Drag Illustrated Issue 113, September 2016 | Page 82

82 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com if it wasn’t for this song and this album I never would have gotten through this part of my life. Thanks so much for those inspirational meanings and that song.’ “It’s totally changed me for who I am,” the 42-year-old Salemi adds. “It’s like I am really doing the right thing; this is really a great thing that I’m doing. The audience connects with it in an emotional way and it really makes a difference.” Regardless, whether music or drag racing, Salemi is one of the fortunate few who has been able to turn a passion into a profession—twice. Hailing from Buffalo, New York, Salemi grew up in a large family, and as his father was often working, he spent a significant amount of time with his oldest brother, Jim. “He took me everywhere, and that included going to the races every weekend,” recalls Salemi, who credits his big brother with inspiring his love of racing. As Jim’s racing career progressed, so did Jon’s. Jim eventually went on to found G-Force Race Cars, a doorslammer fabrication shop in Tonawanda, New York, and Salemi went along for the ride. “My brothers and I were alongside Jim the whole time. We worked as crew, and at the shop, and it all evolved to where I’m at now,” says Salemi, in reference to how he began his own successful business as a tuning consultant and crew chief extraordinaire at Resolution Racing Services in Buffalo. In the late ‘80s, Jim partnered with Mike Stawicki of MSR Performance and the two started Pro Mod racing together. This piqued Salemi’s interest, and when he graduated from school in the early ‘90s, he became more serious about his own future in the industry. “Jim and Mike, they laid the brick work for me to walk on and be able to do things the right way. I owe so much to them,” he states, grateful at having been brought up by such positive influencers. “Now, I’m the younger guy comparatively trying to keep everything going, and their wisdom and experience speaks worlds for me.” Meanwhile, Salemi was still playing with Snapcase, often embarking on tours that took them across America and sometimes through Australia, Europe and Japan. It made for a hectic schedule, juggling two major pursuits of power and speed. “Most of the guys didn’t do anything besides the band,” he says. “But I was always doing race car stuff when we were doing the band. Like we get home from a tour, the next morning I’d be at the shop working at race car stuff.” Still, fairly early in his racing career, Salemi chose to leave home, spending five years working for supercharger manufacturer DMPE in Stevensville, Michigan. With the knowledge gathered there, he went off on his own to pursue tuning professionally, beginning in 2005 with a Top Issue 113 PREVIOUS PAGE PHOTO: IAN TOCHER Inside the Town Ballroom, though, a carefully restored downtown concert venue that once hosted the likes of Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, Snapcase is about to bring the heat. The hometown quintet will be celebrating its 25th anniversary with a one-off reunion show before a sold-out crowd of more than 1,500 enthusiastic hardcore punk fans. “Our music is super aggressive. To the general public I’ve always explained it being like heavy metal with a conscience,” says noted Pro Mod crew chief and tuner Jon Salemi, who alongside Frank Vicario, provides the rhythm half of a frenzied, two-pronged guitar attack for Snapcase. Singer and lone original member Daryl Taberski, bassist Dustin Perry and drummer Tim Redmond complete the band’s lasting roster, which originally came together in 1991 with Salemi joining less than a year later. Until January 2005 when the band officially retired, Snapcase played up to 200 gigs a year, often touring with the likes of the Deftones or Papa Roach and headlining Van’s Warped Tours in 1997, ’98 and 2000. “We tried to have our lyrics and Snapcase be very super-positive minded and uplifting, self motivating. But the tough thing for a lot of people is to see or hear that through the music because the music is so aggressive,” Salemi realizes. “For a normal person it’s so angry, but when you sit down and read the words, people are like, ‘Oh man, that’s not anything like it sounds.’ Most people thought we played that ‘Kill your mother, kill your father’ music, and you got to the point where you just agreed, but it’s so much more than that. I can’t tell you the countless times that kids came up at our shows and would say, ‘Man