Interview withDanny Mass (Vocals) and Ben Farvak (Guitars) from Salvation
It’s a rare sunny afternoon in Leeds and I’m chilling with a cold drink in shade at one of the coolest alternative / indie bars in the city: the Northern Guitar Cafe, where I’m waiting to chat with Ben Farvak and Danny Mass: original members of well-loved Leeds band, SALVATION. There is a relaxed atmosphere in the bar, the music drifting through the speakers adds to the ambience but is not so loud that we can’t have a conversation.
A band arrives with their instruments - they are playing later - probably in the exact spot here, by the window where Danny and I are sitting waiting for Ben. He finally arrives and we discuss how parking in Leeds can be a nightmare. Leeds is, of course, one of the largest and liveliest cities in the North of England. It has a rich cultural heritage - especially as a result of the industrial revolution. In the last forty years though, the city has become renowned for its alternative / indie bands - especially those that were established during the early 80s - rising like a phoenix, reborn in the ashes of the punk movement, bands like THE SISTERS OF MERCY, THE MARCH VIOLETS, THE MISSION and of course, SALVATION.
SALVATION are always included in the cluster of Leeds “Goth” bands but they produced poppy, energetic songs that were far removed from goth. It’s a case of guilt by association. Salvation’s first EP ‘Girlsoul’ was produced by none other than Andrew Eldritch (THE SISTERS OF MERCY). Wayne Hussey (THE MISSION) produced their single ‘Jessica’s Crime.’ In addition, SALVATION have played with some of the finest alternative bands: THE MISSION, FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM, THE CHAMELEONS and THE MARCH VIOLETS to name but a few.
Their most recent album, ‘We gave you diamonds’, is a live album that was recorded when SALVATION supported THE MISSION on their 2020 European tour that was unfortunately cut short due to Covid lockdown. In July this year, SALVATION supported THE ROSE OF AVALANCHE on tour and they were amongst the line-up of bands at the Antenna Festival in January, which was attended by people from all over the UK.
Four decades later, the band remain as popular as they ever were. There is always a buzz of excitement whenever the band announces a live gig. Whenever ‘All and more’ is played in a club, there is a scramble to the dance floor and fans flock to their gigs. It remains therefore, a mystery, why despite their popularity with fans, SALVATION never achieved the same level of media success as some of the other Leeds bands like THE SISTERS OF MERCY. As I chat to Danny and Ben, this is very much a topic of conversation -
Reflections of Darkness [RoD]: Hi Ben and Danny, well, you first formed in 1983, did you ever think back then that you would still be playing live forty years later?
Both: Yes (Laugh)
Danny: No, genuinely, when we started writing songs, I thought they had staying power - I mean I was hoping we would be playing stadiums obviously (laughs), but yeah - there’s no reason why not, the songs that we write - they’re timeless. They haven’t got that certain sound - a good song’s a good song - whether it’s ten days old or ten years old. So yeah - I was hoping I would be!
Ben: And you are.
Danny: And we are!
Ben: We didn’t start as a: “Were’ going to be an 80s band or a goth band,”
Danny: We didn’t pigeonhole ourselves. That was being in Leeds and being around at that time, but we always thought we were kind of on the outside of that. We didn’t mind being roped in and we had played with so many different people that the songs we play and how we play them - works!
Ben: I joined a bit later, I wasn’t there in 83, I joined in 87, just before we did the ‘Diamonds are Forever’ album, so that was the first album, although there was ‘Clash of Dreams’ before but it never came out. So I kind of joined a bit later, they were already playing gigs and had made a few records. Also you know, I agree - when we write, we just try to write good pop songs, good memorable songs and you can play SALVATION tracks today and a current band could actually do a SALVATION song and it wouldn’t sound 80s or goth or whatever. Our songs are well-structured - classic pop / rock if you like.
RoD: Yes so one of the questions I had was how do you describe your music style? It’s not goth but it attracts goth audiences.
Ben: Well it does because of the associations - THE SISTERS (OF MERCY), first single then Wayne Hussey (THE MISSION) produces ‘Jessica’s crime’ and being from Leeds, we tend to get that label as “just a goth band”, but we are not at all.
RoD: I think the thing with Leeds goths is that they like stuff they can bounce around to.
Ben: I agree with you, yes, if you look at these cover versions we used to do - ’Spirit in the sky,’ the TOM PETTY one - we were never miserable, some of the goth scene was quite sombre, we were never like that.
