You seem to spend a lot of time touring. Does it put a lot of strain in the band being on the road a lot of the time?

M: Yes

P: No

M: No, actually we really love it, but if you're camped up in a sleeper bus for, like, three months at a time, which is not what we ever did, of course, but maybe two weeks, then the tension can get very wearing at times, especially between me and Paul. But I can see the tension rising between Paul and the drummer more in this tour, 'cos I think we've mellowed out a little bit. But having said that, touring is what we do most...

P: The drummer?

M: The drummer. Rob. Okay...Rob. Touring is what we like to do most of all. I'm really, really, really, absolutely delighted to be back on tour.

P: Well, I have to refute all that 'cos I get on very well with Rob, THE DRUMMER, and if there is any tension it's probably, only because I've been sleeping at his house after most..... we've been recording on every night... it's miles to my house so I sleep on his sofa, so we probably ended up being a bit like a married couple.

M: Which is why you both had wanks at the recording studio, 'cos you couldn't do it in the room 'cos...

P: It's probably to do with that....But I would disagree, I think we get on really well. I think there's lots of bands who...

M: Oh, we do. We really have a good time.

P: ..who get on much worse. We're real friends. We're not a band who's got their members out of advertising and the Melody Maker, so we are proper friends and we do get on well. Of course, that also means that we can be honest to each other and argue and hate each other's guts and I think that's what makes a real band.

Does being on the road a lot of the time make it difficult to write new material?

M: It's different for different people. I tend to only be able to write at home, you know, in solitary, but Paul can just pick up a guitar and go URRK, I've just written a song!.

P: Yeah, and I've already written quite a lot of songs for what will probably be the second album. Most of those I wrote when we we're on tour last year, in places like Germany, and I think that it's weird because you're in somewhere like Dusseldorff and you're writing a song that might be very, very English. And you just imagine you're in Morecambe Bay, or something, but really you're in this dreadful German town that we bombed to shit in the war.

M: Erm, the next single after 'Drink the Elixir', called 'Motorbike to Heaven', was written in a little motel in Coventry on the Blur tour that we did about a year and a half ago.

We didn't see very many releases from you last year. What happened?

M: We signed to Island, and the last thing we released on them was 'Your Ma', that was, what, July?

P: Yeah. July 4th. American Independence. The last thing we knew, we'd signed this piece of paper and we woke up in a sack in the North Sea and that's why it's taken so long.

M: And what happened was, we then recorded the album over the summer of last year, which the next single was going to come off and we all had plans to, like, release the album in January, or maybe February, but then, oh like really boring stuff, like the record company in Europe changed and they didn't want to release a record until they changed so that we could get good backing from them and all that kind of stuff, and things lead to other things and now it's coming out in May, and it's been a long time and I'm fucking pleased we're back on the road 'cos I couldn't be patient any longer.

P: Edit out fucking, by the way...

M: You're so posh.

P: Yes I am. I'm very posh. I'm the posh person in Salad. Err,yeah... when we were on our own little label we could do what we want. The thing about being on a big label is there's more ummph behind everything, and there's more money, and you can do more, you can realise things a bit more. But there's so much politics involved and, you know, I would like to have four singles out every year. It makes me really hurt, my skin goes all cracked like the desert because I don't wanna have seven months between two singles. It's horrible, you know, but, what can you do?

Has MTV helped, or would you say hindered your career?

M: Certainly not been an easy cross to bear, you know.

P: It's heldnered, which is a cross between the two. Isn't it?

M: Yes. It certainly helped in places like mainland Europe, where a lot of people were really interested because of me, but also in the music, of course. But in England where MTV isn't so cool, I think it has been quite difficult to show people that this is about music and not about representing and fronting a band. We were making music years before I even got that job, which never got anywhere at that point of time. It's taken a long time.

P: We have to say this in every interview to get it through, but the point is that me and Marijne were making music, and she took in a video of something we did in to MTV in the hope that they'd show it and they asked her if she wanted to audition for the job. So, music first, MTV second, and now she's not doing MTV anymore.

