INTERVIEW: Salty on her debut EP 'The Other Side': "It's a very exciting time to be doing music as a female."
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Rocket Weijer
Published 10 March 2025
Sydney pop artist Salty first released music in 2020 and in that time has steadily and unshakeably become one of Australia’s brightest new artists With a sound that wholeheartedly embraces pure electronic pop, with perhaps the subtlest dash of R&B, Salty is a much needed blast of fresh air - and delicious pop tunes - in the Australian music scene.
Last November she released her debut EP The Other Side, a collection of six tracks that encapsulated the last five years of her life and music career, the feelings and emotions she experienced and ultimately finding herself.
"The Other Side is a musical diary of the last 5 years of my life. It captures the essence of feeling things for the FIRST TIME,” Salty says. “Falling in love, dealing with feelings of anxiety, my hatred for drunk men at bars, wanting to move out of home and the ever-changing types of people coming in and out of my life. I describe it as finding myself on the ‘other side of my twenties’.”
The EP opens with a brief introduction with audio from Salty’s childhood mixed with discordant sounds and brooding synths before it leads into ‘See U In 3’. It is a slinky, R&B tinged pop song with a funky beat and a drawling vocal from Salty as she sings about being in thrall to someone: ‘Don't wanna question what you're doing to me / My hands are in my pocket but I fall at your feet / A dangerous obsession.”
it is followed by the gorgeous, 1980s infused synthpop of ‘hollywood baby’ that gives off a moody, late night feel with its production. Its lyrics speak of ambition and the drive to become successful and realising you need to leave people behind to get where you need to be. ‘I'm flying out, not coming home / So don't be waiting by the phone…I'm leaving you behind / It's perfectly aligned.
‘BOY BYE!’ brings a harder, electro-thrash sound to the EP, while the following track ‘i wanna feel better’ is almost the polar opposite, a sweet, gentle pop song that explores the stagnation that often comes with trying to get out of an emotional slump:' ‘What if I’m stuck in my ways?… I could just give myself a try / If I ever wanna feel better.’
The EP ends with ‘Cut U Off’, a boisterous track with a rockier feel that bookends the collection beautifully as the ‘what happened next’ companion track to the EP opener ‘See U In 3’.. We now see Salty free of the obsession and back in control of her life and who she is. ‘Used to be obsessed and now I’m not…U don’t cross my mind I cut u off’. “[It’s] my sign to you to CUT the people out who no longer have your best interest at heart,” Salty says.
Currently in the middle of her EP launch tour which included shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong, Salty has embarked on this next era of her music with a bang. With impeccable pop sensibilities her music is uplifting, joyful as well as bringing meaningful messages with her personal and empowering stories intertwined with delicious beats. We recently caught up with Salty to chat more about The Other Side and her musical career to date.
Hi Salty, lovely to meet you. Thank you for your time this morning, and for your music all of the time!
So nice to meet you as well. I've been a fan of Women In Pop for a while, so it's sick to do this.
You are a woman in pop, and I was just curious, is this something you have been working towards your entire life?
Being a pop star, yes definitely. Growing up, I idolised women in pop, so it feels very full circle to be doing the same thing. I'm very grateful that I get to do it.
Who was the first woman in pop you idolised?
Definitely Kylie Minogue was my first, my mum drilled that into my brain. My mum was the biggest Kylie fan, she would take me to every single tour, it was all we would listen to in the car. And as I'm getting older and writing more music and evolving, I really feel that influence from when I was a kid. I listened to a lot of Gwen Stefani and all those icons, and I still only really listen to music from that time, the early 2000s. Women in pop are having such a moment now, so it's a very exciting time to be doing music as a female.
Let's talk about debut EP The Other Side. I love 'hollywood baby', such a beautiful track. There's a real sonic mix to the EP. Talk me through the tracklist because I imagine you have a tonne of songs, but choosing what will go on your first collection must be hard. How did they encapsulate this overall notion of The Other Side?Great question. This project is my first little baby, and going into it I wasn't really writing for a project, so I was writing all these songs not really knowing where they were belonging. All I do when I'm writing is just listen to my demos. I'm in the car and I'm listening to all the songs I've made. I'm walking, I'm listening to all the songs I made. It's like on constant repeat in my mind, and naturally, they fell into place by themselves and immediately the title The Other Side came. I feel all of them are songs that are specific situations that I've gone through over the last four years in this really pivotal time of becoming an adult. 18 to 24 is such a hard time finding yourself - falling out of love, falling in love, losing friends, cutting people out of your life, trying to figure out where you want to be in five years, what you want to do. I feel like each of these songs really represent a key moment in that shift. It all happened really naturally. It wasn't like, 'oh, I don't know if this song fits', it was like 'these are the five songs, this is the project.’
I love that. Do you think that confidence in putting this collection together comes from knowing yourself and knowing where you're at so well, but also this great notion that genres really aren't the signifiers they used to be within music?
Definitely. I know I keep talking about Kylie, but if you listen to her discography, this woman has crossed paths. She's done disco, she's done straight down the line pop. The only thing that's tied it together is her voice. I think we get a bit caught up in genre - she's a pop girl, she's gonna be in the pop category, and that's where she belongs. But I think now we're in such a place where that's just not in the question anymore. You can cross boundaries. I want to take risks. I don't want to be tied down to something when I'm still evolving and growing. I know that there's that little sparkle in my songs, that’s a Salty vibe. When people say to me, this is such a Salty song, or such a Salty melody, that is the best compliment you could give me, because that's the running theme I want throughout all the music. You just know I've written it, it's a me song.
