The Salt Collective is a Paris-based supergroup centered around the core of Stéphane Schuck (guitar), Benoit Lautridou (drums), and Fred Quentin (bass), as well as the talents of The dB’s Chris Stamey, who produced, and his bandmates Peter Holsapple, Will Rigby and Gene Holder. The record also features Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Mitch Easter (Let’s Active), Juliana Hatfield, Matthew Sweet, Richard Lloyd (Television), Susan Cowsill, and more. The group’s debut album, Life, was released back in May 2023, and we’ve got the premiere of the new video for the swaying “Another Bus Coming” which features Matthew Caws and was directed by Hector Di Napoli.
“If this song is about anything, it’s about things getting better,” Caws tells us. “We make mistakes, we fumble situations, we’re sometimes ungraceful, but there’s always another bus coming, there’s always another chance to get things right. Let’s enjoy the wait while we’re here, waiting for the next chance. It’s coming, I can see it.” Watch the video and read more about it — and the album — from Matthew below.
The Salt Collective will be on a short East Coast tour starting next week and the lineup includes Matthew Caws, Mitch Easter, Chris Stamey & Gene Holder, Lynn Blakey (Tres Chicas), and Rob Ladd (The Connells). Making this even cooler: Stamey and Easter are reviving their ’70s-era power-pop band Sneakers to open the dates. The tour hits the NYC area on January 20 at White Eagle Hall. All dates are listed below.
MATTHEW CAWS – ABOUT “ANOTHER BUS COMING”
If this song is about anything, it’s about things getting better. We make mistakes, we fumble situations, we’re sometimes ungraceful, but there’s always another bus coming, there’s always another chance to get things right. Let’s enjoy the wait while we’re here, waiting for the next chance. It’s coming, I can see it.
Stéphane Schück, the Salt Collective’s affable guitarist and main songwriter, lives just two or three blocks away from where I lived when I was 12 years old, when my parents took a sabbatical year in Paris. He came out for a coffee with my mom and me last May, when I was taking her around our neighborhood, and around her old neighborhoods where she’d fallen in love with Paris (and France) as a young exchange student and then later as a grad student.
I usually would walk to school when I was there as a kid, but I did take buses as well, and later certainly waited for a million buses in New York while holding a guitar, so the video’s location felt very real and natural. (I wish I’d always had guys as cool as Chris and Stéphane to wait for the bus with, though!)
ABOUT THE SALT COLLECTIVE ALBUM:
When the request came to jump on the Salt Collective project, I was delighted, I’d been a dB’s and Let’s Active fan since my late teens, and was then soon thereafter a fan of all the other artists involved. I was already a part of Minor Alps with Juliana Hatfield. The timing was great, I was in the process of finishing up songs for the new Nada Surf album, and it did me good to change scenery for a couple of days; I went back to Nada Surf energized.
In the end, I cowrote and sang two songs on the album, melodies and lyrics for “Another Bus Coming” and “Asylum.” The tracks were marvelous, both familiar and foreign to me: I recognized the landscape, but the roads took turns I wouldn’t have thought of (this is the best part of collaboration). I would just play the music on repeat, like I was listening to a radio, and wait for it to feel like something was missing, and wait for that something to become a feeling, to have a shape, and try to say and sing whatever that was.
The whole record is great, I’m really proud to be on it. Every song feels fully achieved. Superb tracks, lyrics and melodies throughout. Chris Stamey was a fantastic producer, really attentive both to detail and big picture. I’m often in something like that role myself, though not nearly as deft at it. I learned a lot from Chris’s way with the material while the album was being made—and later from him as a bandleader, when we rehearsed the songs. I really enjoyed trying to be a good team member as Chris pulled us together.
By the way, that’s Mitch Easter playing lead guitar on the track. I only look so involved in playing the solo in the video because I had just learned it for the Salt Collective’s first performance the night before, and was still trying to get the hang of it. Luckily, Mitch himself will be with me on the upcoming US tour to play the real thing!
Salt Collective – 2024 Tour Dates
Wed Jan. 17 – Cat’s Cradle; Carrboro, NC
Fri Jan. 19 – 118 North; Wayne, PA
Sat Jan. 20 – White Eagle Hall; Jersey City, NJ
Sun Jan. 21 – Daryl’s House; Pawling, NY
Mon Jan. 22 – City Winery, Boston, MA