M: I'm not doing it anymore. No, I left two weeks ago. I've been there for four years, so it was my time to leave, and my head is so much clearer now, 'cos the reason I was getting really tense on tour and stuff last year was 'cos I had another career going. So, even though it's been so brilliant, I'm so happy now.

P: I think the MTV angle, though, has been a bit of a bugbear, but in a way that's quite good, 'cos it means we've had to really work hard, 'cos it's as if we've got something to prove. Although, obviously we feel very confident about what we're doing. But it's nice to have had that obstacle, otherwise you get complacent and I think we've surmounted it, haven't we dear?

M: Yes, you have.

Who would you like to play a gig with in a sort of fantasy world?

M: I'd love to play with Elastica. I love them, I think they're brilliant. They're just so spiky, they just create brilliant pop music. Yeah, okay, they're really derivative, but they've put so much of they're own originality into it...you know, you can't just rip people off without a bit of individuality and make it sound as good as they do.

P: We'd have to play on the same stage at the same time, so there wouldn't be any arguments about who headlined. I mean I'd like to play with R.E.M., because I think that they've always done exactly what they want to do, you know, they're very true to what they want to do. It seems like they've said 'No' to a lot of record company interference and they've done exactly their thing and they've made it really successful. I'd really like to do that, you know, without compromise, to do exactly what you want and make it work, and I think they make good songs, so I'd like to do that. Do you like R.E.M.?

M: Yeah, I think they've blanded out a bit, haven't they?

P: Well, you ought to listen to that song on their new album then, shouldn't you?

M: Crush With Eyeliner?

P: No, what's the other one called? The one about Kurt Cobain is really good. I can't remember the title, I never remember the titles of their bloody songs.

M: I do like it...I haven't bought it yet, it takes me a really long time to buy albums.

P: What, because you walk really slowly to the record shop?

To close, who in the band makes the best tea?

P: I do, there's no doubt about that. You're always saying my tea's good.

M: I make Earl Grey tea.

P: You do.

M: Rob likes his tea with Coffee Mate. It's disgusting.

P: It's awful.

M: You drink a lot of coffee as well.

P: I love coffee.

M: I hate coffee, I make very good Earl Grey tea.

Melody Maker Interview with Marijne van der Vlugt & Paul Kennedy

I am a very, very insecure person, but I am determined. Extremely determined. "I wanted to become a model, and I became a model. It was my determination that got me there rather than my looks. Sure, I'm tall, and I had the right figure, but I had to work to get that. More importantly, I wanted to do it and I wanted to be bloody good at it. I had the attitude, I was really bloody cocky. I worked in Paris for a year and, in a few months in Tokyo, I earned £20,000. "Then I wanted to be on TV and I became an MTV presenter, just literally walked into the job. "I've always wanted to make music and love it. I want this group to succeed and it will. Determination can get you a long, long way. If you want something badly enough, you'll probably get it. Like I say, I'm insecure, but I want to be in a band. So, if I can get on that stage anyone can fucking do it."

That's Marijne all over, Salad all over, a weird hybrid of the DIY punk aesthetic and hard-nosed individualism. But beneath all this pep-talking (relayed though in its quiet, fearsome tones of the true zealot) is a belief that, in pop music at least, determination, however obstinate, will never take you much beyond a feature in the music press. You need, says Marijne, "the X factor". By this she means talent, a muse, you know the sort of thing. And Salad have it. You can tell by the way they fuck with their peachy-clean melodies, delivering them in a buzzsaw blur, by the way their choruses make entrances and exits so fierce and unexpected your spine freezes, by the way Marijne can hit notes as skewed and deliciously surprising as Bjork.

