April: Where does your band name come from?
Carl: Early on we wanted something peaceful as well as identifiable, like a place. So we came up with Salem Hill—which means the Hill of Peace.

April: Give us a brief band history.
Carl: I started a band my second year at Belmont University—about ’85. Put an ad on the bulletin board in the music building. Pat and a few other folks answered. Kevin replaced the original drummer a year later. Mike and I grew up together and we’d been in bands together throughout our adolescence. However, he didn’t join the SH band until ’91. It was actually when he joined that we changed the name to Salem Hill. Before that we’d been working under the name “Window.”

April: I’ve seen conflicting dates regarding when Salem Hill began. When did SH become a band?
Carl: 1991 officially. Pat, Kevin and I played together with several other folks from about ’85 ‘til then. When Mike joined in 1991, we became Salem Hill.

April: Has the lineup undergone any changes? What prompted them? How did they change the band’s sound?
Carl: Is there a prog band that doesn’t undergo radical personnel changes? We started in the configuration we’re at today. However, right after our debut, Mike left to play with a copy band in Canada. So from late ’92 until mid ’97, it was just Pat, Kev and I. Mike rejoined in ’97. In late ’98, we added a keyboardist, Michael Ayers, and we released one album as a five piece—2000’s “Not Everybody’s Gold” with him. He departed shortly thereafter. With Mike [Dearing] in the band, we’re able to do a lot more vocally. Also, he’s got a voice that strikingly contrasts the timbre of Kevin’s and mine. With Michael Ayers on keys, our sound became a bit over the top as he was really into Wakeman and Emerson. That’s cool…but our sound has always been big, regardless of how many of us there are in the band. With Mr. Ayers on keys we just got bigger. And bigger ain’t always better.

April: Who’s in the current lineup?
Carl: There’s me on guitar and keys. Patrick Henry on bass. Mike Dearing on guitar and keys. And Kevin Thomas on drums. Kevin, Mike and I all sing.

April: How have you changed since the band started, both musically and personally?
Carl: I think we’ve always had a symphonic type sound, even when we pare down to just guitar, bass and drums instrumentation. It’s just who we are. We’re more interested in serving the song now than we have been in times past. That’s a good thing. And it’s in keeping with us personally as well; that is, we’re not so bent on wanking and showcasing our proverbial prog muscles. We’ll do it, but only if it serves the song. We’re all well into our thirties and there’s something a bit distasteful about grown men musically elbowing their audience in the ribs.

April: Prog has so many sub-genres -- How would you classify your sound – or don’t you?
Carl: As I said above, we can mess with instrumentation, production, etc., and invariably, it comes out sounding like us. Personally, I don’t cringe when folks say naughty words like symphonic, neo, etc. We’re all products of who we groove on. If you grew up on Beatles, then there’ll be some Beatles spicing your music. Doesn’t bother me when folks label us…unless, of course, that label is “sucky.”

April: What inspired you each to become musicians?
Carl: The Beatles for me, Mike and Kevin. I think Pat was into more of the…er…peripheral enticements.

April: Who influenced you in the earlier days, either musically or personally?
Carl: Again, the Beatles were the stuff for Mike, Kev and me. The first song I ever learned on guitar was “Eleanor Rigby.” To this day, I don’t tire of the Fab Four. They always seem to be the band I come back to when I need to musically recharge.

April: Who influences you now?
Carl: Kevin Gilbert. Crimson. Peter Gabriel. The Beatles.

April: Why do you think it’s so hard to live off of progressive music?
Carl: It requires an investment from the consumer. They have to spend actual time getting what’s been said musically and, in our case, lyrically.

April: Along that line – what’s wrong with the music industry?
Carl: The music industry is not run by musicians. Music is a commodity. Good, bad, worthwhile, useless—it’s all the same.

April: What’s right with it?
Carl: Don’t know if anything is ‘right’ with it. I do derive some hope from the fact that those in charge realize the worth and power of music in our society. Therefore, they market it like it was messianic. And, in many ways, I suppose it is.

April: What’s with the thong on your merchandise page?
Carl: How could any American male resist the thought of having his band’s logo adorning the…uh…strategic location of God’s greatest creation?

April: What’s currently in your CD player?
Carl: Sting’s “The Soul Cages.”

April: What usually inspires you to write or create? Written word, other music, people, something else?
Carl: Art and life. Art in virtually any form. Paintings, photos, books, stories. Life in stories we’re touched by. “The Robbery of Murder” was inspired by life. Mike is working on an epic right now that was inspired by life.

April: How do you decide whether or not an album is going to be conceptual? I know you don’t all prefer them.
Carl: Fist fights. Actually, we’ve become more democratic with age. If one of us has a great story with great ideas, the others don’t get in the way. If we’ve got a lot of unrelated material, we aren’t silly about having to produce a conceptual piece. I doubt our next album will be conceptual, in fact.