Danny: Yeah, I think a lot of the miserable stuff was the London stuff like the Batcave because they were all posers and they took themselves really seriously. Leeds didn’t kind of get that.
Ben: We always had a sense of humour.
Danny: Well we definitely had, yeah!
RoD: How did it all start because you and James had different tastes in music?
Danny: Not that different, really. He liked Velvet Underground and stuff like that and so did I. He liked metal machine music like CABARET VOLTAIRE, THROBBING GRISTLE. We were just in his room experimenting with sound, but even then, thinking back, we still had a kind of tune - a beat and we would still have a riff going through it, then you add guitars and you get a bit of a tune. Then you start writing words for it.
RoD: So Ben how did you come to join the band?
Ben: Obviously, I come from France - as a student etc., was part of the scene: Phono, Warehouse, precisely how I joined I’m not quite sure, I can’t remember but I knew some of the members at the time. One day they wanted to beef up the sound a bit, they had one guitar and to recreate the sound that they had in the studio, they needed more guitars.
Danny: And probably to get a bit heavier as well as Choque had his twelve-string and that was quite jangly so we needed a lead guitar, yeah.
Ben: And I liked the stuff - it was song-based as opposed to some other bands who were more like a drone or something. These guys had proper songs and that’s what I’m into anyway - beyond the indie, the 80s, I like anything melodic. I like anything well-structured - classic rock, classic pop, 60s, 70s, 80s. Then straight into it - GHOST DANCE tour, that was my first experience of doing a large tour. I had done small gigs with various bands before but was like, “Would you like to join the band and we’re off on tour,” (laughs) so that was really quick - learning the songs, adding my bits to the songs. We did Rock City in Nottingham, we did Manchester, we did Glasgow, Edinburgh so yeah, I was straight into it and shortly after that, we recorded the ‘Diamonds are forever’ album. We were essentially recording many of the songs that we had been doing live, so we could eventually put all the songs down on tape in the studio and I added in my bits. When it was released, it was straight into the indie charts and It stayed in the indie charts for a long time. It seemed to be in there forever for some reason - going up and then down - and then back up (laughs). I think that album did sell very well, actually. It was selling in Germany, in France, but we never really got the press that other bands got. We’d be doing the big gigs, full venues and there would be a couple of journalists and we would think, “Yes we’re going to get reviewed, there’s no doubt, we’ve done a great gig,” but then it didn’t happen.
Danny: We were lucky that we toured a lot because our Manager Richard Hunter had been Social Secretary at Warwick University (and later Entertainment Manager at Sheffield Hallam Uni) so he could get us gigs in all the Universities. We were quite spoilt really, early on.
Ben: If you look at the gigography on the website, it’s non-stop. You look back and think, “Did we do that many gigs ?you know!” but we never got decent press for some reason. It was so disappointing, we’d be there going down great.
Danny: We had a huge following.
Ben: Massive following - packed venues from Scotland to Brighton, everywhere.
Danny: I mean we could fill the Marquee down in London.
Ben: And there would be a couple of journalists in the crowd, we’re thinking, “This time, we are going to get good reviews” and nothing.
RoD: Was this when you were supporting other bands?
Ben: Not necessarily, we were either supporting or just doing our own gigs, because we did the Marquee about three times headlining That was a prestigious venue, you know, we did a lot of those places, but we could never have anybody on our side from the press. Some journalists could have been honest you know and say, “I went to see this band and they had a big crowd,” but no, they liked to either ignore us or slag us off.
RoD: But why do you think that is? Do you think you weren’t the ‘in thing’ at the time?
Ben: They didn’t think we were cool. We were a bit too “tongue-in-cheek.” I’m not sure to be honest, it’s a bit odd, nobody championed us, if you like - cos most bands have a couple of people who will promote them and once you have got a few people like that - NME or Sounds, then you’re going to be in there all the time but we never had anybody like that.
RoD: That’s a shame.
Ben: It is a shame, because apart from half a page to start with - I’m not talking about the front cover or anything - but just an honest review you know, impartial, but they were always slagging us off - or ignoring us.
RoD: What about the radio hosts like John Peel, Annie Nightingale, did they show you any interest.
Ben: Again no, no BBC session. You would hear THE LORRIES one week, THE ROSE OF AVALANCHE the next week - all the Leeds bands and we never got asked. So no press to speak of, not a lot of radio plays or sessions or anything, so you don’t really exist.
RoD: But then a couple of years later, THE WONDER STUFF come along and they’re another lively “not goth” band and they get loads of press, it’s very strange.
