pdn: Greetings, Menton! How did you decide to name this act Saltillo?
Menton: Saltillo was the very small town in Mississippi I grew up in. I could go on with a really long answer to this , but more or less, it was a really hard time for me back then, and it is a time in my life that comes up in my thoughts a great deal. I was very much an outsider in every way going up, not only to my family but to the community. I found out a great deal about myself back then, things I am still unpacking. Saltillo was the first time I ever really just made the music I wanted to hear regardless of what I thought others wanted to hear. It seemed very fitting to relate all things about the project back to my personal life.
pdn: And how did the idea of putting together such an original musical style rise?
Menton: The need to manifest the internality of my own psyche. To place in the external world my own personal internal architecture, iconography, tropes and loci, connecting them together and seeing them in ways that my psyche does not naturally do outside of dreams, to the point that resolution was a forgone conclusion.
So I would say I am drawn more toward " phantasy " rather then " Fantasy ", in psychoanalytic terms when spelled with the "ph" it refers more to the unconscious content of the psyche. I see painting it as a way of communicating to the part of me I have no seeming connection with i.e. the unconscious self, the various archetypes and of course the " shadow aspect ".
pdn: When did you start making music and what was the first instrument you learned to play?
Menton: I started playing bass when I was about 12, but did not really take it seriously, drumming was my first major thing around the age of 13.
pdn: What about this project? Do you mix everything alone or are there other members?
Menton: Yeah, I do mix and produce the music myself. I do work with vocalist from time to time who bring a whole other thing to what I am doing. But I am the only member of Saltillo.
pdn: What are your main sources of inspiration?
Menton: My own internality, natural memory, and artificial memory. I try to draw on my own images and symbols, doing the best I can to tap into what C.G. Jung referred to as the collective unconscious. This is what I believe Hieronymus Bosch did but whether I achieve this goal or not is well... that's another story all together but that does not stop me from trying.
pdn: What are some other things you do, in parallel with Saltillo?
Menton: I am a painter as well, I work doing private commissions and some art gallery work, as well I do artwork for comic books, like silent hill, ZvR, and my own book Monocyte.
pdn: If you were to collaborate with any bands, who would you like them to be?
Menton: This is another hard one for me, as there are so many people I would love to work with. Tom Waits, Tricky, Elizabeth Fraser, Lisa Gerrard, PJ Harvey , David Eugene Edwardsm, Scott Hutchison , Charlyn Marie Marshall I could go on and on.
pdn: You have just released the new album called Monocyte this month! What are your plans for the near future? Will you be promoting the album with gigs or such?
Menton: I am working on a new Saltillo record as of now, and me and Sarah are looking into the idea of doing another Sunday Munich record, which we are both very excited about. I am also talking with Richard Walters about starting a project together.
pdn: Thank you so much! Any final words you'd like to add for your friends and fans?
http://twitter.com/#!/menton3
http://last.fm/music/Saltillo
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