LAYING IT DOWN IN NASHVILLE:
An interview with Cam Salay on his newly recorded album ‘Wishbone’by Shirley Wiebe
A telephone interview with Canadian musician
Cam Salay at his home in Brackendale on October 31, 2012.
SW:
First of all, congratulations on putting together such an awesome collection of your music – it brings the best to what you’ve created.
CS:
Thanks!
SW:
Let’s start with a little background information on your music career to this point. I see from your bio that you played with the Paperboys from ‘94 to 2001. It says here that the band won a Juno award in ’98 when Molinos was voted best album in the Roots and Traditional category.
CS:
Right! Those years were anothereducation right there, on playing with good players at that time and being at that level. Performing at all the big Canadian festivals was a huge
highlight – we played the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Edmonton and all that. But after seven years I was tired of travelling, tired of being away from home, so I decided to retire from that and just try to work more locally. I ended up playing in a pub in Whistler called the Dubh Linn Gate, and I still play there
regularly several days a month. It’s been a great place really – we play a lot of cover songs, learn great songs that other people have written, and I’ve been really working on my singing and playing.
SW:
What group are you playing with up
there?
CS:
Our group is called The Splinters and it’s made up Shannon Saunders and
myself. She was also in the Paperboys for about 10 years before she quit around 2005 and joined me up there. Same reason…it was a super fun band to be in, but after seven or ten years travelling, you kind of want to settle down a bit.
SW: It’s nice that you two could find another way to continue working together. Are you
playing your own music too?
CS:
We mix in all our stuff with covers of Neil Young, U2, The Beatles, all over the map,
whatever people request, and we slip in our own songs there as well.
SW:
You’re very versatile! To talk more about your recording career to date,
I know that you released an album called Farmhouse in 2003. How was that different from the one you
just finished?
CS:
The Farmhouse album was with my wife Colleen Griffin. We’d just written some songs
together, and really wanted to get everyone that we liked playing with to record on the
record. So rather than take everyone to a studio, we bought a little portable recording studio. We set it up at home and did it ourselves. We had my brother, my brother in law, Shannon of course, and all the people that were close to us playing on the record. Then I got a professional in Vancouver to help mix and master it, but we did it all at home.
SW:
It has a great sound too, I always enjoy listening to the copy I have. You must have had to
learn some engineering skills to do the recording at home.
CS:
Yah exactly, I really learned a lot and read a lot, and asked other people that do it, learned a lot just about using different microphones and trying to get a good sound and then getting
good performances from people. It was a lot of fun!
SW:
What was it like to make the decision to go to Nashville to make this new
recording and how did that come about?
CS:
It was an easy decision because of my very good friend Steve Mitchell.
We’ve been friends for over 20 years. He played on Farmhouse, and he was in the Paperboys for a while, and I knew him even before that. Steve moved to Nashville eight years ago to work as a songwriter. He’s always been a really prolific writer, he probably writes 60 songs a year. I visited him there a couple of years ago and he’s the one that said ‘Nashville is THE place to record, it’s cheaper than anywhere, it’s so efficient, and why don’t you just do another record here?’ So he planted the seed and I thought that was a really fun idea and I wanted to hear what my songs would sound like with other players and their ideas.
SW:
So the plan has been in the works for a while since that visit.
CS:
Yah, I visited him two years ago, almost to the day. So I saved my pennies for two years and worked on songs, getting a collection of songs together. And we did it!
SW:
How do you think the vibe of Nashville influenced the record?
CS:
That influenced it a lot, in a good way, just what I wanted. I play bass, I play guitar and banjo but when I went there – I didn’t want to play bass or guitar, or even tell the players what to play. We just played them the work tape and said, the the vibe we’re looking for of the song is like this, and then just let them go, let them throw their ideas at it, and most of it we just loved. We hardly had to direct
the players at all, it was so quick and efficient and it affected the album just the way I wanted.
SW:
It sounds like you were able to work really collaboratively on the sound that you wanted and how each different instrument was going to contribute to it.
CS:
Yah, Steve and I figured out together what instruments we wanted, and he and I wrote two of the songs together. He also did a lot of the background singing.
SW:
The harmonies are sweet, is that Steve’s
voice?
CS:
That’s him, and his singing and playing have gone up a few notches since he moved to Nashville too, just being around those kinds of players.
SW:
How did you decide on the six tracks for this compilation?
CS:
I’m not sure how I picked them but in the end result I feel that they do kind of fit together and I’m kinda liking that. Let’s see, ‘Willy’ was recorded before on the Farmhouse album, but several people had said I should do that one again and give it a better treatment. So that was a suggestion
by someone else.’ The Mystery’ is a song that I probably would not have recorded, because I used to just play that one around the house. I liked it a lot but I didn’t think that anyone else ever would.
SW:
And yet that song feels like the glue, like it’s a container for all the other pieces! There are some poetic phrases about ‘when nightfall hits the ground’ and also the ‘ghost of wonder’ and it seems
like you’re talking about the beauty of uncertainty, about not really knowing what time we have, or what’s going to happen or if it is just today. That phrase, the ghost of wonder.
CS:
I wasn’t sure if that was a corny line but the song is about something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That thing inside us that makes us alive, or that thing you can’t put your
finger on. It’s a bit difficult but fun, I thought it was possibly a bit cheesy,
which is another reason I hesitated putting the song on there, but then I
realized it’s one of my personal favourites. It was a last minute choice when I
thought I really, really like this one and I don’t think anyone else does. But
with a bit of editing, I chopped it down, made it a little shorter, got to the
point, not too many choruses, and I’m really happy with the way it turned out
and I’m glad I included it.