Ben: Only today a French guy who went to see us when we did THE MISSION gig in Paris, who we kept in touch with, said, “You know something? At the time, I was a massive SISTERS fan, THE MISSION, but I missed out on SALVATION and I don’t know why.” He even said, “We came to Leeds on a pilgrimage with a group of friends and we went to see all the places where the band members lived, a cemetery where bands used to take photos.” He said, “We were mad about the Leeds scene, but we never really came across SALVATION.”
RoD: I first came across the band when a friend had a compilation of SISTERS stuff demos, SISTERHOOD and stuff like that and ‘Jessica’s crime’ was on there. It’s quite balladry though, compared to the rest of your material, so when I heard ‘All and more’ it sounded like a different band.
Ben: I know yes, well Wayne Hussey produced ‘Jessica’s crime,’ it’s quite a well-known track. A lot of people mention it, but sometimes it’s the only one they know. It’s the one a lot of people talk about but then ‘All and more’ is the big one.
Danny: I think it was a natural progression, if you listen to the singles in order you can tell that we just kept progressing.
Ben: So then, we did gigs and gigs and gigs, good crowds, we had two groups of followers - most bands had one - The Eskimos for THE MISSION, GHOST DANCE had the Spook Squad. We had The Penguin - let me get this right - the Penguin Mosh Squad and the Deep Sea Jivers. They would have their own T-shirts, and I wouldn’t say there was any fighting or anything but there was a little rivalry between them. You were either a Penguin or you were a Jiver! Good guys, we got on well with everybody but there was definitely a little bit of rivalry.
Ben: You were either a Penguin or you were a Jiver.
RoD: Like ‘West Side Story.’
Ben: It was, yes!
Danny: That’s a thing I still don’t understand - Penguin Mosh Squad! I still to this day don’t know where it came from and I ask them all the time!
RoD: Did they have a dance-off on the mosh pit (laughs)
Danny: Actually if there was any trouble, they supported each other. Sometimes if you played at universities, you would get some of the jock students hassling the girls - also some of the girls who followed us were harder than the boys (laughs) and they still are.
Ben: But yeah, it’s peculiar, I can’t think of any other bands who had two sets of followers.
Danny: And they still come to see us now!
Ben: And it does get mentioned in articles and things - that we have two groups of followers.
RoD: You’ve had quite a few different members as well.
Danny: Apparently yes. It’s not until you see a list that you realise that we have had a lot. It just doesn’t seem like a lot, but because there wasn’t any gaps, we always had someone to take over so it just carried on. I think that’s why in my head it doesn’t seem like that many. It’s only when you see it written down.
Ben: More members than THE THREE DEGREES - that’s official (laughs) somebody checked - maybe even more than THE DRIFTERS as well!
Danny: Over forty years.
Ben: Yes, people lose interest or they do other stuff you know, but we keep going.
RoD: I feel that maybe a lot of people were chasing fame and money and became dis-heartened when that didn’t happen - whereas now they play because they want to.
Ben: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Danny: Definitely yeah, that fame and fortune thing has gone, so you are literally just playing for you. Releasing things doesn’t make any money, most bands tour so they can make money on merch, so you’ve got to want to tour and play.
RoD: Who is left from the original members?
Danny: Just me and him (points to Ben).
Ben: How many bands have all the original members though? People move on, they have other commitments, they lose interest.
Danny: It depends where you want to go as well, because if you want to change, then you get new members and you might get revisions as different influences come in. Some people might want to change and that can cause rifts.
Ben: Some join other bands, or they dream of being big stars.
Danny: There are always guitarists etc. for hire, cos they want to try out other bands.
Ben: And why not?
RoD: Is it different now playing in such a digital age where everything is computerised? Is it easier with technology?
Ben: We’ve kind of gone back to nostalgia, using backing tracks - but it’s all digital.
Danny: Yeah, in that respect, it just makes things easier for us, cos trying to find a drummer and a bass player that could commit and wanted to do gigs - that was the problem. That’s why we went back to a backing track.
Ben: For the time being, we haven’t got bass and drums, everything is on tape - well on digital… tape, I’m still in the 70s (laughs). So that is the format at the moment and it will suit Whitby, because we are doing a lot of the old songs.
Danny: ‘Girlsoul’ and ‘Evelyn’, stuff like that.
Ben: At Whitby, it’s going to be a set of early tracks from 83 to 85. Some of the tracks we’ve never played, so that’s a big thing.
Danny: We’ve never played them before and we’ll never be playing them again.
