It’s a big day for Neil Salsich, the affable singer and guitarist for local roots-rock favorites the Mighty Pines. As we talk over the phone on October 4, Salsich is preparing to see Bob Dylan, one of his heroes, for the first time ever. It’s a surprising admission given that Salsich is a seasoned Dylan enthusiast, having obsessed over Dylan’s 2004 memoir Chronicles, Volume 1, meticulously studied Dylan’s music for the Voodoo Bob Dylan cover band and even taught a course on Dylan for KDHX’s now-defunct Folk School.
The ending of Folk School is, sadly, another sign of a deteriorating KDHX amid a series of disastrous decisions made by two executives — including the callous firing of several of the station’s best-loved DJs — that led Mighty Pines’ mandolinist Gerard Erker to write a protest song, “Hey KDHX!” which the band recently recorded with a group of St. Louis musicians.
Salsich has gotten a lot of ink in the Riverfront Times this year. His attention-grabbing appearances as a contestant on NBC’s The Voice were the subject of a series of RFT reports. More recently, he picked up the RFT’s Best of St. Louis nod for Best National Splash and was honored for the “Best Acoustic Guitar Solo” at Music at the Intersection.
Next up for Salsich is the return of Pines Fest, the multi-artist showcase that the Mighty Pines headlines and debuted last year at the Big Top. For the second annual Pines Fest, on Saturday, October 14, again planned for the Big Top, the band has curated an all-new expanded lineup, including six bands on two stages and an artist-at-large, vocalist Emily Wallace, who will make a cameo with each of the festival’s acts.
Before heading off to Stifel for the Dylan show, Salsich gave us the scoop about Pines Fest, plus some thoughts on how The Voice changed him as a singer.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What were your takeaways from the first Pines Fest?
Truly being an independent band producing and promoting our own shows is hard enough, but a festival is like times five. Given the fact that it was the first Pines Fest, it was a great success. The musical lineup was just outstanding. We were really proud of it, and we could tell the audience was really connecting with it. Having an artist at large was definitely a huge cool factor last year, and that was a no-brainer to bring that back this year.
What’s different for this year’s Pines Fest?
We didn’t want to do anything radically differently. We just wanted to do everything better. It’s all going to be a little bit richer and tastier. We wanted to have a totally different lineup of bands, first of all, and a new artist at large, and there’s one more band than we had last year. There’s also a side stage this year. We’re going to have Moon Valley perform sets, little palate cleansers, between each main stage act.
Also, Pines Fest had no sponsors last year. This year, we have Swade Cannabis, Four Hands Brewery and Mighty Kind all pitching in in different ways to help this festival be successful. The most important thing about growing a festival over time is sustainable growth. We have a lot of ideas that we would love to see happen, but we have to implement them at a reasonable pace to make sure this is profitable and works year after year and let it grow. We’re going to keep leaning into that. We like working with Jamo Productions and Drew Jameson. It’s a great partnership that we want to keep working with. That’s a big reason why we chose the Big Top.
How do you go about curating the lineup?
We all sit down with a bunch of names on a whiteboard and start putting the puzzle pieces together. We want to make sure we have a true mix of sounds and people and different scenes within the St. Louis community.
Let’s talk about the artists in the lineup. You have Aaron Kamm and the One Drops.
That was a no-brainer. That’s someone who has been on our radar for a long time. We look up to the One Drops as a band that gave us a lot of inspiration when we were starting out. They taught us that you could have a couple hundred people out on a weeknight singing the words to original music in St. Louis. We hadn’t seen that in our generation. They are incredibly talented. Sounding great as a trio in a rock setting is one of the hardest things, and they do that extremely well. And they actually have their own unique sound or genre. I’ve never seen a band that is 50 percent roots reggae and 50 percent Stevie Ray Vaughan-style Texas blues. To me, that’s so special.
How about the Burney Sisters?
Incredibly talented band of young women. They represent the next generation of the music we’re putting on stage at Pines Fest. It will be a full band set. The first time we met them was at Katfish Katy's outside of Columbia in, like, 2017, so even though they are much younger than us, we kind of came up together. We also knew that by booking the Burneys that they would bring their own unique crowd.
You had the Red and Black Brass Band last year. This year, it’s the Saint Boogie Brass Band.