SW:
I think just knowing you as a man and as a musician, that song, to me,
really conveys the way I see you living your life and the way you observe life around you.
CS:
Maybe that’s why I thought
people wouldn’t like it, it’s a personal song I
guess.
SW:
You must have listened to another more important instinct to include it and maybe Steve encouraged you with that as well, with actually giving you feedback on the songs that you
were thinking of.
CS:
He was especially good with feedback on going to Nashville. We did a
little bit of writing back and forth over the internet and when I got there we spent one day just trimming, editing and getting the arrangements solid so they don’t go on and on. He really helped with that.
SW:
Can you talk a bit about your songwriting process and how it’s evolved?
CS:
I have been writing songs for a long time, probably 25 years or something. I write one song a year, maybe two, that’s about how fast I go. But it’s evolved a lot. Lately, like in the last year or so, I just want to write songs that are fun, not try to be too heavy or sad or anything. I just wanted to have some fun this time so a couple of them are more like that. They’re kind of upbeat and kinda dancey even, and that’s been influenced by playing at the pub, just playing at a resort where people are dancing a lot. The other evolvement is that I’ve really become able to edit and trim songs now. Used to be a time when I’d write and every word just had to go in there, and now I can throw out whole chunks and verses and really trim away so I don’t repeat myself much. Everything moves
the song forward, and I think it’s been working with Steve that’s helped.
SW:
I know there are probably a lot of people who want to know how you start a song, whether it’s playing the guitar first or playing some chords or do you write lyrics first?
CS:
It changes, sometimes it can be a musical phrase, but most times it is lyrics. I might even hear someone say something that’s just a turn of a phrase they say and I like it. It just
makes me laugh or something so it can start there. I’ll start with that little seed and start making up a few little things, and I might work on a verse.
SW:
Can you give me an example of that in any of the songs on this album that
might have started that way, something you heard or just a little fragment of
something?
CS:
Well, the Johnson Fair was one. I took this little songwriting class with
Bob Stark and one of the assignments he gave us was to write a song with the word ferris wheel. That one goes back to well, even before my childhood, to those little fairs that would come across the prairies, we’re talking like in the 50’s, sort of that setting, so that’s how that one came.
SW:
What about Marry for the Cash? The lyrics are snappy and you are having
fun during the recording of it as well. How did that one come about?
CS:
I got that idea and I thought it was kind of humorous so I pretty much
wrote the verses, put it on the computer and emailed it to Steve. And like within two days he’d written the chorus and threw some chords back at me and that was it. Two little sit-downs and that song was done. And then I let him have a go at the music. I was doing it with more of a boogie-woogie blues feel and he’s got more of a rock and blues feel, and again, that one in the studio we threw it out there to the band and said this is a fun song, not very serious and they just immediately nailed it in one take. That’s what they did and that one turned out fantastic so it was fun to see a little shred of an idea mushroom into a song like that and everyone had involvement in that one.
SW:
There’s another song called The Nighttime, it’s got quite an unusual kind of rhythm to it. Can you talk more about that song?
CS:
I told the band that I liked the Paul Simon’s Graceland band – that’s one of my favourite albums of all time and I just thought banjo would fit well in that kind of a groove, plus I wanted
to write a dance song so that song came out of wanting something you can dance to, that’s why its 6 minutes long. The pedal steel playing on that is one place where I directed. I wrote this little piece on the banjo and I wanted him to loop the exact same thing, built a loop of the steel and the banjo, and that’s running through after the second chorus I think. Anyway, you will hear
it on there. That was a fun little thing to do – the steel player had fun doing that. So it’s that Graceland
kind of vibe and I just wanted a dancey thing. And there’s another example of editing. That song has a lot of words and I threw out whole verses in that song, and it was hard to let them go. I thought
– I wrote a good verse, I can’t let go of that! But it’s got to go, you know –
I’ve said that, I can’t repeat again and we trimmed that one down quite a bit actually.
SW:
It’s a cool song and really has that ‘working hard all week’ kind of
feeling, and then the exhilaration of moving into the nighttime.
CS:
Yah, and just letting go of it all and its time to party. And the band
really got into that. I think I mentioned the drummer was all excited about it, ‘oh, let me do another take’, and he’s just slapping his legs and his chest, and they’d record that, and then he hits something else and they built a little percussion loop out of it . The bass player loved that one too.
SW:
There’s a couple of tracks I’ve listened to, and I’m already imagining people singing along with them in their different worlds and relating to them cuz there is a lot of philosophy in the way that you
write that can touch people in different ways. You have a way of bringing things
together and seeing the interconnectedness of things in this easy gentle way
that connects people with their own experiences.
CS:
It would be great if that can happen and I think trying to keep a sense
of humor in my writing helps with getting the philosophy across without being
too preachy or whatever I guess – try and keep it fun!
SW: There’s a nice balance to it, it doesn’t
undermine what you’re saying but does make it very accessible. And I’m glad you
recorded Willy again because this is a different version and it’s quite an
amazing concept about reincarnation and transformation. I don’t know how it came
about or whether you actually hit something on the road when you were
driving?
CS:
Now that you mention it, it was on a Paperboys road trip and I was at the wheel. Everyone else was asleep and it was dark and I went by something that was big and furry and looked pretty
fresh. I just thought, oooh, poor bugger and I wonder if he’s still around in
the area having an out of body experience. And within about an hour of driving I
had the whole thing in my head so then when we got home several hours later I
just wrote it all down, went to sleep and the next day edited it and threw the chords into it and that’s how that song came – really really quick. That was a good example of Nashville. I
recorded it at home in the studio in kind of a light version. This time we just
told the band, it’s about a guy who gets reincarnated as a wolf or a wolf enters
him so it’s a bit of a ghost story and so right away they jumped on that and
said, oh yah, lets do something kinda spooky, we’ll do this and that and they
got all spooky with it. The band really created the vibe for that song, I just
kinda let it go and let them do whatever they wanted and that’s the way it came
out.
