AERIAL SALAD: “It’s just a sad fucking world we live in, and it could be so much better.”
IT’S BEEN FOUR crazy, fucked-up years since AERIAL SALAD released their ‘Dirt Mall’ album, but the Madchester punks have returned with the thirteen-track ‘R.O.I.’ – a sharper, edgier sound, and a new record deal with highly regarded Venn Records (Bob Vylan, Clt Drp, Clobber, Meryl Streek, High Vis).
The band were formed in 2016 with the sole intention of playing the legendary FEST punk festival in Gainesville, which they did as teenagers. They could barely play, it was an unmitigated disaster, but they still had the front to do it.
“A lot has changed since Dirt Mall,” said frontman, Jamie Munro.” “I’ve gone from working temp jobs and doing DIY gigs across Europe, to having to face the mortality of securing a career.
“As fate would have it, I ended up working with a lot of start-up owners and heads of sales and heads of marketing. I have had many sales jobs, all of which has influenced characters and stories in this album, and a lot of the grievances I air in this album have spawned from working in, and with, big businesses.
“Musically it was influenced massively by the likes of XTC, Happy Mondays, Gary Numan, Carter USM, Priests, Viagra boys, Shame, and The Fall. I also love High Vis, and of course all the British new wave bands of the ‘80s.”
The album begins with ‘Rottin’ n Shakin,’ as powerful an opener as you’re likely to hear this year.
“It’s a song about someone looking to escape the world, sold a dream to board a ship to sail off into distant lands,” explains Munro. “I use the metaphor of a shipwreck to connect this song to ‘D’you Like Flowers, Son?’ [track ten]. The lyrics, ‘Rotting by the rocks while you’re on your voyage,’ and, ‘Cast down by the bitter seas, you’ve heard about the open breeze,’ linking these stories together.
“The shipwreck is used to describe my feelings when all our touring was cancelled, and our album launch saw disaster when Covid happened. I was lucky to fall on my feet and get a decent job over that time, but it felt like a massive part of who I was as a person had just fucking crashed into a load of rocks.”
The authentic, relevant lyrics found throughout ‘R.O.I.’ rank Aerial Salad on a higher plane than many of their contemporaries. Theirs is a raw, chaotic, violent characteristic, transferring with ease from the stage, into their recordings.
A sign of the album’s strength lies in the discovery recent single ‘Tied To Pieces of Paper,’ could, potentially, be viewed as one of the album’s weaker songs – particularly given the heart on the sleeve, anger, and honesty, of two stand out tracks, ‘They All Lied to Me,’ and, ‘As The World Eats Itself Again.’
“They All Lied To Me’ isabout how when I was growing up, the world was completely different to how it is now,” continues Munro. “I remember men like [former US Vice President] Al Gore chatting on about the environment back in early ‘00s and no cunt did anything about it, and now look at us. Fucking everything’s on fire, flooded, or frozen.
“And ‘As The World Eats Itself Again,’is just about how people are fucking getting murdered all over the world, there’s thousands of kids getting slaughtered in Palestine, and people are out here debating whether or not it’s “justified,” there’s literally children fucking dying every day. We have people hating and killing people for being trans, gay, black, foreign, its fucking disgusting, and instead of actually fighting this hate, we’re just constantly debating it on social media. It’s just a sad fucking world we live in, and it could be so much better.”
But despite its – at times – depressing realism, ‘R.O.I.’ also allows itself a moment or two of positivity as Munro further explains.
“’D’you Like Flowers, Son?’ is about some of the incredible people I’ve met in my life over the last few years that have helped me kind of let go of ‘the world as it was,’ so to speak. The musical world now compared to when we started as a band is so different. The world economy is literally completely different and so are most governments – there’s been about five unelected PMs in the UK since we started this band. So, this song is an ode to dusting yourself off from disaster, reacting to the new world around you, and just being fucking glad you’ve got some really good pals around you.”
AERIAL SALAD, an all too rare a commodity in today’s facile, sterile, simplistic music business – a band who acknowledge their songs can change lives, can educate, can highlight societal injustice, while driving those messages home with nothing more than genuine, rock & roll swagger.
Joining Munro in the band are, Mike Wimbleton (vocs/guitar) and Matthew Mills (drums).
‘R.O.I.’ was recorded at Vibe Recording Studio, Cheetham Hill in Manchester with Dean Glover.
Catch AERIAL SALAD’s UK headline tour:
May 30 Leeds, Oporto
May 31 Newcastle, Zerox
June 01 Sheffield, Sidney & Matilda
June 05 Birmingham, The Victoria
June 06 Brighton, Green Door Store
June 07 Bristol, Crofters Rights
June 08 London, Water Rats
June 15 Manchester, Gorilla
ONLINE: Website
(Photo (c) Liam Maxwell)
