Interview with Marijne (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.
