The term "roots rock" may conjure ideas of bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, but on July 1st, 2023, a new album joined the roster and broke all the rules.

Saltwater Hank (Jeremy Pahl) is a Ts'msyen musician from Kxeen (Prince Rupert) on the coast of British Columbia. His album was recorded entirely in Sm'algya̱x, an endangered language with around 65 fluent speakers left. By recording a rocking Sm'algya̱x album, Saltwater Hank is hoping to prosper the language spoken by his village,

"Boldly, it's an Indigenous language album", he told CICK. "It wasn't until about 2017 where I started connecting with fluent speakers from back home and learning a little bit more. And then I landed a job with my village doing translation and transcription. And I, you know, had pretty basic knowledge of the language. I was working with a fluent speaking elder Huhu uŁk (or Theresa Lowther).

I didn't know the orthography. And I was kind of just tossed into the shark tank kind of thing and learned a lot very quickly."

The album called G̱al'üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi means bentwood box full of songs was recorded in a longhouse on the coast.

"I think a lot of people hold this stereotype that that traditional Indigenous music, you know, involves a drum and singers and that's it.

There was just so much more influence into like the country and rock and roll genres of today. You know, like Charlie Patton and, and Jimmy Hendrix and Buffy St. Marie and, you know, all these people that were bringing, you know, their cultural backgrounds and their knowledge of their own musical traditions into the music, through the melodies, through the rhythms and everything like that.

So I tried to bring that, I tried to bring that in this record too. You'll hear it in a lot of the there's that scooping I guess you could call it, that is a common characteristic of traditional Ts'msyen melodies."

CICK spoke with Saltwater Hank at the Midsummer Music Festival on July 1st. Listen to the interview in the link below.