Biography
Indie pop-rock out of Christchurch based around Joe Sampson (guitar / vocals / keys / bass etc) with James Sullivan (drums) and Ben Ordering (bass) on most of their recordings.
I was in T54 at the time and James Sullivan was in Bang! Bang! Eche!. Both bands were going through a bit of a quiet phase at that point for various reasons.
James and I used to work together and our job meant we’d take trips to Timaru and the West Coast. We realised we had a similar taste in music so we’d listen to quite a lot of stuff in the car, quite a big range. Wire, Jay Reatard, Sparklehorse, PIL, lots of German stuff… but also classics like The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, and heaps of Flying Nun – of course The Clean and David Kilgour.
There’s a certain raw magic that Ben [Odering – bass] adds when we first learn a song, there’s the odd exception but most of the time we immediately align musically.
Joe Sampson – from NZ Musician article ‘Salad Boys: Location Is Everything’
Strong on melody with big chiming guitar and unfussy rhythmic backing, their songs have a timeless quality to them – sometimes jangling, sometimes driving, and with Sampson’s powerful guitar playing always ready to attack.
The group have forged their own way with cassette releases on Sampson and (sometimes drummer) Feary’s own Melted Ice Cream label, plus vinyl LP’s on the US-based Trouble in Mind label. Pitchfork compared the to the great Flying Nun groups of long past, and they’ve successfully toured New Zealand extensively plus excursions to Australia and even 26 show tour of the US.
Members
- Joe Sampson (’83 Girls, Best Bets, Joe Sampson and Friends, Local Tourist, Pavlov’s Puss, T54, The Dance Asthmatics, guitar / vocals / keyboards / bass)
- James Sullivan (Bang! Bang! Eche!, God Destroyer, Jim Nothing, X-Ray Charles, drums)
- Ben Ordering (The Dance Asthmatics, bass)
- Matt Scobie (Planet Of The Tapes, T54, The Undercurrents, drums)
- Olly Crawford-Ellis (Best Bets, Transistors, drums)
- Brian Feary (Brian Tamaki And The Kool-Aid Kids, The Dance Asthmatics, Wurld Series, X-Ray Charles, Kool Aid, drums)
- Ben Woods (Ben Woods Group, Wurld Series, bass)
- Ben Dodd (Avon Dads, BnP, Brian Tamaki And The Kool-Aid Kids, Kool Aid, Thrill Collins, Waltham Home Organ Society, bass)
Discography
- Salad Boys cassette compilation (2013, Melted Ice Cream, MIC0011)
- Christian Rock / Salad Boys split cassette (2013, Melted Ice Cream, MIC0027)
- Metalmania (2015, Trouble In Mind)
- Scarce Tracks EP (2015, Chunklet Industries)
- Giving compliments to strangers (2017, SHIT TEETH)
- Castrol’s Garage live cassette (2017, Melted Ice Cream)
- This is glue (2018, Trouble in Mind)
- ‘This Issue‘ b/w ‘Onwards And Downwards‘ single (2019)
- Unfinished I (as Joe Sampson and Friends, 2021, Oh Yea Haha)