Salad love making lairy, lovely bubblegum pop, full of filthy thoughts and nasty chords. SINCE Salad started, though, some two years ago, there's been a lot of ill will towards them. Most of it directed at Marijne. To begin with, she was a model, and a reasonably successful one at that. People don't like models doing stuff, other than modelling. With all the sneering, sniggering scepticism that greeted Naomi's record, Kate's photos and Cindy's (forthcoming) movie debut. Many women would prefer it if the beautiful didn't stray from the catwalk, believing that beauty precludes all other virtues. Many men further resent it because they like their women passive, obscene and not heard, as John Lennon once said after a New York fashion show.

But modelling wasn't Marijne's only sin and might well have been forgotten had she not compounded people's prejudices by becoming an MTV VJ. No matter that Marijne was more watchable than 90 per cent of the stuff she introduced, no matter that her relatively modest wage was used to subsidise Salad. For the millions that watched her, and the many in the industry who used her to flog millions of records, presenting MTV was seen as little better than prostitution. Consequently, Marijne and Salad were afforded far less serious consideration than their peers. Tokyo. Paris. New York. Camden. SALAD's journey from international glamour pusses to indie wannabes has been bizarre to say the least. THE STUD BROTHERS meet the bubblegum noiseniks who gave it all up for gigging.

She's left MTV now to dedicate herself full-time to the band. It's the second career she's walked out on in favour of something infinitely more precarious. "That shows true love for you, doesn't it?" she says, with a smile. Paul Kennedy, her former lover, sometime adversary (it's true, they're always arguing) and Salad's guitarist, nods. "I was at MTV for four years," she continues. "It had run it's natural course. But I did get that job through making music. I was taking in a Merry Babes [an early incarnation of Salad] video and someone just asked me to audition there and then. So I made my decision, went for it and, " she giggles, "I got the job." "People say I'm really brave giving it up, but it has nothing to do with bravery. I just wanted to dedicate myself to the band. . . completely."

Can you understand why people might look at you less than seriously? "Yeah, sure. There are obviously people out there who think it couldn't possibly be OK for someone to be an MTV presenter and in a band. And the thing is, if I were an outsider, I'd probably think exactly the same thing." "I would too", says Paul. "You're bound to think this is just some bollocks thrown together by some Svengali. But then I think that if you hear us, see us live, then you'll change your mind overnight.

And also, before the band, we were actually four friends. I knew Pete [Brown - bass] from school and Marijne knew Rob [Wakeman - drums] from the house she was living in, so really it was very organic, the whole set-up. It's the complete opposite to what some people might think." "The problem is," adds Marijne, "that I just happened to have a job, like most people in bands do when they first start out. The trouble was that I happened to have a job in the public eye, that's all. People just shouldn't be so narrow-minded." "Anyway," say Paul, "it hasn't been that much of a problem. I think most people realise we're 4 Real. I'm not gonna carve anything into my arm, but it is the truth."

SALAD'S new single, written by drummer Rob and titled "Drink The Elixir", is a barbed celebration of the pursuits of youth and beauty and the crazed but ever-so-sane efforts people make to attain them. What Salad seem to be saying (though they're clever enough to not actually come out with it) is that beauty is a whole lot more useful than brains because, basically, people see a whole lot better than they think. Like the previous "Your Ma", a rampant punk paean to seduction (like "The Graduate" directed by Quentin Tarantino), it's very perverse, very Salad. Salad write wonderfully dirty, ingeniously obscene popsongs. "I think with Sleeper and Oasis and Supergrass doing so well," says Marijne, "we should do, too. It's what we want, it's absolutely what I want." A hat-trick of successful careers? Some girls have all the luck.

4 March 1995

Melody Maker Interview with Marijne van der Vlugt & Paul Kennedy

Salad have a new single, "Granite Statue", released by Island Red on September 4. It's a new version of the song from the band's top 20 album "Drink Me", re-recorded and remixed with producer lan "Lightning Seeds" Broudie. The cassette format, and one of two CD versions, also features a cover of "It's For You" - a Lennon / McCartney song which became a hit for Cilla Black in 1964. The first CD also includes "Ici Les Amigos". Bonus tracks on the second CD are "Rip Goes Love and Lust" and "Roadsex".

