Saline Grace Turns "Rooms To Let" Into A Stunning, Dark Orchestral, Hypnotic Experience Of Layered Brilliance
- 🌟 Miles Carter
- 22 hours ago
- 9 min read
By: Miles Carter
The Cage: We got together with Saline Grace for an exciting interview to delve into the stories and happenings behind the making of this and learn more about the artist in "The Cage" Music Blog and we are excited to share it with you!
Here’s how it went:
Begin Interview:
Hello Saline Grace, we’re thrilled to have you here for this interview! We've had an amazing time exploring your music and diving into your creative journey. Now, we’re even more excited to get a deeper look into both your brand and your personal and professional inspirations.
“Rooms to Let” was a stunning performance. The dark orchestral opening quickly captured our attention, and as the notes flew around the room with an almost chaotic sensation, it truly raised our adrenaline level even while sitting still. It has the excitement and theatricality of a Broadway performance, yet it needs no stage. We felt a deep intensity from the start, and then your voice made it even more exciting. You carry a sincerity and depth that make it clear your intention is for us to absorb a message that is very important to you, and possibly very important to us as listeners. Then the drums and frenzied strings tantalize the air and continue the flow until the song becomes almost hypnotic, something we felt all over. The horned expressions felt like a response to your ominous lyrics. This song truly has emotion, feels almost sentient, as if it is going to come out of the speaker, and possesses a mood that overcomes the listener in the best way possible. We truly loved “Rooms to Let” and all of its layered brilliance.
Q. This is our first experience with Saline Grace. Is “Rooms to Let” a strong example of your typical style, and how would you describe your music to someone who has just learned of you?
A. When I seriously began writing songs at the age of 18, I didn’t know which direction it would take. People, hearing my music on simple tapes said, that it would sound like film music. I recognized and thought, that’s ok, fine, not really reflecting it. Today at the age of 51, I understand myself very well. It is a transcendent gift, an aerial that qualifies to combine words, melodies and the appropriate arrangements, creating pictorial synaesthesias, raising pictures in the head of the listener. This aerial makes me sometimes crazy. Due to this, I avoid playing guitar or piano, when I have enough material for my albums. Usually, I take an instrument and a quarter of an hour later I play a new melody. What the hell… I have no time for you… are my thoughts in these cases. If I keep the melody over days in my head, I make a short recording for later days at the most. Also I have to say that I admire the great composers of film music like Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini and John Barry. ‚Rooms to Let‘ in itself is a piece that succeeded very well among many others on the new album. On the one hand it is actually our typical style, as you mentioned, but on the other hand thrust the lyrics in a very sensible theme. A forgotten person, someone who will never be seen or recognized becomes the protagonist in that song. We thought, indeed, this is the first single!
Q. “Rooms to Let” invokes the feeling of opening up and letting someone into your personal space, as if your presence is a room and you want someone to come in. We felt this because your music feels like an invitation. It made us let our guard down and absorb the song for our own moment. That is very rare to experience, and we cannot remember feeling a connection to a song in this way before. When we dissect the lyrics, we hear “Paranoia follows” and “the waiter recognizes strange footsteps at the hallway,” and then we wonder if we too are experiencing paranoia at your command. We truly fell for this song and listened many times, each with euphoria throughout. Why did you create “Rooms to Let,” and what did you hope listeners experienced when hearing it?
A. You can see ‚Rooms to Let‘ as a consequence of a social symptom in a world of intense individualism that is part of a metropolis today. Nevertheless, it existed decades ago as well. There are many people inside their rooms or flats waiting for guests who will never come. They hear themselves within the walls and the life out there. I hope, listeners reflect and use their empathy having an eye on their fellows and neighbours around them. People are drawn for different reasons into the big cities, which welcomes the new inhabitants often with isolation. Some of them have the abilities to connect fast, others are drowning within a maelstrom of solitariness. Now, with the growing of social media, human behaviour changed strongly again. Everyone wants to be a influencer, somehow. People try to dissociate from other people more than years before. They want to be special in a way begging for compliments from anonymous people who are lying in bed themselves whole day staring on the display of their smartphones. It is crazy! When carcasses are found weeks after the death of their travelling owner’s soul, then is something wrong in this world.
Q. We read about your experience as a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer, and that you were born in Frankfurt, Germany. What impact did that part of the world have on you as a musician?
A. Mostly, my hometown is taken for Frankfurt (Main). In the past, during the nineties we were part of the English Melody Maker and were reviewed by Holly’s Demo Hell. She thought our mandolin-style depended on our origin from there. But it never was. My hometown is Frankfurt (Oder), a small border town at the Eastern border to Poland. This town belonged to the GDR and was occupied by Russian Soldiers until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Due to this, I grew up with Russian fairy tale-movies like ‚Father Frost‘ and other tales of Baba Yaga. Incredible for me was the melancholic instrumentation of the Russian orchestra that made the music for, I loved the balalaika, not knowing how to produce this sound whether what an instrument it made; just the feeling of something very beautiful. Later during the nineties, when all played Hardrock and Metal in Frankfurt, I was trying to achieve my adored balalaika sounds, discovered The Doors and with ‚Spanish Caravan‘ the tremolo technique, which I adored also on the first Leonard Cohen albums. Around Frankfurt (Oder) are small villages and wonderful nature. I get much inspiration from the river Oder. I called a song ‚Down By The Banks of Oder River‘ on the ‚Blacksmith’s Fire‘-album. And the symbol of a „Stream“ permeates a lot of my lyrics.