SW:
Was singing always a significant part of your musical development and when did you
start focusing on it more? What I’m hearing on this this album is a really strong voice. It’s almost
like hearing your voice for the first time, which also means hearing your lyrics in a whole new way.
CS:
I have to say that goes to playing in Whistler three sets a night. With just duo I have to sing a lot. In the Paperboys I didn’t sing very much at all. But singing all night and doing covers,
singing other people’s songs and learning Beatles, Neil Young or Paul Simon - singing other things,
finding out what keys work for me, it’s all helped. I took some singing lessons
too in Squamish just to learn how to do it properly – I’m not a born singer
that’s for sure. I’ve been working at it and I’ve got enough to get the job
done, but I really love it.
SW:
Do you think with this recording that you are kind of realizing the voice
you have, what you can do with it in different ways that can shape the
expression of your music? The phrasing is really strong in a lot of these
tracks. I’m really enjoying that – either the way you are having fun with it, or
the soulfulness of it, but they go together really well. How are you feeling
about your voice?
CS:
I have mixed feelings about it because this trip to Nashville, everything was all
lined up and going perfectly and then I caught quite a bad chest cold just
before I went there, and I thought it would get better but it wasn’t . I had
quite a bad cold while I sang those tracks , I could tell on some tracks, it
sounds like I have a cold, but on certain words, there’s a depth or something, a lower quality that wouldn’t have otherwise been there, so I’m not sure how to accept it . It’s not the way I
would have sang, but with Steve’s vocal coaching and Bobby King was the
engineer, he chose several different mics to record my voice before we started doing the takes and I’ve definitely never heard my voice recorded so well – it’s that Nashville thing again, the
engineers are so good, so quick, they got the most out of what I had, that’s for
sure. In some songs I like it, in others I know I have a cold. I just have to accept that it is what it
is.
SW:
Well that was kind of the theme for your Nashville experience wasn’t it – just going
for it? I mean, taking your work up to a whole new level by opening it
up.
CS:
Yah, and it was fun like you said, planning the trip, booking the studio, and now
away you go, get on a plane and just let it happen. Just show up and do the
best you can but it was fun to be there and just observe these players of such
quality and how fast they can work and the results you can get so quickly, it
was real professional, the attitude down there, yet the people are so nice and
so friendly, so fun to work with. We just all had fun the whole time.
SW:
Tell us a bit more about what the actual experience of being inside a Nashville
recording studio.
CS:
Well, when you book a studio for10:00 they like to say “down beat at 10 o’clock” and
that means you are there at 9:30 to tune up if you need that much time to set
up. We walked in at 9:40 and everyone was already there, we were the last ones
to arrive. So they’re all telling jokes, especially banjo jokes because I’m the
banjo player but 10 o’clock comes along and the engineer hollers out ‘OK, roll
the work tape.’ No one has heard the songs before but we’ve given them charts
that Steve made, we roll the work tape once, this was a little tape Steve and I
made, just one guitar and one voice. We tell them what kind of vibe we want,
they jot down a few things, they even make a few suggestions, ‘oh, maybe we
should try this here’. They walk into the studio, take their seats and we roll
the tape. We feed them a tempo and they jam for about thirty seconds and then
you can almost feel it coming together where they lock in. They get the nice
groove and the drummer hollers out the count and they start rolling the tape and
it’s done. They might take one or two over dubs just to clean up a spot that
they didn’t like before a chorus or whatever, and the song is done within
minutes. They play so tightly together, their timing is so good and then we
might take a little stab at a solo part, or the guitar guy might say ‘oh, I want
to do another track’ ,finger pick tracks. We let him do that. It came together
really fast and we did five songs in three hours. We just kept moving on. No
breaks, just move on, move on.
SW:
It sounds really professional and also like really good energy
there.
CS:
It was good energy. You can tell these guys love what they’re doing, they’re at the top
of their fields, they’re from all over the country, migrated there as top
players. When they’re not doing that, they’re on tour with big country acts, or
rock acts. But when they’re at home, they’re just sitting there doing the
sessions and they might do one or two of those a day. Demos are being cut all
the time and they just know how to get their sound so quickly. There was no
farting around trying to get a certain tone out of a drum or anything like that,
just roll it, so tight.
SW:
Did you have time to go out and hear other music in the evenings while you were
there?
CS:
Yah, we went to lower Broadway where all the honky tonks are, saw some
great bands. There are bands in every little bar there. I saw older people there
playing in bands, and I saw a 17-year-old kid playing telecaster in the Dan
Kelly band, and this kid was smokin’ hot! An amazing guy at 17, and this band
was kickin butt and the place was going crazy. There’s music everywhere there,
you can go for a burger at one in the morning and there’s a trio playing in the
burger joint . Every little lounge has music. And one night we went out to play
around, at the Commodore Lounge, and that’s another sort of Bluebird. They have
Bluebird Lounges all over town where songwriters go. Three songwriters hit the
stage at a time and do three songs each, then they’re off and three more get up
there, so there’s always people out playing their songs.
SW:
What was it like playing to a Nashville audience?
CS:
I did it once before. The first time I was nervous, but this time I wasn’t. It’s a community of
songwriters and they are all kind of encouraging to each other and they work
with each other. If they hear something they like they want to meet you and
write with you – it’s all about that kind of thing, a very sharing attitude.
