Chicago consisting of Travis Lee Wiggins (bass, vocals), Mike Rice (guitar), and Luke Krause (drums). The band formed in late 2006 and they quickly started playing shows in early 2007 making their way through most of Chicago’s well-known venues drawing in fans along the way. Known for crafting catchy melodies varying from upbeat dance/rock tunes to melodic indie rock, the band has recorded two full length self-released albums.
The Members
Multi-instrumentalist and lyricist Travis Lee Wiggins plays bass and sings for the Salts. His solo project, Essex Chanel has garnered much attention, as well as his other projects Fetla, Dolphins Swimming, and The Personal FX. In the Salts, his bass lines interconnect with guitarist Michael Rice’s notes and create a unique sonic color. It is rare to see a guitarist handle rhythm and lead at the same time, and Rice has developed a style of guitar playing that kids in Guitar Center will be imitating for years to come. Luke Krause is a natural born drummer, and without the rhythm section created by Krause The Salts would not be the same. The Salts don’t overplay, and frequently concentrate on the space in between the notes.
History
During the summer of 2006 drummer Jack Kackmar ran into a friend of Travis Lee Wiggins’s at a bar on Chicago’s North Side and he was able to gets Travis’s phone number. Jack & Travis played music in High School and played one show in college under the name Monopoly. They decided to get together and play some music and Jack brought with him guitarist Mike Rice. They were co-workers at Chase bank. Travis switched over to bass from usual instrument guitar, and the group started rehearsing once or twice a week. Some of the songs on The Summer Salts first album Do A Somersault! were written during this period, namely Headache, Trashy Romance Novels (Nobody Knows Me), & My Lucky Charm. In Late 2006 Jack developed a brain aneyerism and under doctor’s orders had to abstain from loud music. Travis asked his practice space roommate, Eoin Burke, to join the band as a drummer. They continued to play and in the late summer of 2007 recorded their first album, Do A Somersault!
Do A Somersault! (released May 2008)
The Salts’ first album, Do A Somersault! (5.2008), has a wide dynamic range of songs, from the dance/rock focused “NO,” to the sweet and melodic “Pennies, Nickels, and Dimes.” Burke had very much a less-is-more type style of playing, and that led the music to be very melodic with many parts. Recorded with the three members live at Wiggins’s Beware of Dog Studios in Edgewater, Wiggins produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered the album himself. Although the album was complete in December 2007, Eoin Burke married that fall and left to pursue his other life interests.
After auditioning 10 drummers, The Salts found Luke Krause in the spring of 2008. May of 2008 saw the release of Do A Somersault! With the addition of Krause, the band took a sonic turn towards more dance/rock numbers and faster tempos. During the auditioning process Rice & Wiggins would make up stuff on the spot to see how the drummers would react, and many of these tracks, as well as what the band came up with in the first months playing with Krause, became base for what would become Broomstick Rock Star.
Name Change The Summer Salts – The Salts (may 2009)
The Summer Salts changed their name to The Salts during 2009. Originally Krause’s idea, the band wanted to distance itself from a summer-related theme. And their second release was going to be so different compared to the first because Krause’s drumming was drastically different compared to second drummer Eoin Burke’s that this really was a new band.
Broomstick Rock Star (released December 2009)
The Salts sophomore release, Broomstick Rock Star’s (12.2009) instrumentation was recorded during a 5 hour session in Chicago on March 7th, 2009, at Engine Studios where such acts as Iron and Wine, Andrew Bird, and Modest Mouse have recorded. Mike Regan Engineered & Mastered the album, with Producing and Mixing credits going to both him and The Salts. Broomstick Rock Star has 11 amazing tracks, varying from upbeat dance/rock numbers (Body Moves, Go There), Western-themed double entendre (Thinking With Your Gun), to comedic themes of current times (Parent’s House). The album instrumentation was recorded live with the 3 members in one room at Engine, with vocal overdubs and harmonies being recorded at The Barn in Valparaiso, Indiana, in April and May 2009. The mixing took place during that summer and the release was put off as mounting tension in the band led Luke Krause to quit during the summer and fall of 2009 and Wiggins dissolved the band in August of 2009. What was unique about the tension is that it was spawned from different ideas as to the promotional and financial interests of the band rather than the music direction. After a cooling off period all of the members decided to continue because they really enjoyed the music and vowed to continue to work through their differences.
Categories –indie/rock/alternative
Similar Artists – Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, The Strokes, Interpol
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