Photo of Salami Rose Joe Louis with Willow Pflueger (left, CJSW).

Salami Rose Joe Louis performed during Sled Island on Saturday June 20th at Dickens.

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Willow (CJSW)
Hi, I’m Willow Pflueger with CJSW 90.9 FM. I’m here at Sled Island 2026. I’m here at Dickens with Salami Rose Joe Louis. I just wanted to ask if you could give, like, a brief introduction to yourself to people who are just now hearing of you.

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Sure. Thank you for having me. I am a musical artist, producer. I guess the music I make is a little weird, kind of bunch of different genres combined into one. I make everything on this MV-8800 machine, and today I’ll be playing with a quartet, which I’m really excited about. And yeah, it’s been so nice being here in Calgary. I’m talking too much already, so that’s more than an introduction, but yeah, I’ll pass it back to you.

Willow (CJSW)
Don’t worry about it. Talk as much as you want. Okay, so, to get into it, I know you probably get asked, like, talked about your name is just so interesting, and I’m sure people talk to you about it all the time. I’m not going to know where it comes. I’m not going to ask where it comes from. I looked it up beforehand, and it was two nicknames merged together. But I wanted to ask, if you find, do you think there’s a separation between Salami as an artist and Lindsay as a person or artist?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
That’s such an interesting and also like pretty philosophical question. No, in a really good way. I feel like, yeah, they feel pretty related in a lot of ways. I feel like I’m, I kind of put my whole identity into the songs often, so it feels very much me, and I spend so much time making music, I don’t know how to separate my identity so much, but there’s, of course, another side that, but yeah, it’s interesting, because, like, because it’s a childhood nickname, like, my parents also call me Salami, so it’s like it feels very familial, and yeah, just like they’re pretty closely linked. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but. That’s, I would say that’s a cool question.

Willow (CJSW)
I mean, it’s up to you whether or not it’s a good thing, but yeah, as you said, you put a lot of your, like, personal – it’s very personal to you, your music, and I know that you said that Lorings came out at a time where you were feeling some pressure from the music industry and also from yourself to write these super complex sci-fi narratives, which I think are just really cool, but do you think this pressure has changed since you released the album?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Yeah, it’s so funny. Now that I released this very, like, kind of stripped-back album, the next project that I’m working on right now is like the opposite. I’m like trying to make it as complicated as possible, so maybe that’s just like the way it goes. You move the pendulum moves to one direction, and then on the next record you want to do the opposite, but I guess we’re always like exploring and changing, and but yeah, I’ve been really enjoying taking my time with it in a way that I haven’t done in a long time, and trying to like take myself off the, like, “you need to finish it today!” Like, so I’m trying to slow down, take time, and put a lot of thought and energy into it. Yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
Well, then maybe it’s good that you wrote something super personal, because you could, you could get that out, and then you could return to the narratives if you so chose to. I’m excited to hear what you’re working on. And then I know, like you said in the beginning, that you, you have a lot of different genres and styles in your music, and people often have a very hard time kind of pinning, pinning down a specific genre to, I guess, label you as, but I wanted to ask if there’s any genres that you haven’t explored, but kind of want to?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Amazing question, I have been pretty obsessed with, like, my guilty pleasure right now is like trying to make dance music, because I recently I went to, like, an Andy Stott show, and it was so fun, like, just like engaging with music and dancing, I never dance. But I was like, wow, I can’t stop dancing, this is so amazing, and I just, I was so enamored by it, and have just been, I got this new drum machine too, so I’ve just been really enjoying making dance music, I don’t know if it’s good, but that’s that’s been my new kind of side passion.

Willow (CJSW)
And is that gonna show up in your next projects?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
The next project, no. It’s that’s more like I think the next project feels like my like classical Zappa-inspired album, but I feel like this, the dance thing, we’ll see. I have to get a lot better right now I’m like a baby.

Willow (CJSW)
And then I know your music is very sci-fi, because you have a, you have a very sciencey background. What kind of sci-fi media do you find that kind of inspires you, or do you find that it’s kind of just because you like science?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
I love reading sci-fi books, and I feel like I get a lot of inspiration from books. I’ve seen some recently. I saw Soylent Green recently, a great sci-fi movie. I just love the way they talk about, like, this sounds dark, but I love how so much sci-fi talks about the apocalypse, and I just feel like it’s just what’s cool is they like imagine ways to like sort of find hope in those scenarios, usually, so it’s like a cool way to explore like, like basically like think tank, like what are we gonna do in the apocalypse, which I feel like it’s important, but yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
That’s very interesting that you are drawn to that. Do you have any dream collaborations? Like any people that you would love to collaborate with?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
So many, so many. I feel like Aphex Twin, Monopoly Child Star Searchers, Delroy Edwards, there’s so many. Yeah, I have a big list in my mind, and yeah, but I’ve also, I feel like I’m so lucky to collaborate with some of my heroes already. I feel really blessed, but yeah.

Willow (CJSW)
Who would you say? I was gonna say, Who are some of your favorite people to collaborate with?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
I feel like my one of my favorite collaborators is Flanafi. We’ve made a bunch of stuff together, and I feel like we’ve really like grown like a musical language together, so it feels very like just effortless and like fun and like inspiring. I don’t know, it’s like it’s a really one of like the coolest sort of like musical collaborations I’ve been a part of. And then Luke Titus, too, been collaborating a lot with him, and that’s been really cool. It’s like fun when you like, because we play together live a lot too, so you like build this rapport on stage, like musically, and I feel like it translates into the recorded creative like writing music as well, so that’s been really, really fun.

Willow (CJSW)
I don’t know, I love your solo music and your collaborations, so I just, I don’t know. Very cool to hear. Do you have a favorite song to perform?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
It changes all the time, and usually it’s like the song that we haven’t played in a while, or like, whatever feels the scariest to play is usually my favorite, because it’s like it feels so fresh, you know, and exciting, like, sometimes I have a hard time playing, like, if I’ve played something a bunch, but luckily all the songs we’re playing tonight, like, we haven’t played them in a really long time, and we’re playing with a new guitar player, because Flanafi is on tour right now, so this lovely guitar player, Tim Watson, is going to join us, and so there’s gonna be a lot of fresh new elements, which will be really exciting, and like I feel like the set is gonna… I’m excited.

Willow (CJSW)
Speaking of your performance, it’s just before eight right now. Well, well, like 10 minutes, we still have a little bit of time, but. Do you have any pre-show rituals that you have to get you in the right mood and kind of calm your nerves?

Salami Rose Joe Louis
Sometimes it just stare at a wall for like a while. No, I try to just stay calm and drink tea, and like just stay relaxed and take deep breaths, like it’s nice when there’s like dim lighting. I like when it’s like pretty dark. Just stay like very relaxed.

Willow (CJSW)
Well, I’m sure your show tonight will go very well. Good luck. And thank you so much for talking with me today. I really appreciate it.