Yah, and I saw young people there, and I saw one guy who just turned 80 and he
played on the Louisiana Hayride, which was a radio show in the 1950’s, then he
went to war, then he had a family, and all that, and he’s recently gone back to
his songwriting and singing career and he’s fantastic. He’s 80 years
old.
SW: That sounds like your family.
CS: Yah, my dad plays sax and he’s 82 and still has a band and loves to play. He’ll even hit the stage with me whenever he’s in town.
SW:
And what about your mom? Isn’t she learning some new instrument?
CS:
Well yah, she’s been a singer and piano player all her life but
now we’ve got her playing bass in my dad’s band so we bought her a new
bass amp for her 80th birthday. She’s plunking away on the bass and
singing. It’s definitely never too late to get involved in
music.
SW:
What’s your approach to playing guitar and banjo?
CS:
You know what, it’s changed even very recently, just going to Nashville. They are all about
playing in time, very very good timing, and being in the pocket, as they say.
You don’t have to be flashy, just solid and right in the pocket . It’s tempo and
timing and just being really really solid so I’m not worried so much about being
really good and really flashy. I prefer to be simple and really solid – that’s
basically how I’m trying to play right now.
SW:
What’s your favourite gear, and your favourite instruments?
CS:
Well, I’ve got my Gibson RB-4 Mastertone banjo which has been a favourite
and I got that in Montana in the 1980’s and it’s a very good instrument. But in
the last few years I’ve had guitar fever more than banjo so I spend more time
practicing that. I’ve had a Martin for a while which I really like, sounds good
acoustically. But I recently bought a Taylor 714CE and that has a gorgeous pick
up system. It’s great for performing, a great live music guitar because it
stays in tune really well, sounds fantastic and it’s easy to play. So that’s my
favourite guitar right now.
SW:
You mentioned the Graceland album and Paul Simon but I wonder what other musicians or songwriters have influenced your style?
CS:
Well, Steve, my producer friend, he likes to compare me to John Hartford,
and I’ve been a fan of John Hartford since I was a teenager. He wrote Gentle on
My Mind for Glenn Campbell. He’s written some beautiful songs and he’s also
written some really silly songs and fun stuff, so he’s a bit of a goofball and I
kinda like that. He doesn’t take himself too seriously. He plays banjo, fiddle
and guitar so he’s been an influence I guess. But really there’s too many to
list, I hear songs that make me want to write, sometimes I’ll pretend I’m
writing for someone, like I’m writing for a different artist who’s going to sing
it and not even think about me. That can sometimes help me to move a song
along.
SW:
I’m going to have to give a listen to John Hartford again now. Going back to your new album again, you chose the name Wishbone for this EP and I know it means something in particular to
you and I wonder how you’d describe what that is.
CS:
I think the wishbone in us is a bone we have somewhere in or body,
probably near our heart or something like that, a little bone that keeps you
wishing, keeps you dreaming, keeps you longing for something. So I like to think
we have a wishbone inside us. It’s mentioned in a couple of songs. In one case
someone has a wishbone in their pocket and it’s a lucky charm, something that
protects them, and in another song someone’s wishbone is cracked and they’re
kind of stuck and they’re not moving and they’re not feeling connected with
nature . And of course that’s temporary, we all get stuck and in a rut sometime
and it might just be out of joint and when its back in place, you know, keep
dreaming, keep wishing.
SW:
And that’s what you’re doing.
CS:
You know a couple of summers ago I felt stuck. I called it rotting away in paradise because
everything was going great but I wasn’t doing anything new and there wasn’t much
movement or something. I had hit a point where I needed something fresh so this
project started to cook itself up so things keep going.
SW:
I feel like I’m going to be hearing another great song sometime called Rotting Away in Paradise. So to wrap things up after hearing more about what you’ve been up to, and your recent
adventures in Nashville, what are your plans now for releasing Wishbone? What
stage are things at right now and what’s the timeline for actually getting it
out there?
CS:
The final mixes are being done now in Nashville, just tweaking, I should have the
master within a week or two. I’m still a month away from getting it pressed and
getting the product out, so again, I’m just letting that happen. After it’s
done I’d like to put a little band together and play the songs, plan a release
party. There are only six songs so it’s an EP. We have lots more stuff to do
but we’ll probably do one in the new year.
SW:
And what’s next for Cam Salay?
CS:
One of the things I love most about music is that it never stops. It’s a process where you can just keep learning and learning. Steve wants me to come back to Nashville soon just to do songwriting sessions with him, just get in there and work on that craft, so I might do that. I’ll work on more songs at home and play more gigs too. I’m not sure what’s next and that’s part of the
fun, not knowing what’s next.
SW:
Well it sounds like you’ve put some things in motion that you don’t know where they’ll take you which is really really great. You’ve taken a big step and taken the work you’ve recorded to the
highest level so who knows what’s going to happen from here?
CS:
Yah, it is something that’s in motion now. That’s the fun thing about music, you start something and you let it go. You’re right, it was at the highest level and I’m really glad I did it. It
was definitely worth the trip. I really wanted to hear what my songs would be
like with different players, really professional players, see what would happen,
and I’m pretty happy with the result.
SW:
It’s been great talking with you Cam. I’m looking forward to opening up this new ep and hearing it. I wonder if there’s anything else you’d like your musical audience or friends to hear
about your life and your work?
CS:
I am a teacher too – I teach guitar and banjo and I’d encourage anyone at any age to get involved. If there’s something you always wanted to do, sing or write music, you’re never too
old and it’s never too late to get involved with this so if you’re retired now, pick up a guitar and
play.
Shirley
Wiebe is a visual artist based in Vancouver
BC.
