Press Kit

This Southend-on-Sea based duo open a briefcase full of music, screaming, dancing, and selling themselves with all the dignity of a desperate high street salesman and his reprobate pub man companion out on day release.

Since their 2025 debut album, Asbestos Salesman's chaotic mix of 'sludgey', angular and satirical alternative music has received praise from crowds, indie blogs, and radio stations, including BBC Radio 6 (airing 'bagalamb', 'pigs slurping at the trough' and 'R2DTF' on shows like New Music Fix and the Introducing Mixtape). The pair open their briefcase full of 'asbestos' and fire off music with a manic enthusiasm that is equal parts infectious and mesmerising.

Their first album hit the airwaves in January 2025, and has been swiftly followed by their second album 'songs from the deadcut' in November 2025. Their gigs can be described as a variety show of eclectic post-punk, served to you by two charismatic reprobates, with the sleazy pizazz of an underground bingo ring.

Notable venues played so far:

Windmill Brixton, London
Ram Jam Records, London
Hot Box, Chelmsford
Chinnerys Southend, Southend-on-Sea
The Fickle Pickle Club, Southend-on-Sea
The Railway Southend, Southend-on-Sea
Ashfest Festival, Southminster
Lazy Days Festival, Southend-on-Sea
O2 Academy Islington, London

Notable Upcoming Gigs:

21st November - The Fabwick, London
8th January - The Stag's Head, London
30th January - Deptford Junction, London

Asbestos Salesman is comprised of Jess Siggins ‘The Salesman’ (left), and Joshua Hixson ‘The Bastard’ (right) - The duo make their 'sludge' by pouring their frustration, depression, unhinged energy and mania into their music.

THE SLUDGE

On hearing a single track you might be tempted to make assumptions about exactly what Asbestos Salesman's music is, but the more you listen, the more confused you can get.

Asbestos Salesman see their music or 'sludge' as a lens that focuses on the sleazy, dirty, uncomfortable, depraved, and depressed. The duo share a feeling of the cognitive dissonance of living through disparate inequality in the face of toxic positivity, hyper-individualism and extreme privilege, pointing at worsening deprivation, and portraying the unhinged mania of trying to stay sane in today's world (particularly in the UK). They aren't in control of the sludge, the sludge flows through them.

The pair recognises that there is an unreasonable amount of music out there already. Everyone wants their piece, everyone wants their moment in the spotlight. Asbestos Salesman don't want the spotlight, they're sucking on the cables when people aren't looking and stealing food from the buffet. The Salesman (Jess Siggins) and The Bastard (Joshua Hixson) are often confused, gross, uncool and obnoxious. They certainly aren't indie darlings or particularly intelligent or cultured. That being said, no-one is more enthusiastic about sludge than Asbestos Salesman.

Rather than pick a limiting style, Asbestos Salesman takes a filthy lens, and pretty ruthlessly, bluntly, squashes as many of their favourite genres, sounds and inspirations through it, until the sum of everything they make sounds like the sludge funnel waste pipe of modern culture and music.

Listening is like sinking into a sickly, viscous and vaguely toxic goo, but once your brain's defences wear down enough, its a very freeing experience... just don't think too hard about it.

Recognising that there is already so much good music out there in the near infinite media landscape, the pair would say they have just found themselves a dingy little nook to stake out their claim. In some ways if that media landscape were a city, away from the towering high rises and historical, beautiful architecture, Asbestos Salesman are in an alley splashing slop onto a dirty mirror and grinning at how it makes them look.

In other ways, the duo tries to be ambitious and careless enough to take on everything, not wanting to pigeon hole themselves into a sound, in this analogy they would rather (completely humanely) bless pigeons with LSD and watch chaos ensue as they cover the city in a mind-bending slurry. That or concoct some kind of colossal gelatinous sludge beast that swallows that beautiful and dreadful city...