Q. You have experienced being in a band, traveling to London, and then returning to Germany. How did those experiences of being in a band and moving around change you, and do you feel being a solo artist gives you more freedom or something different creatively?
A. At that time we were on the breadline. We lived from one day to another, sharing cans of oven-ready meal divided by three with three cups regularely. It was hard, and all for the music… We visited record companies with our demo tapes, worked sometimes in market research companies to pay the high amount of rent and played many gigs. But, on the one hand it strengthened us afterwards and on the other hand we made great steps foreward as musicians. For me, it was a time of finding myself. I recognized my weaknesses and my strong points. My writing skills were pushed foreward and I found out that making music was a lifelong challenge for me. When I’m writing a song I have a complete vision of it. Usually, I know exactly what I want to hear in the end. This made it often difficult working with other musicians in the beginning years. But my previous band knew me very well and we worked damn well together. Firstly, I gave them all the applicable notations with the option to bring in their own ideas and then we tried finding a consent. It is the same way of working today, due to the fact that my wife was also the bass player in our previous project.
Q. We are very excited to learn more about the forthcoming album you are making with your wife and bass player Ines Hoffmann. What direction do you feel the album is taking, and how will it connect with “Rooms to Let”?
A. ‚The Tree of Knowledge‘ is our most socio-critical album so far. And here is the connection to ‚Rooms to Let‘ as well. A musician, a writer, a painter or whatever will always be influenced by his surroundings. Due to the alarming political developments in Europe, I try to give some food for thoughts for all of those citizens in that democracy-simulation. Actually I did in the fable ‚Lethal Anaconda‘. The song ‚Individual Case‘ for example is named after some headlines in Germany when raped and murdered children & teenagers were found, tormented by migrants in different cities. These are not individual cases… it happens almost a bunch of times every week! And I’m sick of people who call everyone speaking it out, a racist. These people are indoctrinated and blind. They are in fear of their own, real thoughts. But I‘m a father and I’m always in fear, when my daughter is on a shopping trip with her friends and it is already dark in Berlin. But in fact there are also many personal songs on this album. It is definitely a further stage in my lifetime.
Q. We saw that you have been in the music business for over two decades. What do you feel is the greatest part about being a musician and songwriter, and what do you hope longtime fans and new fans take away from this song and you as an artist?
A. For me, the greatest part is the writing process and the stage when you try finding an arrangement for a new piece of music. There is maybe an initial idea that forces me and pushes me into the process of writing and composing. After that, by luck, I have a skeleton of a song like pencil on paper. And then begins the process of arranging and I can fill the song-structure with colours like painting a white canvas. In the end I feel, when ‚the song’s life‘ is completed. The piece dies and will be buried gracefully with other pieces on an album… This is the way I usually see it. All what comes after that is just performing and reshaping an original on live performances or in rehearsals. But some songs will lifted out of their grave, sometimes… ‚Memories of Winter #2‘ has got a second life and is now buried again on ‚The Tree of Knowledge‘. Naturally, I hope that many people will listen to ‚Rooms to Let‘ and that they remember the strange guy who has written it. But in the end, it is not so important. Writing is my life whether with audiance or not… When a song of mine will be part of an unknown listener‘s life, it is nice… no more, no less.
Q. Do you have any plans to perform live, and if so, what would be your favorite style of venue? Do you prefer small intimate lounges, rougher indie stages, or maybe something else entirely?
A. Not at the moment. We played a lot in our past and it was great. But our audiance now is very scattered in Europe and US as well. It is a fact that in our home country just a few people listen to us. Organizing a tour would be a financial disaster for us.
Q. Can you share something about yourself that would surprise us?
A. I’m a great cat lover. I avoid humans when possible and enjoy silence in nature. At least I’m into billards.
Q. What event or person do you feel has had the biggest impact on you and your career?
A. When I was experimenting with mandolin sounds on my guitar in my youth I was unsure which direction it would take and whether I could implement it in a band project. I never listened to a band who did this before. My later wife listened to a British band named And Also The Trees and said this band would be great. She was sure, I would like it. So, we went to a venue called Pfefferberg in Berlin in 1996. The band came on stage and played firstly that 1960’s stuff I was addicted due to Ennio Morricone. Then in the middle they played older songs with huge, orchestral mandolin-like guitars which paralized me. I was thrilled and from that moment on, I knew, with know-how it would work.
Please also let us know what is next for you. Can you give us the inside scoop on any upcoming projects, releases, shows, or creative plans fans should be excited about? We would love to help share the news.
I’m already working on the follow up album. I have twelve songs together. But firstly, we plan to release a second single this year. After that I have to release my first book, a social novel, very socio-critical but packed full of dark humor as well.
Cage Riot: Saline Grace, thank you so much! We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
Thanks a lot to you for these well-chosen questions!
End Interview
We’re happy to have shared Saline Grace’s exciting journey with you and uncovered such inspiring insights about their creative process.