An interview with Cam Salay on his newly recorded album ‘Wishbone’by Shirley Wiebe
A telephone interview with Canadian musician
Cam Salay at his home in Brackendale on October 31, 2012.
SW:
First of all, congratulations on putting together such an awesome collection of your music – it brings the best to what you’ve created.
CS:
Thanks!
SW:
Let’s start with a little background information on your music career to this point. I see from your bio that you played with the Paperboys from ‘94 to 2001. It says here that the band won a Juno award in ’98 when Molinos was voted best album in the Roots and Traditional category.
CS:
Right! Those years were anothereducation right there, on playing with good players at that time and being at that level. Performing at all the big Canadian festivals was a huge
highlight – we played the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Edmonton and all that. But after seven years I was tired of travelling, tired of being away from home, so I decided to retire from that and just try to work more locally. I ended up playing in a pub in Whistler called the Dubh Linn Gate, and I still play there
regularly several days a month. It’s been a great place really – we play a lot of cover songs, learn great songs that other people have written, and I’ve been really working on my singing and playing.
SW:
What group are you playing with up
there?
CS:
Our group is called The Splinters and it’s made up Shannon Saunders and
myself. She was also in the Paperboys for about 10 years before she quit around 2005 and joined me up there. Same reason…it was a super fun band to be in, but after seven or ten years travelling, you kind of want to settle down a bit.
SW: It’s nice that you two could find another way to continue working together. Are you
playing your own music too?
CS:
We mix in all our stuff with covers of Neil Young, U2, The Beatles, all over the map,
whatever people request, and we slip in our own songs there as well.
SW:
You’re very versatile! To talk more about your recording career to date,
I know that you released an album called Farmhouse in 2003. How was that different from the one you
just finished?
CS:
The Farmhouse album was with my wife Colleen Griffin. We’d just written some songs
together, and really wanted to get everyone that we liked playing with to record on the
record. So rather than take everyone to a studio, we bought a little portable recording studio. We set it up at home and did it ourselves. We had my brother, my brother in law, Shannon of course, and all the people that were close to us playing on the record. Then I got a professional in Vancouver to help mix and master it, but we did it all at home.
SW:
It has a great sound too, I always enjoy listening to the copy I have. You must have had to
learn some engineering skills to do the recording at home.
CS:
Yah exactly, I really learned a lot and read a lot, and asked other people that do it, learned a lot just about using different microphones and trying to get a good sound and then getting
good performances from people. It was a lot of fun!
SW:
What was it like to make the decision to go to Nashville to make this new
recording and how did that come about?
CS:
It was an easy decision because of my very good friend Steve Mitchell.
We’ve been friends for over 20 years. He played on Farmhouse, and he was in the Paperboys for a while, and I knew him even before that. Steve moved to Nashville eight years ago to work as a songwriter. He’s always been a really prolific writer, he probably writes 60 songs a year. I visited him there a couple of years ago and he’s the one that said ‘Nashville is THE place to record, it’s cheaper than anywhere, it’s so efficient, and why don’t you just do another record here?’ So he planted the seed and I thought that was a really fun idea and I wanted to hear what my songs would sound like with other players and their ideas.
SW:
So the plan has been in the works for a while since that visit.
CS:
Yah, I visited him two years ago, almost to the day. So I saved my pennies for two years and worked on songs, getting a collection of songs together. And we did it!
SW:
How do you think the vibe of Nashville influenced the record?
CS:
That influenced it a lot, in a good way, just what I wanted. I play bass, I play guitar and banjo but when I went there – I didn’t want to play bass or guitar, or even tell the players what to play. We just played them the work tape and said, the the vibe we’re looking for of the song is like this, and then just let them go, let them throw their ideas at it, and most of it we just loved. We hardly had to direct
the players at all, it was so quick and efficient and it affected the album just the way I wanted.
SW:
It sounds like you were able to work really collaboratively on the sound that you wanted and how each different instrument was going to contribute to it.
CS:
Yah, Steve and I figured out together what instruments we wanted, and he and I wrote two of the songs together. He also did a lot of the background singing.
SW:
The harmonies are sweet, is that Steve’s
voice?
CS:
That’s him, and his singing and playing have gone up a few notches since he moved to Nashville too, just being around those kinds of players.
SW:
How did you decide on the six tracks for this compilation?
CS:
I’m not sure how I picked them but in the end result I feel that they do kind of fit together and I’m kinda liking that. Let’s see, ‘Willy’ was recorded before on the Farmhouse album, but several people had said I should do that one again and give it a better treatment. So that was a suggestion
by someone else.’ The Mystery’ is a song that I probably would not have recorded, because I used to just play that one around the house. I liked it a lot but I didn’t think that anyone else ever would.
SW:
And yet that song feels like the glue, like it’s a container for all the other pieces! There are some poetic phrases about ‘when nightfall hits the ground’ and also the ‘ghost of wonder’ and it seems
like you’re talking about the beauty of uncertainty, about not really knowing what time we have, or what’s going to happen or if it is just today. That phrase, the ghost of wonder.
CS:
I wasn’t sure if that was a corny line but the song is about something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That thing inside us that makes us alive, or that thing you can’t put your
finger on. It’s a bit difficult but fun, I thought it was possibly a bit cheesy,
which is another reason I hesitated putting the song on there, but then I
realized it’s one of my personal favourites. It was a last minute choice when I
thought I really, really like this one and I don’t think anyone else does. But
with a bit of editing, I chopped it down, made it a little shorter, got to the
point, not too many choruses, and I’m really happy with the way it turned out
and I’m glad I included it.
