Walter Salas-Humara is the chief songwriter for and a founding member of The Silos, a rock band formed in 1985 in New York City with Bob Rupe. The Silos were voted the Best New American Band in the Rolling Stone Critics Poll of 1987, and have released more than a dozen albums to date. As indicated by its name, which suggests both agrarian populism and impending apocalypse, the band shows influences of post-punk East Village experimentalism as well as the nascent country-rock revivalism that would return at decade's end. As described by Stephen Holden in the New York Times, "The band's austere style inflects the astringent twang of the Velvet Underground with the drone of R.E.M. and adds countryish echoes that recall Gram Parsons."

Salas-Humara has also recorded four solo records, numerous live albums and several one-offs with other songwriters, and has produced albums for other artists. He is of Cuban-American extraction and known for his occasional use of Spanish-language lyrics. He also works as a painter and visual artist.

Conceived in Havana, Cuba and born in New York City, Walter Salas-Humara grew up in South Florida with his two older brothers after his family relocated to Ft. Lauderdale when he was three. He began playing drums at age seven, performing with a series of prog-rock and disco bands throughout adolescence. A cross-country road trip before his senior year of high school, led directly to his taking up the guitar and beginning to write songs. He attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he studied visual arts and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. While in college, he co-founded the original version of the Vulgar Boatmen.

In 1982, he moved to New York to pursue a career as a visual artist, where he completed a year of graduate study in fine arts at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Salas-Humara formed the Silos in 1985 in New York City with Bob Rupe, a veteran of the South Florida music scene. The band also featured Mary Rowell, a classically trained violinist from Juilliard, and a floating rhythm section. The band released its initial album About Her Steps on its own Record Collect label that same year. Their second album, Cuba, was released two years later in 1987, for which they were voted Best New American Band in the Rolling Stone Critics Poll. The band's extensive use of violin and bright acoustic textures made Cuba an acknowledged influence on the burgeoning alt-country/No Depression scene several years later.

In 1990, the band released their major-label debut on RCA, simply called The Silos (more commonly known as The One with the Bird on the Cover), which also featured Amy Allison on vocals and J.D. Foster on bass. In conjunction with the album's release, the band appeared on Late Night with David Letterman. When they were dropped by RCA, Salas-Humara retained the Silos name. Rupe recorded with the bands House of Freaks, Gutterball and Sparklehorse, and was a member of Cracker from 1994 to 2000.

Relocating to Los Angeles in 1991, Salas-Humara reformed the Silos with bassist Tom Freund, singer-guitarist Manny Verzosa, drummer Darren Hess and sometimes guitarist Jon Dee Graham, all of whom hailed from Austin, Texas or later spent time there. This core band (augmented by various studio musicians) played on the albums Hasta la Victoria! (1992) and Susan Across the Ocean (1994), released in the U.S. on Austin label Watermelon Records. A third album, Heater (1998), was released on the Checkered Past label and featured guitarist Gary Sunshine after Verzosa died in an automobile accident while on tour. A series of electronica and trip-hop remixes of Heater was released on the German label Normal the same year under the name Cooler.

Opting for a more aggressive, stripped-down sound and a more experimental approach to the songwriting, Salas-Humara returned to New York and refashioned the Silos as a power trio with Drew Glackin on bass and lap steel guitar and Konrad Meissner on drums. This configuration appeared on Laser Beam Next Door (2001, Checkered Past), When the Telephone Rings (2004, Dualtone), Come on Like the Fast Lane (2007, Bloodshot) and the live This Highway Is a Circle that same year (Blue Rose). After Glackin's unexpected death in 2008, Salas-Humara and Meissner added Jason Victor on guitar, Rod Hohl on bass, and Bruce Martin on keyboard, and recorded the 2011 Silos record Florizona (Sonic Pyramid). Although Salas Humara moved to Flagstaff, Arizona in 2008, at least several other band members remained in the New York area circa 2020.^{[citation needed]}