īy early 1978 Salmon had joined The Exterminators replacing Mark Demetrius on lead vocals. After Salmon left in December 1977 they were renamed The Manikins. Salmon recruited his high school mates: Mark Betts on drums Dan Dare on bass guitar Neil Fernandez on guitar and Robert Porritt on vocals. His early influences include The Modern Lovers' self-titled album (1976), New York Dolls, and The Stooges. In August 1976 with Salmon on lead vocals and lead guitar, he formed Perth's first punk band, The Cheap Nasties. At the age of 19 he was a member of Troubled Waters, a cabaret covers band playing in a Fremantle strip club. By the age of 18 Salmon had started a fine arts course at a university but deferred after a year, 'I didn't really fit in with it'. He bought his first guitar, 'an acoustic steel string thing', for A$14 and taught himself to play ' Black Night' and ' Tobacco Road'.
He later recalled wanting to be a nuclear physicist until, at the age of 13, he heard 'heavy rock stuff' on the radio. Kim Leith Salmon was born in 1957 in the Western Australian port city of Bunbury. Tarantella Night Club in Fremantle, where Salmon resided and made his first live performances
