THE SLACKERS

AND YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW SKA…

This month I had the pleasure of shooting the shit with The Slackers infinitely talented sax-man, Dave Hillyard. The Slackers are headed for Alberta for a short provincial tour for the second time, thanks to KIAI Music Inc. Hillyard chewed my ear off about what they have been up to, what their plans are and their prior experience in the land of beef-eating faces.

BeatRoute: How would explain your sound to someone who has never witnessed or heard The Slackers?

Dave Hillyard: For people who haven’t heard us, the band is basically ska-reggae with some ’60s rock and some ’60s R&B. We try to mix song writing in terms of trying to be about stuff that has happened in our lives. We want them to last. We don’t just want it to be a gimmick of songs.

At the same time, there has got to be that live energy, so there’s that classic song writing with that live energy. We don’t sound like any other ska band that you’ve heard of. If you think you know ska, we don’t sound like that. We sounds better. Basically a lot of our music is just old school rock and roll. 

BR: This is the second time you have come to Alberta for a small set of tours. What is it like working with the KIAI Music bunch?

DH: The first time was a dream, I’ve got to say. They were the most organized, thoughtful… they were like the best crew we’ve ever worked with, so it was a real pleasure. Everything was thought out. Nothing ended up being overbearing, it was just really comfortable. It was so much easier than what we’re used to, it was really nice. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that though cause maybe they’ll get complacent, then.

I think the people last time put on a great bunch of shows and it was really fun. So, we play for a long time and we play a lot of songs. We play different songs every night. We’re doing two shows in Edmonton and we already made up the list. So there is going to be at least 13 different songs every night, but we play about 21 or something like that. Depends on how much time we have.

BR: You guys have been around for over 20 years, now. What’s the secret to your musical longevity?

DH: When we were younger, we used to get mad and then scream and shout, but now we tend to take a step back. We still have disagreements, but we’re all stubborn and refuse to give up. We have a little bit of popularity in a lot of places. We’ve never had a proper, chart-topping hit. We’ve never been hugely popular. I think the biggest club dates we’ve ever done were in Brazil with a little over 1,000 people. In New York, I think our record is just shy of 1,000. We’ve never gone past that anywhere.

We play festivals, but that’s different because they weren’t just there to see us. Once you get past 20,000 people you can’t really tell, because you can’t see ‘em all. We did a gig in LA, it was a free show and it was on a pier. It was part of a concert series so it was one of those things where you don’t know how many people are actually there.

We travel a lot, but it’s funny because we’re not superstars anywhere. We’ve had this consistent success, this slowly growing success… right now, we’re probably more popular than we have ever been. We’re a cult band, you know? It’s a good thing. I think that it’s one reason why we have longevity. I mean, The Grateful Dead never had a hit either.

By Lori Meyers