Introducing: Salt Cathedral
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During my second week living in New York, I found out that some of my Florida buds, Hundred Waters, were playing a show in Hoboken. Obviously, I went to the show with much excitement to see friends and go to my first show in the city. After many hugs and warm embraces, the first band went on, which at the time, I didn’t recognize. I soon found out that this band was Salt Cathedral (formerly known as Il Abanico) and I was floored by their performance. The harmonious guitar work, the sweet vocals, the energy; the mixture is cohesive and really brings something refreshing to the ears.
We have their new single, “Take Me to the Sea”, which is off of their upcoming self-titled EP. We also have an exclusive free download of the track for all of you to take with you. Also, this past weekend PORTALS was lucky enough to chat with the Brooklyn-based band over some really delicious Indian food. We spoke about their insane visa situation, their tour with Freelance Whales, and their upcoming works. We invite you to read this fun interview while listening to their newest single below.
From left to right: Silvio Vega, Nico Losada, Juli Ronderos, and Stefan Bildy. Photo: Daniel Dorsa
Where did you guys meet and how did you form as a band?
Juli: We met in Boston. Nico and I started the band together. We played with a different line up than it is now. The other people who formed with us randomly moved to Japan, so we started playing with them (Silvio Vega and Stefan Bildy).
Now that you have this solid crew, does everybody get involved in the writing process?
Nico: Everybody except Silvio. [laughs]
Silvio: Yeah! [laughs]
Nico: I’m kidding. The writing process basically starts with me, and then we try to figure out stuff as a whole band after.
Stefan: Nico will do the structure of the song, Juli usually does the lyrics and melody, and I’ll just write drum parts.
I heard you guys have some kind of crazy visa. What is it?
Juli: “Aliens with Extraordinary Abilities in the Arts.”
How did you guys get that?
Stefan: Well first off, we’re aliens. [laughs]
Nico: Basically, this is an artist visa that you get for three years and you have to have a portfolio. You have to prove that you have amazing abilities in the arts to stay in this country.
Juli: It’s ridiculous. It’s very time consuming and it’s a very long portfolio. Three hundred pages where you have to detail and explain every single aspect of your artistic career and why you deserve to be here. Basically, the government knows that they have great American musicians, they don’t need to import people. So, why do they need to import you? You basically have to prove why you’re different from every American musician. You need recommendation letters, contracts—it’s endless. It took me a month and a half working on it like a full-time job gathering information. We sent it to the government and they ask for more stuff. They finally approved it. It’s kind of amazing because it’s the only way we could actually be here.
Nico: Yeah, basically it is pretentious shit to stay here. [laughs] If you go out of the country and they see that visa, people are like, “Oh! You’re an ‘artist’. I see.”
Where are all of you guys originally from?
Nico: Stefan is from Canada, Silvio is from Florida, Juli’s from Colombia, I’m from Colombia, and Tmmy, the bass player, is from New Jersey.
Awesome. When did you guys move to New York?
Juli: We moved in January of last year. We left Boston and toured our way to LA. We lived in LA for three months, said, “fuck this”, and moved to New York.
You just got back from touring with Hundred Waters and Freelance Whales. Was that your first big tour?
Nico: Yeah, it was totally awesome. The guys from Hundred Waters are dope and also the guys from Freelance Whales.
Juli: It was amazing. Most of the shows were sold out. Everyone was so grateful. It wasn’t like one of those tours where you’re the opening band and nobody makes it our early. People were there early and waiting.
What did you learn from this tour?
Stefan: After playing the same set night after night, you become very comfortable with your set. It becomes second nature after awhile. You can see why bands that tour a lot are always very tight as a band. They spend so much time playing live which is probably the best thing for a band to do. Play live and lots of it.
Juli: I think I realized what makes a show is the crowds attitude and it changes completely from city to city, night to night, and venue to venue. If it’s dark, if it’s an underground basement, if people are drunk, if it’s on a Friday, if it’s a Monday in a small town, it just changes completely. You have to learn how to measure what kind of people are out there. That’s why Florida was awesome because people were really open.
Stefan: We played one show in Alabama and the crowd didn’t respond to anything. Not just us, but to every band except Freelance Whales who they came to see. Even then, people were very stoic and cold in the crowd. Golf claps after all the song. It was really strange.
Nico: The surprise of the tour was that Brooklyn was the best show. You would think that Brooklyn is really snobby about the music, but people were flipping. It was awesome!
Juli: Everybody was dancing!
That’s great! Any memorable moments on the tour?
Nico: We had such a great time every night! We were like the free spirited band because we didn’t have anything to lose. We played at 8pm for half an hour and then we put our stuff aside and party.
Juli: I think the highlight was the Hundred Waters house in Gainesville. We went canoeing, lit off fireworks, it was fun. Also, the last night of tour was another highlight. All three bands are backstage singing “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith. They kicked us out of the venue.
Nico: Our bass player was pretending he was a totem or some shit.
A totem?
Nico: Yeah. He was acting like a totem for two hours!
Juli: The last night was where the singer of Freelance Whales lives. We all went to his house; eighteen people stayed there.
Silvio: And then Stefan put on a dress and walked around the house.
Nico: With a monkey.
With a monkey?
Nico: Yeah, with a monkey.
Juli: I wake up and Stefan has a pink dress on and a huge monkey. He starts waking everyone in the house up with the monkey.
Nico: THAT’S the highlight of the tour. Oh, then we met Muhammad Ali. [laughs]
What do you mean?
Juli: There was this dude who came up to him [Nico] and said, “Hey man, I’m homeless.” Nico replies with, “YOU’RE MUHAMMAD ALI?!” [laughs]
[laughs] Awesome. Why the band name change?
Juli: Because nobody could pronounce it. [laughs]
[laughs] Straight up because nobody could pronounce it?
Juli: Straight up. No one could remember it either.
Stefan: Even people who spoke Spanish couldn’t say it properly.
Nico: We felt like the name was really pretentious. I like being pretentious, but no one understands my pretentious-ness. [everybody laughs]
You have a new album in the works right now?
Nico: We have an EP. We’re in the process of releasing those songs every two weeks.
I heard you’re adding a visual component to all of them too?
Nico: Yeah. Right now, we’re working on a visualizer for the second single. There’s another one that’s going to include a video that they are working on in Colombia, which is going to be dope. We’re working on a full length as well.
Sick. I think that’s it. Thanks so much!
Curated by Tiny Waves.
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