SW:
I think just knowing you as a man and as a musician, that song, to me,
really conveys the way I see you living your life and the way you observe life around you.
CS:
Maybe that’s why I thought
people wouldn’t like it, it’s a personal song I
guess.
SW:
You must have listened to another more important instinct to include it and maybe Steve encouraged you with that as well, with actually giving you feedback on the songs that you
were thinking of.
CS:
He was especially good with feedback on going to Nashville. We did a
little bit of writing back and forth over the internet and when I got there we spent one day just trimming, editing and getting the arrangements solid so they don’t go on and on. He really helped with that.
SW:
Can you talk a bit about your songwriting process and how it’s evolved?
CS:
I have been writing songs for a long time, probably 25 years or something. I write one song a year, maybe two, that’s about how fast I go. But it’s evolved a lot. Lately, like in the last year or so, I just want to write songs that are fun, not try to be too heavy or sad or anything. I just wanted to have some fun this time so a couple of them are more like that. They’re kind of upbeat and kinda dancey even, and that’s been influenced by playing at the pub, just playing at a resort where people are dancing a lot. The other evolvement is that I’ve really become able to edit and trim songs now. Used to be a time when I’d write and every word just had to go in there, and now I can throw out whole chunks and verses and really trim away so I don’t repeat myself much. Everything moves
the song forward, and I think it’s been working with Steve that’s helped.
SW:
I know there are probably a lot of people who want to know how you start a song, whether it’s playing the guitar first or playing some chords or do you write lyrics first?
CS:
It changes, sometimes it can be a musical phrase, but most times it is lyrics. I might even hear someone say something that’s just a turn of a phrase they say and I like it. It just
makes me laugh or something so it can start there. I’ll start with that little seed and start making up a few little things, and I might work on a verse.
SW:
Can you give me an example of that in any of the songs on this album that
might have started that way, something you heard or just a little fragment of
something?
CS:
Well, the Johnson Fair was one. I took this little songwriting class with
Bob Stark and one of the assignments he gave us was to write a song with the word ferris wheel. That one goes back to well, even before my childhood, to those little fairs that would come across the prairies, we’re talking like in the 50’s, sort of that setting, so that’s how that one came.
SW:
What about Marry for the Cash? The lyrics are snappy and you are having
fun during the recording of it as well. How did that one come about?
CS:
I got that idea and I thought it was kind of humorous so I pretty much
wrote the verses, put it on the computer and emailed it to Steve. And like within two days he’d written the chorus and threw some chords back at me and that was it. Two little sit-downs and that song was done. And then I let him have a go at the music. I was doing it with more of a boogie-woogie blues feel and he’s got more of a rock and blues feel, and again, that one in the studio we threw it out there to the band and said this is a fun song, not very serious and they just immediately nailed it in one take. That’s what they did and that one turned out fantastic so it was fun to see a little shred of an idea mushroom into a song like that and everyone had involvement in that one.
SW:
There’s another song called The Nighttime, it’s got quite an unusual kind of rhythm to it. Can you talk more about that song?
CS:
I told the band that I liked the Paul Simon’s Graceland band – that’s one of my favourite albums of all time and I just thought banjo would fit well in that kind of a groove, plus I wanted
to write a dance song so that song came out of wanting something you can dance to, that’s why its 6 minutes long. The pedal steel playing on that is one place where I directed. I wrote this little piece on the banjo and I wanted him to loop the exact same thing, built a loop of the steel and the banjo, and that’s running through after the second chorus I think. Anyway, you will hear
it on there. That was a fun little thing to do – the steel player had fun doing that. So it’s that Graceland
kind of vibe and I just wanted a dancey thing. And there’s another example of editing. That song has a lot of words and I threw out whole verses in that song, and it was hard to let them go. I thought
– I wrote a good verse, I can’t let go of that! But it’s got to go, you know –
I’ve said that, I can’t repeat again and we trimmed that one down quite a bit actually.
SW:
It’s a cool song and really has that ‘working hard all week’ kind of
feeling, and then the exhilaration of moving into the nighttime.
CS:
Yah, and just letting go of it all and its time to party. And the band
really got into that. I think I mentioned the drummer was all excited about it, ‘oh, let me do another take’, and he’s just slapping his legs and his chest, and they’d record that, and then he hits something else and they built a little percussion loop out of it . The bass player loved that one too.
SW:
There’s a couple of tracks I’ve listened to, and I’m already imagining people singing along with them in their different worlds and relating to them cuz there is a lot of philosophy in the way that you
write that can touch people in different ways. You have a way of bringing things
together and seeing the interconnectedness of things in this easy gentle way
that connects people with their own experiences.
CS:
It would be great if that can happen and I think trying to keep a sense
of humor in my writing helps with getting the philosophy across without being
too preachy or whatever I guess – try and keep it fun!
SW: There’s a nice balance to it, it doesn’t
undermine what you’re saying but does make it very accessible. And I’m glad you
recorded Willy again because this is a different version and it’s quite an
amazing concept about reincarnation and transformation. I don’t know how it came
about or whether you actually hit something on the road when you were
driving?
CS:
Now that you mention it, it was on a Paperboys road trip and I was at the wheel. Everyone else was asleep and it was dark and I went by something that was big and furry and looked pretty
fresh. I just thought, oooh, poor bugger and I wonder if he’s still around in
the area having an out of body experience. And within about an hour of driving I
had the whole thing in my head so then when we got home several hours later I
just wrote it all down, went to sleep and the next day edited it and threw the chords into it and that’s how that song came – really really quick. That was a good example of Nashville. I
recorded it at home in the studio in kind of a light version. This time we just
told the band, it’s about a guy who gets reincarnated as a wolf or a wolf enters
him so it’s a bit of a ghost story and so right away they jumped on that and
said, oh yah, lets do something kinda spooky, we’ll do this and that and they
got all spooky with it. The band really created the vibe for that song, I just
kinda let it go and let them do whatever they wanted and that’s the way it came
out.