We love that sound. We think it’s important to have something other than just roots or rock-based stuff. And in a festival atmosphere, nothing brings that like a brass band. Red and Black was a huge success last year, and we wanted to bring that vibe back. Back in February of 2021, one of the first nights people were going out again was the grand opening of the Golden Record, and we went to the Brass Band Blowout with Red and Black, Saint Boogie and Funky Butt, and we were, like, “We’re going to have all of these bands play with us at some point.”
And the Brothers Lazaroff.
We’re super excited to have them. I’m almost not sure what to expect because they have so many different lineups and different sounds. They are such a mature band musically and artistically. We just love the way they present themselves and who they play with, and we love the brothers themselves. They have a certain cool factor and a style that is really palatable.
And Emily Wallace is this year’s artist at large.
Emily has always been in the conversation. She was at the top of the list for a lot of reasons. Like Brian Owens, last year’s artist at large, she’s one of the top-tier, upper-echelon vocalists in St. Louis. She is super versatile. She can sing folk, blues, pop and anything in between. An artist at large needs that kind of vocabulary. And she’s just super-cool. It will be no sweat for her to walk on stage and do something amazing with these bands.
So what should we expect from the Mighty Pines at Pines Fest this year?
We’ll have Dave Grelle on keys and a horn section like last year. It’s exciting to express ourselves musically with that lineup of musicians we’re really proud of. Plus, these musicians are our friends, and there’s something about that that is super magical. The backstage hangs are amazing. The whole night will culminate with our set, and I think a lot of the musicians from earlier in the day will be on stage with us.
Will we hear new material from the Pines at Pines Fest?
We treat our St. Louis shows as a necessity to give our fans something new. So there will be at least a few new songs. There are also older, unrecorded songs that we finally have the maturity and skill to be able to make work. They didn’t quite work before, and we didn’t know why. But revisiting them as older, wiser musicians, we’re able to get them off the ground, so there are some songs from our back catalog that we are bringing back.
Does that mean a new Mighty Pines album is on the way?
Yes, absolutely. There will definitely be some heavy writing and recording in 2024. I think the best albums come from whittling down the best songs from the biggest pile possible, and the time is nigh for us to release some new music.
Have you been in contact with anyone from The Voice since the show ended?
I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but the truth is when I walked off the show that last time, it was the last I heard from anyone on the show. And I kind of knew that. By that time in the journey, I had seen enough behind the curtains not to expect anything more.
Do you think you sing differently after being on the show?
Oh, 100 percent. That’s the part I’m really grateful for. I just got way better as just a singer. It really helped me see my voice as an instrument and to work on singing the way I would work on a guitar solo, being more methodical about it.
Do you credit these changes with any actual coaching on the show, or were you just digging in harder yourself?
Just digging in myself. The amount of coaching on the show was kind of laughable. But being out there in that situation just made me get to work. And also being around so many great singers, hearing these incredible singers do these runs, I was, like, ‘Well, I know I can do that. I can learn that.’ It’s like with the guitar. I really think that the more tricks you have up your sleeve, as long as you know when and how to use them, they only make you a better musician.
How has the experience on The Voice affected your role in the Mighty Pines?
The Voice changed me not just as a singer, but it made me a better performer. I didn’t even realize I had those strengths until I saw them on TV and saw people respond to them. Being on stage without a guitar for the first time in my life was hugely out of my comfort zone, and I’m much more comfortable with it now. If I learned anything, it’s how to engage and perform intentionally and really sell it and not be so afraid.
Will the band play your new protest song “Hey KDHX!” at Pines Fest?
People can expect that, yeah. It’s a super potent moment. Right now, it’s a tough time for the St. Louis music community. There is so much sadness and frustration, and the song is trying to express some of that.
Have fun at Bob Dylan!
Yeah! You know, in 2017, I read Chronicles for the first time. That blew my mind more than any of his albums actually. I consider it to be the best music writing by an actual artist I’ve ever read. I read it almost every year. No book of mine is more dog-eared and underlined than that one. And it was published on October 4 [the same date as Dylan's St. Louis concert]! So that carries so much for me because that is the most important moment of my Bob Dylan experience.
Pines Fest takes place Saturday, October 14. See jamopresents.com/event/pines-
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