Northampton based alt-pop indie band ‘Sarpa Salpa’ are slowly but surely making a name for themselves in the music industry with their well-written releases paired with a catchy sound and consistently brilliant basslines. The group all met in various places and a few of them had previous experience within other musical groups too, before forming Sarpa Salpa as a 5 piece. Inspired by the likes of Foals, Tame Impala and Everything Everything the band are in awe of how they manage to consistently put out amazing albums while tweaking and changing their sound as they grow. The abstract band name comes from a fish, that Marcus discovered when browsing “interesting animals” on Wikipedia. He tells us, “it happened to be so interesting and almost relevant to the music we were making at the time! I feel like the name is difficult at first but once you know it, it stands out.”
The group’s latest EP ‘Say Something’ has been in the works for quite some time, with Paralysed and Lost Time recorded a while ago during recording sessions of previous singles Smith and Casanova. It was only when the group went into the studio to record Say Something and Before It Goes Dark did they truly consider putting all the tracks together into one release. A lot of these songs have already been played live, so it truly felt right to put them all into one body of work and release them together.
We asked each member individually what their favourite song from the new EP was, and they all had lots of different answers for us:
Meg: My favourite song from the EP is Lost Time. I like the lead guitar in the chorus, the storytelling, and I think it builds to a really powerful ending not too dissimilar from Smith which is my favourite early Sarpa track!
Marcus: Definitely Lost Time as it encapsulates the terrible evening so for me and takes me back to that night, and I like George’s guitar work.
George: Damn this is like choosing your favourite child… that being said it’s probably Say Something. I really enjoy a lot of elements of the track from the funky verses to the synth coated choruses plus it’s a lot of fun to play live!
Ethan: For me it’s probably Before It Goes Dark! It’s musically a very fun song and a song I had a lot of input on lyrically.
Charlie: My favourite track from the EP is Lost Time, the vocal melodies throughout are immensely addictive, and I’ve always found it to be one of my favourites to play live!
When it comes to hitting the studio, the group tend to write all their releases together as a band with George initially bringing in an idea for the track without vocals, while Marcus puts together a vocal line that they’ll form the track around. Each member will write their own parts for the respective instruments, but if anyone else offers a better idea they’ll always go with what works best for the song.
We asked the band to close off with an entertaining story, and George did not disappoint: “One time recently after a show we stopped at a service station because our drummer Charlie was in dire need of a toilet. So, as we pulled into the station, he opened the car door and straight up fell out of a moving car then ran desperately through a bunch of guys towards the toilet. Turns out that these guys were actually the band Peace who we all love, not the way we envisioned meeting them but definitely won’t forget it”
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