Post-punk band Local Bylaws have been busy in the studio and have just released their newest single, "Salty." Local Bylaws is made up of union workers Ginger Pennington, Matthew Hash, Alex Rocheleau, and Tyler Cull, who met in an online forum for musicians during the pandemic. They were a match made in heaven as the creative juices just kept flowing and have been making music ever since.
Local Bylaws' newest release is "Salty," their edgy and hardcore new single that will transport you to the early 2000s. "Salty" kicks off with beautiful and haunting guitar, along with gritty and expressive vocals. It starts with a more mellow feel but quickly picks up speed and energy as the listener is slammed with more electric guitar and a killer beat. Local Bylaws sing of being submerged but not "lost at sea" – the feeling of being so overwhelmed by someone but not in a way that feels like you're drowning. These piercing and impassioned lyrics flow beautifully with the vocalist.
When you think the song is about to end, the lyrics come back for one last powerful and enchanting hit to your soul. "Salty" ends the same way it starts, lessening up on instrumentation to highlight the backbone of the song. The alternative track is full of mesmerizing guitar and hard-hitting lyrics until the very end.
"Salty" is a must-hear for all fans of 2000s pop-punk. Local Bylaws really went all out with this one. Available on all streaming services now.
Welcome to BuzzMusic, Local Bylaws! What sparked the inspiration for this new song, "Salty"? What was the songwriting process like?
Thank you! The songwriting process is different for each song. Most of the time, we start with a riff from Alex, an idea from Matt, or a fully-realized structure from Tyler, which gets sent to Ginger, who writes the lyrics and vocal melody. In the case of "Salty," Ginger had written this song on acoustic guitar about two of the great loves of her life: a guy whose name means "ocean" and the city of LA (specifically Santa Monica). We weren't sure it could fit in with our punk aesthetic (the guys call it our "Disney princess" song), but Alex came up with these sweet guitar octaves, which launched it into "banger" territory.
What is something you want listeners to take away from "Salty"? What was your intent behind this?
There's a lot of insanity in our world right now. If we can give people three minutes of feeling good, we've done what we came to do. This song is a lot about following your own intuition rather than the noise outside you. Listening to your gut and moving toward what feels good leads to personal power and strength, especially after you make it to the other side of some rough terrain. And if everyone walked around feeling powerful and strong, we would have far fewer conflicts on this planet and a lot more love.
Did you come across any challenges in the process of writing and creating "Salty"?
Honestly, no! There's a vein of gold that, once tapped, the song just flows without effort. If we're working on a song and it's not flowing, we put it away and come back to it when it calls to us.
How do you feel that "Salty" compares to the songs/artists that inspire the members of Local Bylaws? What is something you would say is unique about your sound?
People often tell us that our songs take them back to more carefree days, and I think that's because our music reminds them of stuff they listened to in high school. Some may say it's sophomoric to create from a place of 90s and 2000s nostalgia, but to us, music should be about immersing oneself in a feeling or mood, and this is one of the genres that scratches that itch. We'd like to think that we are taking those old pop-punk tropes and building on them, with more technical instrumentality and more multi-faceted lyrics. Pop-punk for grownups, so to speak.
What's next for you?
In the next few months, we have a new single, a really cute music video for our song "Lead Vampire," an acoustic show in Sacramento, a full-band show in San Francisco with Jeremy Korkki on drums, and then it will be back to the studio to record our full-length album!