Singer Marijne van der Vlugt told The Maker: "'Granite Statue' is basically about a woman who's madly in love with someone, but every time the opportunity comes up to show that person that she really wants them, she just turns to stone and can't do anything about it." "I was that statue before I started going out with the man who I've been going out with now for six years. It took me five years to pluck up the courage to talk to him." "The video is set at a fictitious Salad sports event. It looks as if we're in this red and white stadium. It's very glammy, even though we're in training clothes!"

Asked about the Cilla cover, Paul Kennedy said: "Cilla has a voice like a car accelerating from 0 to 70mph in five seconds,and I think Marijne emulates that."

'Ici Les Amigos' said Marijne, "is about a South American drugs cartel operating out of St Tropez, and the inhabitants of St Tropez feeling a bit uneasy about it. Paul sings most of that."

"Rip Goes Love And Lust' is about a girl on the Tube ripping up her newspaper and stuff because her love affair is on the rocks. Rob Wakeman, our drummer, wrote that. It's a real-life thing that he saw."

"'Roadsex'... well, that's what being on the road is all about, isn't it? Sex on the road." Paul: "Well, that's what Rob would like."

Marijne added that the band were planning a special live show at which the entire set would consist of their B-sides, and a compilation album of all the bonus tracks that have appeared on their singles - "because we love our B-sides. They're the more experimental side of Salad. I think the next album is going to go towards that side - letting ourselves go a bit more."

2 September 1995

Interview with Marijne van der Vlugt (1996)

Marijne Van Der Vlugt, former Dutch MTV presenter and frontperson of quirky pop combo Salad is in a good mood. She's recently acquired a fifth band member for gigs. "I'm fed up with singing and playing keyboards at the same time because I enjoy running around on stage, I enjoy strutting my stuff although I will play the incidental bits. Charley plays guitar and keyboards and can sing backing vocals. She's funny, confident and really nice. It's much better than getting a session musician who has musical prowess but doesn't fit in."

Charley certainly needs to fit in as Salad are not the most mellow of bands. "Paul (Kennedy, guitarist and Marijne's ex) and me are the worst. We argue about anything. He's very precious about his songs." It must get pretty hairy in the studio. "We call each other a fucking piece of shit, things like that but I take out my aggression on the walls. There's no violence." So long as the band can stop arguing for a minute, the second album is due out early next year.

Thankfully they've found a perfect producer in Julian Cope's former guitarist and producer Donald Ross Skinner. Says Marijne, "Donald's a good influence. He's kept us pretty calm. He's very positive when we get worked up." Marijne is convinced that this amount of passion is good for the band. Unfortunately this doesn't always come through in Salad's often tangential songwriting ('Diminished Clothes', 'Drink The Elixir' for example). Alongside Marijne and Paul, drummer/sample maestro Rob Wakeman also writes. "Rob's the dreamer while Paul's the pop man," explains Marijne. "I take a long time to write songs. I start out writing God-knows-what like motor mechanics, then pick up on something that makes sense. My boyfriend once said 'rest your head in my curves' which eventually became 'My Size Is More', a song slagging of skinny girls."

She believes the new album to be an improvement on last year's debut 'Drink Me'. "The arrangements are better and my singing has improved." First single 'I Want You' is an unexpectedly straightforward love song though Marijne's forthright passion shines through. "It's something we've not done in the past," she explains. "We wanted to try to get a pop hit." The record is a refinement of Salad's Europop-Blondie sound. After ironing out her irritating alien pronunciation, Marijne's vocals are richer and more mature. Dour critics can write Marijne off as as far too fame greedy and worst of all, a perfectly vapid MTV VJ but to be fair she's never promised more than simple pop. Salad are remarkably honest, deflecting any criticism through their plain and simple aims; to write pop music and score the odd hit. With all the passion, Salad do give a toss.