Salyu learnt piano from a young age, however abruptly stopped these lessons in junior high school.
[5] In 1998, while attending high school in outer Tokyo, Salyu was inspired to become a singer after watching a friend performing at a live house.
[7][8] Music producer Takeshi Kobayashi happened by chance to see a talking/singing audition video of Salyu, and 30 seconds into the tape, he was so impressed that he decided to meet her the next day.
[8][10] Kobayashi was at the time preparing a soundtrack to Shunji Iwai's online novel and later film, All About Lily Chou-Chou.
[11] Salyu's second solo single "Dialogue" was awarded the Space Shower Best New Artist Video for 2004.
[19] In 2006, Salyu reached a much greater audience through the Bank Band charity single "To U," in which she was a featured vocalist.
[24] Her 2007 singles "Liberty" and "Iris (Shiawase no Hako)" were her first works not to feature Kobayashi, instead were self-produced and co-written with Zentaro Watanabe.
[1][25] In late 2008, Salyu released her first greatest hits album, Merkmal, that marked 10 years since meeting Kobayashi.
Salyu originally considered herself more of a vocalist as opposed to a musician,[8] and early on in her career held a stance that she would be a singer who did not write her own material.
Her official website's profile, for example, only lists her musical releases and commercial tie-ups, as opposed to her background.
[38] Her older brother, Daisuke Mori (森大輔) was a former professional rugby union player, for the Toshiba Brave Lupus team.