going full slacker

According to Child Bite at Death By Audio this weekend, “Total Slacker are as cute as buttons,” blending together not only the most bud-heavy of beach-pop jams but the badass appeal of just being in a band and having the best time with each other. Whether they’re tearing apart the stage at Shea Stadium or hot-boxing their spray painted van, Emily, Tucker and Ross are just all-around awesome folk that want to show you how much fun it is to do what you love. After a night at the Cake Shop, we headed back to my apartment with some pals to take part in recreational activities as well as record Total Slacker’s first interview. Video accompaniment coming in the near future. Also of note and something I’ll elaborate more on later, FMLY RCRDS is hosting Total Slacker’s initial demos for free download while cassette duties will be handled by our homies over at Mirror Universe Tapes. More on that in the interview…

Total Slacker – These Condos Don’t Belong

FMLY: Hey slackers, so where are ya’ll from?

Total Slacker: [Emily:] Well, Ross and I are from Santa Fe and Tucker is from Salt Lake City. I came here a few years ago for school and then I stopped going to school…to play in Total Slacker! [Ross:] Aw, is that why? I thought you were just takin’ a break. [Emily:] Ha, yeah, an extended break. You know.

And how long have you been playing together?

[Tucker:] Emily and I have been writing songs and playing for about five months and then we met Ross – how long has it been – but we were totally on the same plain. It really hasn’t been that much time. But things have been moving really quickly, I think we have a really nice energy of songs that just come together naturally. This is one of the first things I’ve been a part of something musically where nothing is being forced. It’s just us hangin’ out, they went to high school together, and we have some really cool ideas. [Ross:] Exactly!

Some of your songs may be about real folks, some untrue facts and others just good-hearted fun. What’s the process of writing a tune like?

[Ross:] Like, I asked the same thing when I first started jammin’. I was like, “where did this ‘Psychic Mesa’ thing come from?” and they were like, “oh, Emily, tell the story!” So you know, it’s just like childhood stories or little interpretations of what they see. Just like, “all these condo dudes, man. Gotta make a song about the condo dudes.” [Tucker:] That’s a big one! [Ross:] And then one night we were jammin’ and then we were like, “Lets go get some tacos!” [Tucker:] Yeah, we were way totaled one night and we went back to the rehearsal space and we were just working on some of the songs we had written and we had our first show coming up at a loft party and we came back really hungry and just started singing this song about how we wanted tacos but it came out as TACO PEOPLE so I guess it’s just a song about….culture. Yeah.

Total Slacker – Taco People

So you’ve made it clear that Total Slacker is a direct reference to the Richard Linklater film, but where does the ‘Total’ come from? Total Recall?

[Emily:] Well we couldn’t totally just ripoff the movie, and Total Slacker is already a known phrase that people use – it’s already in the collective conscious. [Tucker:] That and the extreme of something so laid back. You know, like the antithesis of what the slacker really is. People always use that phrase to describe others that aren’t really doing anything with their lives, but there’s nothing really wrong with that. As long as your enjoying it and it feels natural to you, enjoy life.

It’s hard to talk about the Brooklyn music scene without getting avant garde with visuals, free form dance and what have you…thinking about adapting anything else to the live experience aside from music?

[Ross:] There’s a little bit of, “hey man, I got this great idea for a movie scene. wouldn’t that be funny if…?” [Tucker:] There this narrative in the songs because each one seems to be about someone or someplace. We just want to go for whatever is in these science-fictional and totally true songs. What did you think about the way we played “Crystal Necklace” tonight? When you originally jammed with us on drums it had a totally different ending and now it has this long beautiful –

Total Slacker – Crystal Necklace

Transition into the “Taco People” song! Yeah man, I thought it was fucking awesome. Like pretty epic. My only comment would be to turn the reverb allllll the way

[Tucker:] Yeah, someone got mad at me at one of the last shows for having too much reverb. [everyone:] Have your fucking reverb! [Ross:] I feel like I turned you guys into a fucking jam band, ha.

Sounds like you need more pedals.

[Tucker:] It can happen one day, I’m curious about textures and all that ethereal post-modern stuff. But at the same time I love the simplicity of exploring all of one dimension so you get all that you can from the many mini-dimensions instead of mixing all these things and trying to tell people what your sound is at that point.

emily (total slacker) & jose (the beets)

What bands in the area do you feel like you’re getting on with musically?

[Tucker:] Well we’re hanging out with the Beets and they just let us open for them at Shea Stadium. There seems to be this mutual kind of bond for the feelings and sounds that we’re trying to create. We really look up to what they do. [Everyone:] Gotta give Frat Dad props and Fluffy Lumbers. 201 DAWG! [Tucker:] We’re also really into Beach Fossils, in the Brooklyn area everyone is really getting into them, they’re really great guys and super friendly. We’re talking about playing with them sometime soon, they’re just really cool.

Yo Ross, how long have you been drawing for? These tees are like victorian meets renaissance and early enlightenment shit.

[Ross:] Well I guess I’ve been doodling forever. I guess I went to art school for a year or two. But I’m a doodler. [Tucker:] Doodling talented. Ross just comes up with these really weird characters with eyeballs on their stomachs or really fluffy feathers everywhere. Where do these come from!? [Ross:] Just these monster dudes coming and hanging out.

Have you picked an onstage beer of choice?

[Tucker:] Well I don’t think it has happened so much with beer, but with weed. I didn’t start smoking weed until about seven months and I think part of that was just being around all of these awesome bands and hearing how it was connected to the music that they make. I don’t know. What about you guys? [Emily:] We’re sort of on a beer break. Only want to drink wine now…

Anything rad coming up?

We’re releasing a tape with Mirror Universe that will probably come out early next year, it’s called Thrashin which is a great movie about rival skateboard gangs in Los Angeles. We just want to record one more song for it, “Let’s Go Back To Daycare.”

Total Slacker will be playing at Shea Stadium on December 9 with Beach Fossils, Frat Dad and FMLY’s Philip Seymour Hoffman.