SW:
Was singing always a significant part of your musical development and when did you
start focusing on it more? What I’m hearing on this this album is a really strong voice. It’s almost
like hearing your voice for the first time, which also means hearing your lyrics in a whole new way.
CS:
I have to say that goes to playing in Whistler three sets a night. With just duo I have to sing a lot. In the Paperboys I didn’t sing very much at all. But singing all night and doing covers,
singing other people’s songs and learning Beatles, Neil Young or Paul Simon - singing other things,
finding out what keys work for me, it’s all helped. I took some singing lessons
too in Squamish just to learn how to do it properly – I’m not a born singer
that’s for sure. I’ve been working at it and I’ve got enough to get the job
done, but I really love it.
SW:
Do you think with this recording that you are kind of realizing the voice
you have, what you can do with it in different ways that can shape the
expression of your music? The phrasing is really strong in a lot of these
tracks. I’m really enjoying that – either the way you are having fun with it, or
the soulfulness of it, but they go together really well. How are you feeling
about your voice?
CS:
I have mixed feelings about it because this trip to Nashville, everything was all
lined up and going perfectly and then I caught quite a bad chest cold just
before I went there, and I thought it would get better but it wasn’t . I had
quite a bad cold while I sang those tracks , I could tell on some tracks, it
sounds like I have a cold, but on certain words, there’s a depth or something, a lower quality that wouldn’t have otherwise been there, so I’m not sure how to accept it . It’s not the way I
would have sang, but with Steve’s vocal coaching and Bobby King was the
engineer, he chose several different mics to record my voice before we started doing the takes and I’ve definitely never heard my voice recorded so well – it’s that Nashville thing again, the
engineers are so good, so quick, they got the most out of what I had, that’s for
sure. In some songs I like it, in others I know I have a cold. I just have to accept that it is what it
is.
SW:
Well that was kind of the theme for your Nashville experience wasn’t it – just going
for it? I mean, taking your work up to a whole new level by opening it
up.
CS:
Yah, and it was fun like you said, planning the trip, booking the studio, and now
away you go, get on a plane and just let it happen. Just show up and do the
best you can but it was fun to be there and just observe these players of such
quality and how fast they can work and the results you can get so quickly, it
was real professional, the attitude down there, yet the people are so nice and
so friendly, so fun to work with. We just all had fun the whole time.
SW:
Tell us a bit more about what the actual experience of being inside a Nashville
recording studio.
CS:
Well, when you book a studio for10:00 they like to say “down beat at 10 o’clock” and
that means you are there at 9:30 to tune up if you need that much time to set
up. We walked in at 9:40 and everyone was already there, we were the last ones
to arrive. So they’re all telling jokes, especially banjo jokes because I’m the
banjo player but 10 o’clock comes along and the engineer hollers out ‘OK, roll
the work tape.’ No one has heard the songs before but we’ve given them charts
that Steve made, we roll the work tape once, this was a little tape Steve and I
made, just one guitar and one voice. We tell them what kind of vibe we want,
they jot down a few things, they even make a few suggestions, ‘oh, maybe we
should try this here’. They walk into the studio, take their seats and we roll
the tape. We feed them a tempo and they jam for about thirty seconds and then
you can almost feel it coming together where they lock in. They get the nice
groove and the drummer hollers out the count and they start rolling the tape and
it’s done. They might take one or two over dubs just to clean up a spot that
they didn’t like before a chorus or whatever, and the song is done within
minutes. They play so tightly together, their timing is so good and then we
might take a little stab at a solo part, or the guitar guy might say ‘oh, I want
to do another track’ ,finger pick tracks. We let him do that. It came together
really fast and we did five songs in three hours. We just kept moving on. No
breaks, just move on, move on.
SW:
It sounds really professional and also like really good energy
there.
CS:
It was good energy. You can tell these guys love what they’re doing, they’re at the top
of their fields, they’re from all over the country, migrated there as top
players. When they’re not doing that, they’re on tour with big country acts, or
rock acts. But when they’re at home, they’re just sitting there doing the
sessions and they might do one or two of those a day. Demos are being cut all
the time and they just know how to get their sound so quickly. There was no
farting around trying to get a certain tone out of a drum or anything like that,
just roll it, so tight.
SW:
Did you have time to go out and hear other music in the evenings while you were
there?
CS:
Yah, we went to lower Broadway where all the honky tonks are, saw some
great bands. There are bands in every little bar there. I saw older people there
playing in bands, and I saw a 17-year-old kid playing telecaster in the Dan
Kelly band, and this kid was smokin’ hot! An amazing guy at 17, and this band
was kickin butt and the place was going crazy. There’s music everywhere there,
you can go for a burger at one in the morning and there’s a trio playing in the
burger joint . Every little lounge has music. And one night we went out to play
around, at the Commodore Lounge, and that’s another sort of Bluebird. They have
Bluebird Lounges all over town where songwriters go. Three songwriters hit the
stage at a time and do three songs each, then they’re off and three more get up
there, so there’s always people out playing their songs.
SW:
What was it like playing to a Nashville audience?
CS:
I did it once before. The first time I was nervous, but this time I wasn’t. It’s a community of
songwriters and they are all kind of encouraging to each other and they work
with each other. If they hear something they like they want to meet you and
write with you – it’s all about that kind of thing, a very sharing attitude.