Talking about Kylie, she is the global pop princess, but you yourself are also cited as the new pop princess of Australia. How do you feel about your music being described as pure pop, and how do you feel that shoe fits in Australia? Australia has this long history of just making room for one female singing pop at a time. Yes, yes, yes! It's difficult being an artist in general. In Australia, we tend to grasp onto what feels familiar, and I think we're starting to open our eyes a little bit now. I actually think what is happening in music internationally is bleeding into Australia, which is a good thing. We've progressed into Triple J playing a lot more pop, a lot more female pop, they're playing Tate McRae, they're playing more mainstream songs, whereas three years ago they were not playing that stuff. So it does feel like we are opening up and taking more risks.
It's a shame that it can feel like there's only room for one woman, because the talent in this country is through the roof. I know so many talented artists from Australia - female, male, bands - and it just gets washed into the abyss. Again, the industry really grasps onto what feels familiar and what's working, and I think we can take more risks and push and reward hard work when it's due. It's very political, it's labels and it's hard to stand out from the mass and take that stand forward. With my project, I'm completely independent, so I have no label backing or anything like that, but I have seen throughout this roll out a lot of support from media, from radio, which is amazing, and I feel like I'm on the right track. It really serves as a pat on the back to young and up and coming artists. It means more than you think.
You do have a very international vibe, your image, your sound, your very slick visuals are very international and I can see why you very quickly gained an international audience. Talk to me about how that has strengthened how you go forward as an independent artist and songwriter?
Any recognition is just fuel to the fire that's inside of me. International stuff is really sick. Every time I go to LA, I'm always reminded by the fact that what I worry about in Australia doesn't matter. Why do I get so caught up in these little things in Australia, when you're in the city where it all happens? It doesn't really feel like such a pivotal thing to check off your to do list. When you're here in Australia and you're amongst your peers, and we all know each other and we all support each other, it does feel like there isn't a lot of room for everyone to have a moment. Whereas I feel like in America, for some reason, it feels more possible, which is sad to say about being here, but every time I am there, I'm just 'I really feel like I can do this’. Writers that I love wanting to do sessions with me, or producers that I love wanting to do sessions with me, or people that I really look up to DM'-ing me "I love this song", that is all so special. Again, any recognition is great.
Someone messaged me and was like 'your music makes me feel like I can take over the world, like I'm the hottest, most confident, I'm standing tall.' That is the way I want people to feel because that's how I feel when I listen to the artists that I love, like Kylie or Gwen or Madonna, all those artists. I listen to them and I'm like, 'Holy shit, I'm amazing and I'm untouchable, and I can do it whatever I want.. That's why I love music, because I love feeling that way, so it's very nice that someone feels that way when they listen to my stuff.
Oh, that's incredible! You have a dance background and we can see it in your music videos and visuals. Do you dance to your own melodies as the lyrics are coming out? I'm always curious how a songwriter writes when they're also a dancer.
This whole project was such an establishment of me being a dancer, or an artist that dances seriously. It was a time to really set in stone 'this is who I am’. This is why we had the 'See U In 3' video really centred with the dancing. But when I write for the next projects and whatever's coming out next, I'm very in tune with the fact that my show is dancing. So it plays on my mind, but I'm not in the studio dancing to the melodies or anything. I'm just thinking about, will this work live? How will this look with my dancers? What would the video be like?, I'm thinking about all that before the song's out of my mouth. I'm literally like, 'I'm hearing this, and this is what I'm thinking for the theme and the title, because the video needs to be this’. That's always how my brain works.
Is that always one of your favourite elements of making music, the music video and the visuals?
Yeah, because it's art, it's as important as the song. I'm very much a visual gal, so every time I'm writing or envisioning my next era, even when I cut and dyed my hair, I was like, 'okay, it has to be this, and this is when I'm doing it, and it's going to come out here!’ I love all the details around everything that's happening. Making things slick is really important to me. Giving every song that comes out 100% because what's the point if it's not 100%?
What was your favourite visual recreation or visual moment in all the visualisers and music videos for The Other Side?
'See U In 3' was really special, because the team I worked with on that was just amazing. My best friend - we've been best friends since year six - creative directed it. All the dancers that I worked with I grew up with at [dance school] Brent Street, so I had all these people around me that I knew and they were dancing for me. And the choreographer was my dance teacher that I grew up with. I felt so supported, I felt like a part of the dance community again, which I was missing so much. The day was just perfect. I love running the number over and over again until we're like, bruised - I love that stuff! It was just such a special song as well. It felt like the first song I was putting out where I was truly like, 'oh my god, this is me'. The whole experience was just amazing.
It's such a blast to watch as well. It's so fun. You just mentioned being bruised from dancing, and you are in the middle of your Australian EP launch tour. Is this what you you hope for your audience to come home with, a dry throat and bruised knees?
I definitely want them to walk away being like, holy shit, that was a show! I keep talking about Kylie, this is ridiculous, but I went and saw her the other night and being on stage and all the little bits that come with it, whether it's like transitions or intros, or reimagining songs, we do a lot of that in my set. I just want people to be really impressed. I'm not just standing up there singing a song, I'm really thinking about all the details. It's all in the details. I just want people to come and feel part of a community, dance and sing the lyrics back to me. That's my dream.
The Other Side is out now. You can download and stream here.
Follow Salty on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
SALTY ‘THE OTHER SIDE’ EP TOUR
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE
16 March – Wollongong North Hotel