Ben: That’s what’s going to be special about Whitby. We are just doing 83 - to 85/86 and many early tracks some of which have never been played and they were originally on record with a drum machine.
Danny: Yeah I guess the technical is for backing - there’s that, but also for promotion.
Ben: There is no NME now, no Sounds. People don’t buy music magazines it’s practically all computer based now.
Danny: We use Facebook and website for promoting and stuff like that, I suppose we could do more but we don’t need to really.
Ben: We aren’t really au fait with the latest TikTok stuff that other people do (laughs).
Danny: Yeah, and I think for us - and the people who follow us, it’s not that big a deal.
Ben: And we’ve got our Facebook pages with a lot of people on there and a lot of information generally.
Danny: I think you can get sucked into all that.
RoD: And I think that because you don’t play that often, people do get excited when there is a SALVATION gig on.
Ben: Yeah, we don’t wanna be in people’s faces all the time.
Danny: Yeah, we don’t want to do small pubs all the time cos then it’s not much fun for us either. A gig should be an event for us as much as for an audience.
Ben: So we don’t have to go on social media every five minutes.
Danny: And nobody cares what we’ve had for breakfast.
RoD: To be honest, you only have to share one post and everybody else will share it for you.
Danny: Well it’s that thing isn’t it, I mean DEATH CULT announced some dates and everybody went crazy talking about it. Everybody knows about it now because it’s shared and information spreads online. As soon as you have done a gig, someone has already filmed it and everybody has seen it already. It used to be that we might record the gig and then go home and listen to it and if it was good then we might give it to a fan or something - or copy it. Now - it’s instant, they are there, they upload it though I guess it is free publicity.
RoD: So speaking of doing gigs, what is your favourite track to play live?
Ben: I think ‘All and more’ cos it always goes down so well.
Danny: Yeah ‘All and more’ cos I think it’s good, but also I like playing ‘Thunderbird.’
Ben: Yeah - with audience participation on that one! (for the uninitiated, Thunderbird is very strong wine and it has become ritual for Danny to pass a bottle of it round during the performance of the song).
Danny: Whether it’s drinking or singing with that one! We’ve also got something special planned for Whitby (Tomorrow’s Ghost Festival).
RoD: So my final question is what does the future hold for SALVATION?
Danny: Whitby’s the big one, I mean we’re working on trying to play some festivals in Europe next year, hopefully. There’s a lot of politics involved with that so I don’t know if it’s going to happen… also doing one gig, getting there and back.
Ben: The logistics of that, it’s difficult, but that would be the next stage because we’ve not really played Europe.
Danny: Apart from those MISSION gigs.
Ben: And there’s an audience out there. People contact us, “When are you gonna do Germany?” So there’s an audience waiting for us.
RoD: And have you picked up lots of new fans recently?
Danny: We seemed to have yeah, I mean we still get new people joining the I heart SALVATION Facebook page and every time we do a gig, we still sell stuff on BandCamp, so a lot of it must be new people.
Ben: A lot of fans are at different stages and the early fans have got grandchildren.
Danny: And they follow us around, that’s three generations of SALVATION fan.
Ben: There is the guys who were there at the start - those who got into it in 87/88 when we started doing a lot of gigs and ‘Sunshine Superman’ came out. Then there’s the people who came to see us on THE ALARM tour, that’s when we signed to IRS for the album and these guys had never heard of us. So there is a group of people who became fans then.
Danny: I think every time we play, we pick up new fans.
RoD: And I guess if you play with some of the newer bands, you get their fans coming along with them. For instance: THE MARCH VIOLETS recently were supported by VISION VIDEO and they brought loads of young “baby bats” with them.
Danny: Well that’s good, that means there are youngsters coming through, you get a fresh audience as well as the regulars.
Ben: It’s not just the same old people.
RoD: Exactly, no disrespect to those people - wait a minute, I’m one of them (laughs).
Danny: It’s working in reverse as well, because they go and see young bands and then find out about old bands.
RoD: And they are very enthusiastic about it, they go out and buy everything. At THE MARCH VIOLETS, they knew all the words to everything that Rosie (Garland) was singing. It keeps the scene alive.
Ben: There’s new blood out there.
Danny: Yeah, there are people coming through all the time.
RoD: VISION VIDEO are American, have you ever played in the US?
Ben: Not yet.
Danny: That’s in our plans as well.
RoD: Thank you very much both of you.
Website: https://salvationhq.co.uk/
All photos by Neil Chapman
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