Salt is a Paris-based collaborative music project led by French guitarist and songwriter Stéphane Schück. Around a core group formed in the 80s with Benoit Lautridou (drums) and Fred Quentin (bass), Salt offers songs based on guitars and melodies. The first collaboration goes back to the year 2000 when Stéphane Schück and Scott Miller (Game Theory / Loud Family) met in San Francisco. Resulting from this luminous meeting with one of his idols, Schück released several projects including the common writing of a dozen tracks, 4 of which were on the posthumous album of Game Theory, supercalifragile.
In 2022, a new collective of artists joined Salt to create an exuberant record full of joy. Using the original demos and song sketches created by Salt in France, 12 new tracks were created in an American studio to help celebrate the very stuff of life, that from which it springs to create the album Life. The Salt Collective was born, connected through art featuring Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Juliana Hatfield, Matthew Sweet, Peter Holsapple (the dB’s), Richard Lloyd (Television), Mitch Easter (early REM albums producer and Let’s Active), Anton Barbeau, The dB’s rhythm section (Gene Holder and Will Rigby), Susan Cowsill, Pat Sansone (Wilco), and newcomer Faith Jones. The collection was produced and guided by Chris Stamey.
The album audio is available here. MOJO in the UK asserted: “…Each track has the feel of an elegant masterclass, whether it’s Juliana Hatfield and Richard Lloyd joining forces on the wired escapism of “Where The Wild Things Are” or Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws and Let’s Active’s Mitch Easter having a smoke and going into a dream on “Another Bus Coming”. Further highly effective demonstrations of collegial pop power come on “Nursery Rhyme”, with Stamey and his dB’s compadre Peter Holsapple, “Not Going Back”’s high-speed emotional chase starring Wilco’s Pat Sansone… these are songs of impressive experience.”
In January 2024, the Salt Collective will embark on a brief US tour to bring the music to the stage. The revised touring entity of the Collective will be Stéphane Schück and Fred Quentin (Salt), Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Mitch Easter (Let’s Active), Chris Stamey and Gene Holder (The dB’s), Lynn Blakey (Tres Chicas) and Rob Ladd (The Connells).
Tour dates are as follows:
**Opening the tour will be reunited Sneakers showcasing the music of the short-lived band featuring Mitch Easter and Chris Stamey.