Grunge, Metal, and Punk Rock from Conway, AR.
Consisting of Zane Berry (Bass), Cody Corner (Guitar & Throat), and Morgan Salsman (Drums).
-Interview- (6/13/24)
1. How did you get started with music and how did you develop your sound? How did the name "PooL" come about and is there any meaning to it?
I started pool in 2022 with two other dudes and we sucked, it was like if the melvin’s and sonic youth had a hate child. About a year later Morgan and I met in high school and decided we had two things in common; a hatred for societal norms, and hard rock. So after about 2 months of smoking weed and listening to Grunge albums we decided to jam together and make a demo tape. (We used garage band.) Morgan recorded the drums, while I did bass, vocals, and guitar. We sold it on CD at whatever shows we could get our hands on. Eventually, after growing tired with the lack of “fullness” in our live shows, we started our search for a bassist. We met Zane and instantly clicked. He learned all of our songs overnight and we officially became a three piece. When it comes to developing our sound we don’t really have it figured out yet. We’re really aiming for dark, heavy, and angry. Our name comes from the fact that my dog drowned in a PooL when I was in eighth grade. I sketched out some early designs of the logo and all my friends and I would spray paint it around town. I guess it just kinda stuck y’know?
2. What do you want people to take away from your music?
We really just want people to take us and our music at face value and be able to interpret it in their own ways. Have fun.
3. How would you describe your sound to the average listener?
Heavy, Grungy, and Groovy.(as fuck)
4. Who are three bands you’d like to tour with?
We really want to tour with this band Lacquerhead from Massachusetts. We’ve talked to them online for a couple months now and we really really like their energy and sound. Other than that we’d like to tour with FaceDancer and Pigsticker, two bands from Central Arkansas.
5. What's your thoughts on AI generated music?
It’s stupid. Music should be about authenticity. If someone else likes it so be it, just not something we find very interesting.
6. What’s your take on the current state of Rock/Metal?
We can’t stand the current state of mainstream honestly. Old bands are releasing albums for money, like Motley Crüe and Falling In Reverse. And when it comes to new arena rock like Sleeping with Sirens, we don’t like that either. But bands in the underground like The Garden are pretty sick. We also dig the legends who are still up there like Slipknot, Metallica, Tool, and Sepultura. The Rolling Stones are pretty dope too.
7. What’s the current music scene like there in Arkansas?
Overall it’s pretty average in our opinion but there is a lot of banger bands out there. Each city here kind of has a favorite genre it seems; but Metalcore and Alt/Indie rule. Tiny Towns, Zashed, Salon Blonde, Morbid Visions are some of the big names we can think of. The people are cool too. Lots of music lovers here who like to love the music which is good for everyone involved. Crazy pits and whatever, but some people can be too overly serious about it. We take our music serious but also believe it’s about meeting people, putting on a good show, and having fun as the bottom line.
8. What’s your take on the royalties that streaming services pay out to artists?
We think that streaming services (mainly spotify) underpay their artists. But it’s kind of a loophole because we love the fact that more people can listen a wider variety of music for a cheaper price, but in term makes it a little less rewarding since we only get around $4 per thousand streams. We hope that spotify and other services will start paying artists more and stop taking as much of the cut as they do. Really we just want things to be fair for everyone in question.
9. What’s next for PooL?
What’s next for us is definitely an album, we’ll be recording soon so that’s coming for sure. We just really want to keep writing more songs and keep consistently playing shows to as many people as we can.
10. Any shoutouts?
Shoutout to Jason Tedford for recording our EP. Facedancer, Pig Sticker, and Lacquerhead are all great, definitely check them out. Chris Terry is also a legend we love that guy. (Grandma Lolly is also cool as fuck)
