Thursday, December 14, 2006

New Interview: Salim Nourallah

By Erin Rice

As promised, we (in the Ayn Rand tradition of "we") bring you Sorta and Salim Nourallah at the Granada Theater: Part 2 of 2.

How many interviews start with the words, "I was fortunate enough to," followed up with something like "catch up" or "talk to" and then some famous person's name? Well, damn it, I was definitely fortunate enough to get an interview with Salim Nourallah the other day, as well as sit in on his rehearsal with The Noise.

The interview took place at Salim's Pleasantry Lane Studio, which is not actually on Pleasantry Lane, but is pleasant nonetheless. Being the nervous music neophyte that I am, I cautiously walked up the driveway hoping that the sounds of guitar tuning were a clue that I was in the right place. As soon as I walked in the studio all that nervousness went away. Beyond being a creatively skilled musician, Salim Nourallah is a complete class act with a genuinely welcoming personality. While waiting for The Noise members to show up for rehearsal, Salim and I took a few minutes for the interview and to talk about everything he's been up to since the last time Pegasus News spoke with him. To go with three Dallas Observer music awards and an international re-release of Beautiful Noise, he has just come out with a new album, Live at Pleasantry Lane. The CD features Salim's final project with The Polaroids. To say the least, 2006 has been a very good year for Salim Nourallah.

Some of the topics we covered include:

• A Nourallah recap of 2006
• Being an internationally known artist
• The Live at Pleasantry Lane CD
• His studio work with other artists
• Favorite local venues
• The show at the Granada Theater on December 15

By the time we finished the interview, all the guys in The Noise had shown up and with Salim they jumped right in to rehearsal. After just one song, all I could think was, "I have got to tell everyone to see this show!" Find a video of the rehearsal below.

In Salim Nourallah's studio

Related stories

• Salim Nourallah featured on PopMatters (April 2, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Arts > Popular Music > Alternative / Indie
• Arts > Popular Music > Pop
• Arts > Popular Music > Rock

Comments

Erin Rice Verified

Cool fact: If you pay close attention to the video you will see that the painting over the keyboard is also the art on the cover of the Pleasantry Lane album. The original was painted by a friend of Salim's named J. Hawkins.

2 years, 11 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )