THEO SALMON of DAFFODILS: In Bloom and Never Happier
An interview by Bridget Herlihy with photography by Tom Grut.
After a serendipitous meeting between Theo Spike Salmon and Jade Bryham at a 1975 gig in 2016, Tamaki Makarau based quartet Daffodils have forged their own path, amassing a steadily growing legion of fans in the process.
They created significant waves with their debut single ‘Two Angels’ in 2017, with their second single ‘A Leo Underwater’ boasting an impressive 1.6 million streams to date on Spotify alone. Since the release of their lauded debut EP ‘Boys’ in October 2019, the four piece – Issac Keating (drums), Louis Graham (bass) along with Salmon (guitar and vocals) and Bryham (synths, keyboards) – have continued to hone their craft.
Daffodils have become widely renowned for their refined contemporary pop sound intertwined with re-imagined echoes of the new wave era of the late 70s and 80s. Their distinctive sound has reached even greater depths on their new EP ‘Stay The Night’; a collection of five tracks about change, regret, learning from life experiences, and letting go.
On the eve of the release of ‘Stay The Night’, Bridget Herlihy had a chat with Daffodils front man Theo Salmon about his evolution as a songwriter, the inspiration behind the new EP, and importance of authenticity when writing lyrics.
Congratulations on the impending release of ‘Stay The Night’. When did you write these new tracks?
A couple of the songs on there I wrote quite a while ago; particularly ‘Every Once and Awhile’, I think I wrote that in 2019, back when I was still at university. I’m a naughty university drop out, but what can you do? [laughs] That one is probably the oldest one, and then a couple of the tracks were written in late 2020, and then we were supposed to record in February last tear, but then there was that lockdown and everything got pushed to June. So we have pretty much had everything done since August last year.
We recorded it at The Lab in Mt Eden in Auckland with Jol Mulholland. But it has been a long process, while wondering is it worth us putting this out without being able to do any shows around it. So I think it was just a matter of taking the time to find the right time.
How much do you feel ‘Stay The Night’ differs from your first EP ‘Boys’?
I think pretty massively. I think that for this EP we were much less worried about everything having to be exactly as it would be live. I think a lot of that has ended up in that way, but we didn’t worry too much about that. It has given us a lot of space for some really cool variation in the way that we looked at it, like using textures at the beginning of songs and slightly more interesting base parts – stuff that runs underneath. And that was really cool for me because I love playing around with ambient sounds.
Also, from a song writing perspective, not feeling like we had to be boxed in to any specific genre was quite nice as well. With the ‘Stay The Night’ single in particular, I think that was very much like trying to lean into that kind of over-dramatic pop song thing. So that was just a good excuse for me being able to write all those dramatic pop songs that I really like, without worrying too much about whether people are going to think this is cool or not. And also feeling a little bit less self-conscious about all of it made that whole process more exciting and interesting.
How would you describe your dramatic pop songs? Listeners seem to be drawing a lot of comparisons, or trying to place the band within a specific genre, like post-punk, synth-pop, post new-wave, and you have obviously been compared to the likes of The Smiths and The Cure. How do you feel about those comparisons?
I grew up around a lot of that music, and I still love listening to all of that. I think it definitely used to influence the way that I wrote much more than it does now. I always find the questions like “how would you guys describe your sound in three words” almost impossible to answer. We are just constantly pulling things from all over the place.
I think that it does make it easier to put the sound of a band into a specific box, but I think that we have gotten to a point now where pretty much every artist is drawing inspiration from so many different places that you don’t really end up with that tribalist musical style. I have always had a pretty big affinity for big heavy, dramatic pop songs, like Katy Perry and a lot of stuff from the late 2000s that I think is a really cool era of music because it almost doesn’t care about taking itself seriously at all. And I like the idea that you can just have music that is inheritntly dramatic and emotional without it trying to be overly smart or pretentious, which I feel like is a place where a lot of people are trying to be.
Alternative and indie genres will often lose the idea that music just needs to be fun. There is no point being super-intelligent if you end up just stressing over whether or not the music is actually exciting for people.
While I can hear the new wave and synth pop influences in your music, it doesn’t feel inauthentic. Your songs don’t have the feel of being overly concerned with being positioned within a particular ‘box’ in terms of genre.
I think that is the biggest difference between the last project and this one is coming to terms with the fact that it sort of comes across badly trying to be overly smart about what you are writing. I think you end up boxing a lot of people out by doing that.
I have definitely been pretty pretentious with lyrics in the past, so it was quite nice to say ‘you know what, I don’t have to do anything too hectic’, and just try to put stuff down that I actually really believe in, without trying to twist it in a way that makes it sound like I’m a particular kind of way. That’s what I was going for; not caring as much about whether or not my lyrics sounded super smart.
That’s not simply a evolution of the way that you approach song writing and lyricism, but something that also comes with age and experience. Yet given that you are not quite 23 years old yet, lyrically you give the impression of being an old soul. What you are saying in your lyrics is quite mature and insightful, and no doubt they will resonate with your audience too.
Thank you; I certainly hope so! [laughs]
So with the ‘Boys’ EP you were trying to emulate your live sound?
Yeah, I think we were trying to take quite a utilitarian approach to recording it, and we experimented with a couple of things here and there. But on the whole it was pretty much keeping it as few guitar tracks and synth parts as possible, just for the sake of it sounding like it would live. Especially because those songs all developed live, whereas the songs on the new EP we had never played a lot of them live until after we had finished them in the studio. I think that stuff just progresses differently when you haven’t had 25 gigs to test them out beforehand.
You are playing a few gigs in support of the EP – what do you have in store for the shows?
We are kind of just playing some of the new tracks from the new EP. We haven’t had that many shows over the last year or so, so it’s a good opportunity for us to get back into the groove of it, and get some new stuff in there.
We’ve got some new set ideas; we’ve been playing a very similar set for the last few years, so it will be nice to have some new stuff to break it up a little bit. I’m really looking forward to switching it up!
You played some shows in Australia recently. How did they go?
Yeah, we had a couple of support slots over there which was pretty fun; two in Sydney and then one in Melbourne. The ones in Sydney were with Taj Ralph and Gully Days. In Melbourne we played with this band The Lazy Eyes who have just put out their first record. They are kind of 70s psychedelic – they were really cool. And it was really great playing over there; a really nice, low-pressure way to start out I think.
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What have you got up your sleeve for the rest of the year?
We will probably end up doing a proper tour for the EP as well, so we will go and do a few dates in the South Island and then another couple of shows in Auckland and Wellington. We are looking at doing some more shows over in Australia as well, which will be really cool. And then just hoping that we get on some festivals over summer.
Do you have any plans to record a full-length album at some point in the not too distant future?
I have just started writing one. I’m in the very early stages of writing some songs, but I definitely would like to start looking at that more seriously now that we have got this EP out.
Its been such a long time since we started making this EP that I have built it up in my mind, but its actually only five songs. I think I have spent the last year letting it kind of build up. But its nice to have it out, because now I don’t really have to think about it that much anymore, and now I can spend time with some other music, which I’m really excited about. That’s definitely my plan for the next year or so.
Daffodil’s new EP ‘Stay The Night’ was released today and is available for stream or purchase here. Keep your eyes peeled for possible tour news soon…
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