Yah, and I saw young people there, and I saw one guy who just turned 80 and he
played on the Louisiana Hayride, which was a radio show in the 1950’s, then he
went to war, then he had a family, and all that, and he’s recently gone back to
his songwriting and singing career and he’s fantastic. He’s 80 years
old.
SW: That sounds like your family.
CS: Yah, my dad plays sax and he’s 82 and still has a band and loves to play. He’ll even hit the stage with me whenever he’s in town.
SW:
And what about your mom? Isn’t she learning some new instrument?
CS:
Well yah, she’s been a singer and piano player all her life but
now we’ve got her playing bass in my dad’s band so we bought her a new
bass amp for her 80th birthday. She’s plunking away on the bass and
singing. It’s definitely never too late to get involved in
music.
SW:
What’s your approach to playing guitar and banjo?
CS:
You know what, it’s changed even very recently, just going to Nashville. They are all about
playing in time, very very good timing, and being in the pocket, as they say.
You don’t have to be flashy, just solid and right in the pocket . It’s tempo and
timing and just being really really solid so I’m not worried so much about being
really good and really flashy. I prefer to be simple and really solid – that’s
basically how I’m trying to play right now.
SW:
What’s your favourite gear, and your favourite instruments?
CS:
Well, I’ve got my Gibson RB-4 Mastertone banjo which has been a favourite
and I got that in Montana in the 1980’s and it’s a very good instrument. But in
the last few years I’ve had guitar fever more than banjo so I spend more time
practicing that. I’ve had a Martin for a while which I really like, sounds good
acoustically. But I recently bought a Taylor 714CE and that has a gorgeous pick
up system. It’s great for performing, a great live music guitar because it
stays in tune really well, sounds fantastic and it’s easy to play. So that’s my
favourite guitar right now.
SW:
You mentioned the Graceland album and Paul Simon but I wonder what other musicians or songwriters have influenced your style?
CS:
Well, Steve, my producer friend, he likes to compare me to John Hartford,
and I’ve been a fan of John Hartford since I was a teenager. He wrote Gentle on
My Mind for Glenn Campbell. He’s written some beautiful songs and he’s also
written some really silly songs and fun stuff, so he’s a bit of a goofball and I
kinda like that. He doesn’t take himself too seriously. He plays banjo, fiddle
and guitar so he’s been an influence I guess. But really there’s too many to
list, I hear songs that make me want to write, sometimes I’ll pretend I’m
writing for someone, like I’m writing for a different artist who’s going to sing
it and not even think about me. That can sometimes help me to move a song
along.
SW:
I’m going to have to give a listen to John Hartford again now. Going back to your new album again, you chose the name Wishbone for this EP and I know it means something in particular to
you and I wonder how you’d describe what that is.
CS:
I think the wishbone in us is a bone we have somewhere in or body,
probably near our heart or something like that, a little bone that keeps you
wishing, keeps you dreaming, keeps you longing for something. So I like to think
we have a wishbone inside us. It’s mentioned in a couple of songs. In one case
someone has a wishbone in their pocket and it’s a lucky charm, something that
protects them, and in another song someone’s wishbone is cracked and they’re
kind of stuck and they’re not moving and they’re not feeling connected with
nature . And of course that’s temporary, we all get stuck and in a rut sometime
and it might just be out of joint and when its back in place, you know, keep
dreaming, keep wishing.
SW:
And that’s what you’re doing.
CS:
You know a couple of summers ago I felt stuck. I called it rotting away in paradise because
everything was going great but I wasn’t doing anything new and there wasn’t much
movement or something. I had hit a point where I needed something fresh so this
project started to cook itself up so things keep going.
SW:
I feel like I’m going to be hearing another great song sometime called Rotting Away in Paradise. So to wrap things up after hearing more about what you’ve been up to, and your recent
adventures in Nashville, what are your plans now for releasing Wishbone? What
stage are things at right now and what’s the timeline for actually getting it
out there?
CS:
The final mixes are being done now in Nashville, just tweaking, I should have the
master within a week or two. I’m still a month away from getting it pressed and
getting the product out, so again, I’m just letting that happen. After it’s
done I’d like to put a little band together and play the songs, plan a release
party. There are only six songs so it’s an EP. We have lots more stuff to do
but we’ll probably do one in the new year.
SW:
And what’s next for Cam Salay?
CS:
One of the things I love most about music is that it never stops. It’s a process where you can just keep learning and learning. Steve wants me to come back to Nashville soon just to do songwriting sessions with him, just get in there and work on that craft, so I might do that. I’ll work on more songs at home and play more gigs too. I’m not sure what’s next and that’s part of the
fun, not knowing what’s next.
SW:
Well it sounds like you’ve put some things in motion that you don’t know where they’ll take you which is really really great. You’ve taken a big step and taken the work you’ve recorded to the
highest level so who knows what’s going to happen from here?
CS:
Yah, it is something that’s in motion now. That’s the fun thing about music, you start something and you let it go. You’re right, it was at the highest level and I’m really glad I did it. It
was definitely worth the trip. I really wanted to hear what my songs would be
like with different players, really professional players, see what would happen,
and I’m pretty happy with the result.
SW:
It’s been great talking with you Cam. I’m looking forward to opening up this new ep and hearing it. I wonder if there’s anything else you’d like your musical audience or friends to hear
about your life and your work?
CS:
I am a teacher too – I teach guitar and banjo and I’d encourage anyone at any age to get involved. If there’s something you always wanted to do, sing or write music, you’re never too
old and it’s never too late to get involved with this so if you’re retired now, pick up a guitar and
play.
Shirley
Wiebe is a visual artist based in Vancouver
BC.