Salva: Good friendship

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Good friendship is always nice, and when it leads to good music, it’s a bonus. Lead guitarist Stefan Gavik and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Per Malmberg have a long lasting friendship that goes way back to the early 1980’s. Then they were about seven or eight years old. Their meeting, however, had nothing to do with music. They were both on the same handball team and have been friends ever since. Growing up they found they shared a burning passion for music and formed their first band, Snigeln Välter, in their teens. The emphasis of the music in those days was put on hard rock and heavy metal.

In gymnasiet (the Swedish equivalent to high school) Malmberg met keyboard player Johan Lindqvist through mutual friends. They gelled instantly and Malmberg persuaded Lindqvist to join the band as well. In their late teens they felt it was time to try and make a living off of the music so they started playing cover-songs on the live circuit of south western Sweden (pubs, clubs, parties etc.) with great success. To this day they are still occasionally performing in this manner under the Stämband-moniker, and have been doing so since 1992.

But the Salva music project had been the brain-child of Malmberg for many years but it didn’t become a reality until 2003 when Gavik and Lindquist decided to form the band. As a three-piece with Malmberg handling the bass-playing, drum programming and percussion in addition to his regular instrument arsenal they started recording what was to become their debut album.

A Handful Of Earth was released  on the bands own Perand KB Records in the autumn of 2004 and instantly started getting favorable reviews throughout the prog rock community. Distribution deals were soon struck with Caerllysi Music in the UK, Progress Records in Sweden and Big Balloon Music in the US and sales took off from there.

After the debut, Salva released three albums, and recently the fifth album Off The Deep End was released. The new album consists of 9 tracks filled to the brim with Salva’s unique trademark sound combining symphonic prog, hard rock/metal and folk/singer-songwriter, and occasional folk tendencies.

The band’s influences range from the 70’s prog by Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd via hard rock/metal Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Rainbow to Scandinavian and Celtic folk mixed with pop sensibilities and even the odd splash of jazz for good measure.

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