April: What does it mean to ‘pull a Fagan’?
Carl: Ha! Kevin is really the only band member who’s notorious for that. “Pulling a Fagan” is to spend a ridiculous amount of recording time doing take after take to get a particular passage—always very short—just right. Mike, Pat and I all like to do it and move on. Mr. Thomas is prone to hibernation over a couple of measures of music. It’d be cool if I wasn’t the engineer of those sessions. The term refers to Steely Dan mastermind, Donald Fagan. There are legends about how anal he was/is when it came/comes to recording.

April: Carl, you’ve done some storywriting too – which came first, writing or playing?
Carl: I starting playing guitar at 11 and began writing songs around the same time. I’ve always written stories. Most of them very, very bad.

April: What types of themes do you prefer to write about?
Carl: Epic. Life-changing. Reflective.

April: Does your songwriting style follow a typical pattern, or is it totally unpredictable?
Carl: As I’ve grown older, I find that I have to actually sit down and compose. Rarely does the muse strike out of the blue anymore.

April: Tell us what ‘Be’ is about.
Carl: She’s a sneak, this one! Trying to catch us unawares at question #22. You tell me what ‘Be' is about!

April: How is it different from your earlier albums?
Carl: It’s heavier. It’s incredibly collaborative. It’s a bit more abstract.

April: What would like us to know about ‘Be’ or Salem Hill that isn’t in the liner notes?
Carl: That despite the weighty things we write about, we’re all fairly happy men. Right Kev? We laugh a lot.

April: Where did the cover art of a chair at the end of the sea come from? Looks like there’s some symbolism there.
Carl: My brother-in-law, Kevin Hancock, took that picture at Folly Island Beach in South Carolina. I remember when he took it, as it was early in the morning while we were vacationing together. He was experimenting with infrared film, sprinted out of the condo with camera in hand and just snapped the first object he saw—the chair. I asked him what the rush was all about and he explained that it was infrared film and it had been refridgerated so he wanted to shoot pix before the film warmed up in the camera. When he showed me the picture later, I thought it was brilliant. An empty, ghostly chair ‘looking’ out over the ocean. It was the single spark that began the story of ‘Be.’

April: Does Salem Hill have a ‘mission’ or vision as a band? Is it simply to make music, or is there something larger than that?
Carl: Forgive the pretension, but we truly believe we have important things to say, musically and lyrically. I don’t think we see SH as a mission. But we absolutely have a vision as to what the band is and where we see it going.

April: How did the Rites of Spring Festival gig come about?
Carl: We just got an invite out of the blue. When we found out the particulars regarding all the things George and Tom had planned, it looked like it had the makings of something special. In retrospect, we were right.

April: What’s the largest audience you’ve ever played to? Do you prefer larger venues or smaller, more intimate gigs?
Carl: As individual musicians, we’ve all played to pretty large crowds. Mike has probably played to 15,000 when he toured with Ricky Van Shelton. I’ve played to probably as large a crowd as 5000. As Salem Hill, I imagine 500 is about the biggest audience we’ve ever had and that was at a high school in 1993. Forgive the boring answer, but I personally don’t prefer smaller or bigger. With Salem Hill, just playing is enough to get pumped for a show. If it’s 30 or 300 or 3000, nothing would be different for me. Well…maybe if it was 3000, I’d shave before the show. Then again…

April: What do you each do to pay the rent?
Carl: I’m self-employed as a disability consultant. Kevin is a window treatment salesman, Pat is a trainer for online financial transactions, and Mike is the only band member who derives 100% of his income from music. Currently, he’s the bassist for multi-platinum country newcomer, Gretchen Wilson.

April: If music wasn’t option, and the sky was the limit, what would you CHOOSE to be doing?
Carl: I’d be playing second base and batting third for the Cleveland Indians.

April: Where can fans buy your music?
Carl: Pretty much anywhere on the ‘net. They can buy it from our site.

April: "Do any of you have any outside projects at the moment?"
Carl: As mentioned about, Mike just landed the Gretchen Wilson gig which is very exciting for him. She’s already sold over 2 millions copies of her debut album and thus he’s appeared or appearing on all the big network shows. Fairly impressive, eh? I’m currently working on my sophomore solo album. Additionally, all four of us are hashing out details for the next SH album.

April: Finally – where do you see Salem Hill in 5 years?
Carl: Still here. Hopefully with a couple more albums to our name. We’ve certainly got the ideas.

The Prog Palace would like to thank Carl for taking the time to answer our questions. This interview was scheduled during the Rites of Spring Festival, but due to the tight schedules each band had to keep as well as our schedule with other bands we were unable to have the interview at that time.

To learn more about Salem Hill and their music visit http://salemhill.com

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