The Kids Are Alright: Meet the world’s youngest band - aged just 7!
The Crow’s Nest, a column by Russ Litten
Music & Literature
I have seen the future of rock ‘n’ roll, and it is about four-foot-five.
Kids in bands - they can be a bit hit and miss. For every Jackson Five there’s usually been a Jimmy Osmond in hot pursuit.
Most kids’ bands I can remember through the years are either stage school assemblies or ghastly commercial TV money-spinners. Black Salmon are a totally different proposition.
Black Salmon are punk rock. Black Salmon are pure pop. They were borne of boredom and thrive on improvised chaos. They are fearless and without boundaries or ambition.
Black Salmon are loud, noisy, impetuous, impulsively in the moment and completely from the heart. They are, in short, the purest essence of the original spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.
Black Salmon are three brothers from Hull - Edwin (aged nine, guitar and vocals) and seven-year-old twins Linus (bass and dog barks) and Walter (drums and vocals).
BLACK SALMON: From left, Walter, Linus, and Edwin
They’ve been going since last April, formed in the first lockdown as part of a home-schooling syllabus devised by their Dad.
Every afternoon the lads picked up their instruments and started learning from scratch. At the end of every band practice, they drew a picture to symbolise the day’s work.
They learnt simple riffs and songs - The Beatles’ I’m Down and Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones. A year later, Black Salmon have written a song of their own and released it as their first single.
There have been rock star strops and tantrums along the way, but what started as a home education project has bloomed into something truly wonderful.
Chihuahua Power is out now and available from local label Fast & Bulbous. It’s a joyous marriage of early Jesus and Mary Chain meets The Sex Pistols doing Scandinavian Death Metal, with added dog yelps.
There’s an irresistible, mind-shattering remix by electro-dance maestro End Of Level Baddie. It’s the purest, most exhilarating, life-affirming racket I’ve heard for many a day.
Band manager, musical director, and Chief Dad Roadie Nick Broten spoke to me from the band’s East Hull HQ in between hectic practice sessions. Nick is no stranger to the minstrel life, being the guitarist with local favourites Fonda 500.
“It all clicked into place when we let Walt play the drums,” he tells me. “It was like switching on a light. Suddenly we could all stop and start together. Ed and Linus wrote the riffs, and off we went.”
Practices, however, can descend into anarchy. Boredom can set in. Artistic temperaments can become frayed and easily distracted. Nerf guns have been known to be drawn when musical tensions get particularly heated.
“I’ve left the band several times,” says Nick. “Then I’ve rejoined out of guilt, worried that I’m setting a bad example to the lads. They’re not impressed, though. I think I’m on the verge of being kicked out any day now, actually.”
Plans are afoot for an album; I’m Sorry, I Can’t Hear You, I’m Dead. I’ve had a sneak preview, and the highlight is an epic lament sung by Walt, entitled Pidge John, which concerns itself with a mysterious character on a moped who spirits away pigeons.
“The problem is getting them to do something twice,” says Nick. “Their attitude is that once they’ve recorded it, that’s it, they’re not interested in doing it again. One-take wonders. It works though. Well, it has to, really.”
This makes me wonder how the ready availability of technology is shaping future music-makers. Does being able to make such an accomplished and definitive version of your work - and get it out to people - shape the way you make stuff?
Bands of the past would practice and play in private for years before being exposed. Anonymity was seen as being vital for music development. Now, you can be on YouTube and written about before you’ve learnt all your Jolly Phonics.
Have the lads become at all self-conscious about any of this, I ask Nick? “Not at all. They don’t care. It’s totally brilliant. None of it matters. They’re just making music for the absolute sake of it.
“For me it’s about preserving that magic, that beautiful part of making music where you’re just soaring and free. All the rest of it is largely nonsense. They don’t know how good they are.
“I mean yeah, part of me wishes that Simon Cowell could ring up and give us six-billion quid. But he’d have no chance. The lads wouldn’t be interested. If he offered six-billion Nerf Guns, well, now we’re talking…”
The youngest professional rock band accredited by Guinness World Records is Black Diamonds (USA), whose four members had an average age of 11 years and 130 days when they released their debut album on December 19, 2010.