Will Gould: "A lot of the themes with Salem are cute but deadly"

"The funny thing is that aliens landing wouldn't be surprising at this point this year," Will Gould laughs. "You'd just be like, 'oh, of course'." The t...

"The funny thing is that aliens landing wouldn't be surprising at this point this year," Will Gould laughs. "You'd just be like, 'oh, of course'." The topic of conversation is the enduring legacy of Heathers. This cult classic gave a pitch-black voice to adolescent attitude ("dear diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count"), while not being afraid to ask the hard-hitting questions ("you inherit five million dollars the same day aliens land on the Earth and say they're going to blow it up in two days – what do you do?"). It was also a huge influence on Will Gould and Matt Reynolds, who used Winona Ryder's dread-driven internal monologue from the movie as a way to introduce the world to their new project.

"That era of teen films has been a reference point for me for years," Will enthuses. "That quote is synonymous with a lot of emo culture that I grew up in. A lot of Salem is referencing that music." Released just in time for Halloween (another much-celebrated cultural reference point) Salem's debut EP is "a love letter to those punk, emo, and goth bands that we grew up with." Announcing themselves not with a bang, but with a ball – a virtual Apathy Ball where the duo's first single served as the first dance for the prom king and queen – the band make music that's every bit as immersive as the cultural reference points that shaped them.

They might only have a handful of songs to their name (for now), but the partnership between the two musicians stretches back years. "I used to go see [Matt's] bands when I was 15," Will fondly recalls. "To me and my friends, he was a rock star." From growing up in Southampton, to working together on songs for Creeper's latest album, 'Sex, Death & The Infinite Void', Salem is a collaboration that's been a long time coming. "We have a really good chemistry, him and I. We've been best friends for a long time," Will expresses. "He's such a brilliant musician. He's got such a great work ethic. It just came out really easy."

Born out of a jam session intended to distract from the pressures of the new Creeper record and to blow off steam, the duo wrote all the songs on Salem's debut EP in the space of one afternoon last May. It took another afternoon for the songs to be demoed, and then just five days in the studio for them to be recoded. "I've been playing in punk and hardcore bands since I was about 15. A lot of the records I made when I was young were recorded really fast, so this is kind of a return to form for me," Will describes. "I've been doing this same shtick for years," he laughs.

Salem, he's quick to enthuse, offer something different to the bands he's been in before. "I just thought the whole thing was fun," he expresses. "That's the thing that Creeper isn't sometimes." With extensive narratives about paranormal investigators and fallen angels written to surround their records, working on new music for that band is an extensive undertaking. "Creeper is a serious entity, and I love that, it's one of my favourite things about it," he explains, "but this band is supposed to be a little bit more light-hearted. Even though it's dramatic, and at times it's sad, it's playful," he portrays, "a lot more than the other work I've done."

"Even though it's dramatic, and at times it's sad, it's playful"

With a name chosen in honour of everyone's favourite sarcastic feline as much as it was in homage to the infamous witch trials in the 1690s, it should come as no surprise that the songs Salem write are as cute as they are cutthroat. "A lot of the themes with Salem are cute but deadly," Will conveys. A collection of "sweet, satanic love songs," this debut EP is purpose crafted to keep you dancing – no matter how dark the world might feel. "A lot of the lyrics are cute, romantic, satanic jokes," the frontman describes. Introducing themselves to the world with a chorus refrain of "I want to hang helpless from your noose," Salem's songs are adventures in romance at its most violently beautiful.

"Doesn't love feel like that sometimes?" Will asks. "That's the way I always see it. It's so beautiful that it's scary. It hits you out of nowhere." Comparing true love to a knife fight on debut single 'Destroy Me' was the perfect introduction. These songs are dark – hell, sometimes they're brutal – but boasting such an ardently felt sense of romance, these songs were purpose-written to sweep you off your feet. And it's not just the listeners that get caught up in that romance: the band did too. Written and recorded in such a short space of time, there was no time for the duo to second guess anything they were writing.

"What I really like about this record is that I feel like it really captures an energy and a time and it's locked in place," Will expresses. "The intents and the desires you had for it are captured in a moment. It's exactly what you meant." A lot has changed in the year-and-a-bit since these songs were first penned, but the energy they contain is just as immersive and just as all-consuming as when they were first written. Despite this, these songs were never actually meant to see the light of day.

Written on a whim and recorded with no goal in mind, the band started out as a passion project with no name. The EP, once made, was shelved. It was the conviction of those nearest and dearest to the duo that prompted them to make something good out of not being able to tour this year and share what they'd created with the world-at-large. "We wouldn't be putting this out if it wasn't for lockdown," Will asserts. "It's a new thing that we're getting to do because of this year."

From the Apathy Ball to introduce their music to the world, to their "top secret" Halloween plans and beyond, for Salem, the possibilities are limitless. These songs weren't written with an audience in mind, but this self-titled EP is an open invitation to experience, in the words of Disney's Aladdin, a whole new world. "When releasing new music, what it really comes down to is, how big is your imagination?" Will excitedly questions. "What can you create? What can inspire something in somebody?" Two albums into Creeper's career, he's certainly no stranger to breathing fresh life into fantasy.

"I like to think that's why people keep coming back to records that I've been involved in again and again: they want to escape into a world," he contemplates. "They want to find a piece of their own identity in there as well. That's how all my favourite records were when I was a kid." And that's what the duo want to offer with Salem. "I hope it's a distraction from a difficult time," Will expresses, "another thing they can put on, listen to, and enjoy through a very difficult year we're all having."

For a band that never intended to be heard, they've already smashed all expectations. The enthusiasm they've been met with has been beyond anything the duo could've hoped for. "Watching people around us get so excited about something we made pretty flippantly, out of nowhere, a year ago, is so good," Will enthuses. Does all this positive energy mean more good things could be in Salem's future? "There will be more," he grins. "We've really got the bug for it now."

Taken from November's issue of Upset. Salem's self-titled EP is out now.