The Salads

Over the course of the last ten years, Toronto band The Salads, have become Canada’s leading ambassadors of fun times. Songs like “Get Loose” and “Today Is Your Lucky Day” (respectively from 2003’s FOLD A TO B and 2005’s BAND GONE WILD DVD - both on Maui Wowie Records/ Kindling Music / Warner Music Canada) have been heard around the world in big films*, big TV shows** and big commercials***.

Their ferocious performances that leave smiling faces and sweaty bodies behind are legendary. The inspired musicianship and rock prowess of Dave Ziemba (guitar), Chuck Dailey (bass) and Grant Taylor (drums) is boundless on stage. It should be – they’ve been playing together in the same band since grade 7! With singer Darren Dumas added in 1999, they had the frontman and voice that would turn this band into powerhouse that it is today.

The commercial success of FOLD A TO B meant they were in demand to tour a lot and they did; headlining clubs and colleges, and playing on bills such as: WARPED, EDGEFEST, LABATT BLUE MOTEL, CITY-TV’S NEW YEARS EVE BASH, THE ICE HOTEL. They toured Australia for the first time in 2005 supporting some Presidents of The United States of America shows to rave responses. Things had definitely improved over years of slogging out in the hit-and-miss Ontario club circuit. And in the process, they learned a lot… about themselves and about the world around them. They weren’t kids anymore. And the new record was going to reflect that.

“The Big Picture”: these words can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. In every day life, armchair executives and compromising politicians throw these words about like rice at a Hindu wedding. So, for it to have any meaning at all, it’s really only as powerful as the person that utters them, and the audience that hears them. And it is with this sense of irony and perspective that THE SALADS have chosen to call their new album THE BIG PICTURE (Maui Wowie / Kindling / Warner).

“There are ups and downs like in any family but those first tours, you’re partying together, you’re crashing together, and you’re waking up together... you start to see everything – including the guys you’re playing with – in a different light,” says Dumas. “That was the major adjustment for us but after two years of basically non–stop on the road, I think we’ve done a really good job of getting a handle on it. We’ve started looking beyond everything and taking everything – life on the road touring, life at home, recording, being in a band, and the business end of all of that – and standing back from it; looking at it as a whole. That’s why our new record is called The Big Picture.”

As Ziemba, Dailey, Taylor and Dumas began the long process of songwriting and practice sessions in early 2005 in preparation of recording this record, they couldn’t have imagined how much they would need to know what “The Big Picture” would mean to them.

They began writing together at their jam space in the Portlands of downtown Toronto; working on riffs and arrangements. But making decent sounding recordings there, where they could take the day’s work home and listen with fresh ears, proved very difficult. So the band moved their pre-production process and gear up to a spare room at the Ziemba family’s farmhouse just north of Newmarket. And that worked out great: being away from the city and its inherent distractions meant they were able to work more efficiently. The fruits of their labour up north yielded most of what appears on the record.

But one afternoon that summer of ’05, while the band wasn’t working – and while Dave’s father was out doing his weekly errands – someone broke into the house and stole everything of any value. The computer that stored all those songs, the software, all that work, guitars, amps, mics, accessories, electronics, his mom’s jewelry: all gone in under two hours.

This was devastating. The insurance company didn’t pay out replacement value, and some things could never be replaced anyway. They were already months behind from when they had originally wanted the new record to come out, and this set them back again. As anyone who’s been through this knows, you feel violated. Strangers were walking around your home, the place where you feel safe. But the band resolved to get back to work, stay focused and keep in mind the big picture. They started tracking the songs again and because they had reference copies, it took them no time at all to get back to where they were once the gear had been replaced… about a month later.

It was time to bring producer Dan Brodbeck (Dolores O’Riordan/Cranberries, Headstrong) into the process of choosing what song ideas they should concentrate on and what songs to leave on the table. Pre-production with the band and Dan back at their rehearsal room in Toronto went well. They decided to focus on 6 songs to get ready for EMAC studios in London. They worked fast. Dan and the band knew they had so