Q & A with Poet Singer Cara Salimando

A year ago Cara Salimando was a senior at Red Bank Regional High School.  She was a local kid that hung out in parking lots with her friends.  Today she is living in New York, working on a blossoming singing career, traveling to Paris to shoot a music video and touring the country with big name Indie singing stars.  Her first and highly anticipated album will be released shortly.  She is preparing to play at the famed South by Southwest festival and she is already talking about finding sponsors for her tour.  Not bad for a singer, essentially in her freshman year. 

And despite all of her success and promise and pace, Salimando still rolls through Red Bank and Little Silver twice a month to visit her parents and her hometown.  She was back in Jersey this weekend for the St. Jude’s Children's Hospital Benefit Show at Zebu in Freehold.  I caught up with Salimando at McKay Imaging on Monmouth Street.

Steve Rogers: What’s your story?

Cara Salimando: When I was much younger I had a voice teacher who encouraged me to begin writing songs and accompanying myself on piano.  She knew I liked poetry and when I brought it in and showed her, she said ‘these read like lyrics.’ That was when I was ten.  And ever since then, I’ve just been going…it just feels so great to be able to create something that is all your own…I don’t think there is a feeling that is comparable to that.

S.R.: When you find what you’re good at and it’s easy to do, is that when you’ve found your thing?

C.S.: Yeah, it did kinda feel like music was my niche. I was not one of those “weird” kids in elementary and middle school, but I also wasn’t one of those kids who was cool and popular and music was kinda like…music was my thing that kinda like nobody else was doing.  It made me feel like I was part of something even though it was mostly for myself.

S.R.: How important is it for an artist to be told they 're that good or that they're a genius when they're in their youth?

C.S.: I think it's very important to nurture young talent because they grow into it…it’s encouragement to grow into.  My parents definitely realized that I had a talent and were very pleased to see my utilizing it…as were my teachers.  I think my talent was more writing.  If anything, music was second to the poetry I was writing from a very, very young age.  But cultivating that is very important.  It’s very important to have people that believe in you.

S.R.: What effect has New Jersey had on your music?

C.S.: I think that New Jersey is a cultural hub.  We do have Bruce Springsteen and then we do have another million other poets and writers and artists that just come out of here, but everything is just over-shadowed right now by that Jersey Shore mentality that has recently come into light.  But I think it's important that people see that I’m from here so that people can see a different side of New Jersey and the Jersey Shore.

S.R: Do you watch Jersey Shore?

C.S.: Oh yeah…(big laugh)…of course I do.  I indulge in every guilty pleasure that comes with making fun of New Jersey, cause it’s good to be able to laugh at yourself…I’m not gonna be like look at me…see New Jersey is actually cool guys…cause ya know there’s two sides of it.

S.R.: What’s playing on your iPod these days?

C.S.: I listen to a pretty wide range of music.  Lately, I’ve been listening to this group called Dawes…they’re not so Americana…er, maybe they are…I don’t know what you’d call them…but they’re very raw and their album is beautiful.  And I listen to a lot of Chris Thile…he’s another Americana guy.  He’s in Nickelcreek.  And Fiona Apple is a staple for me always.

S.R.: How important are social media sites and blogs for performers today?

C.S.: It’s really important to establish yourself on social media sites.  I enjoy networking with people that like my music cause it’s nice to know that they’re there and I want them to know I appreciate them listening.  I think they deserve it and it keeps you on their radar. 

S.R.: How does it affect the rock persona, because a lot of performers of the past enjoyed the mystique of being distant?

C.S.: There’s definitely less mystique, but the genre of music I’m in…it’s almost kinda nicer to be perceived as a friend than to be this high and mighty artist creator type.  I don’t feel like I’m that pretentious.  I would rather communicate on a personal level and I’d rather be known on a personal level cause the music that I write is very personal to me and others.

SR.: You’ve played with Ingrid Michaelson and Mat Kearney and Martin Sexton, what’s the single best advice or most important lesson you’ve learned and from whom did you learn it?

C.S.: I guess the most interesting lesson to me, cause it’s very true, was from Martin Sexton.  I did a very short tour with him, opening for him, in the south.  My parents came to my last show and he was talking with us and he just said ‘the industry is just hurry up and wait.’

And as my parents are having a very interesting time watching me get up on my feet as an artist and a performer having just been signed to a label...it’s a lot of waiting, but when the waiting is over it’s very rush, rush, rush and then it’s a lot of waiting again.  It was just nice to know that someone knows that and can tell me, ‘yeah, it’s okay to hurry up and wait all the time.’

S.R.: How did you get involved with the St. Jude’s Children’ Hospital Benefit Show in Freehold?

C.S.: Zach, of the band The Vinyls and I have been friends since the days when I played the Internet Café.

S.R.: That’s not even there anymore.

C.S. (Laugh) Oh no…that was many years ago.  I was 13 when we met and he and his friend were very, very, very interested in what I was doing and they invited me to play shows with them a lot.  They sorta became like my ‘other band buddies.’  That was back when I didn’t have very many musician friends.  So we kept in touch and it’s kinda nice that he still calls me and asks me to do shows because I don’t get called by a lot of local people anymore because they assume I’m busy, but it’s nice to know that people are still thinking of me in this area cause this area means a lot to me.

S.R.: Do you come home often?

C.S.: Yeah.  I come home probably every other weekend.  It’s nice to get away from the city.

S.R.: What does the future look like?

C.S.: The near future looks like submitting my album finally and then getting some tour support money approved and then going on the road.  That’s what I would love to do.  And the future also looks like going to South by Southwest in March, which I’m really excited for.  It’s so much fun.

The very far future will hopefully still hold…well…no matter what there will always be music, but I hope I will be performing to a much larger audience and have reached some level of success so that I can be satisfied.

S.R.: Well, what does that mean, when will you be satisfied?

C.S.: Maybe never! (Laugh)  I don’t know.  I’m a simple person I think and I could be satisfied with a lot of things.  I also used to think that being satisfied meant being in a relationship, but now I think it’s about establishing yourself as a career oriented person.  I had a very long and good talk with a friend of mine, a producer, Dan Romer.  He worked on Ingrid Michaelson’s project and a bunch of artists that are in that scene.  We were talking and he said that, ‘you can’t really depend solely on a woman or a man or boy or a girl for your happiness cause work will also always be there and work will always make you feel like what you're doing is meaningful as long as you do it well and fully.' And I think that’s satisfying now.  I may not be satiated so easily cause I’m entering a phase where I want to work very, very hard and I’m up for the challenge.

S.R.: Last question, when you were growing up here, what was your favorite place to hangout?

C.S.: I wanna just say Riverside, but we were weird…me and my friends.  We always just hung out in parking lots.  I had more fun in parking lots as an eighth grader than I do now…(laugh) in the city.  It just goes to show, you can make fun out of anything.

Check out Salimando on the web at: www.carasalimando.com and check out a show when she comes back home to play again.  She’ll be in Asbury Park on February 15th at The Watermark.

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