The Slackers

Release funded through bigtun.es

Its been 5 years since the Slackers have released a full album of original music. Since that time, I've been asked numerous times "when is the new album coming out?" People have wondered if it would happen at all. Others speculated we were just going to be releasing cover tunes, or at best, a small collection of new tunes on the occasional 45 or EP.

But I think that the Slackers are a restless band. Individually and collectively, we are always writing new music and trying to find ways to top our old performances.

So for the last 2 years, we have been writing, rehearsing, editing, and recording new music. Trying to figure out where we are at musically as a band at this point in our lives. We have been sneaking in practices at sound checks and have had recording sessions in Brooklyn and out on the road in Portland, Oregon.

In trying to find our way towards a new album, we have worked with 3 producers; Vic Axelrod, Brian Dixon, and our own, Agent Jay. Each one of them has supervised the recording of 4 tunes.

Vic Axelrod, also known as 'Ticklah,' is well known as a musician, engineer, and producer for Antibalas, Sharon Jones, Easy Star, and Amy Winehouse. We recorded under his supervision at his "Don't Trip" studios in Brooklyn.

Brian Dixon is best known as the former guitar player of the Aggrolites, was one of the main architects of their sound, and is a respected producer out of Los Angeles. We were hoping to mix some of the West Coast 'dirty reggae' sound with some of the Slackers "Jamaican Rock N Roll" east coast sound.

And last but by no means the least, we had Agent Jay supervise 4 tunes. When he is not the guitar player for the Slackers, he is one of the busiest engineers and producers in the East Coast scene! Hopefully, you guys have heard of him! With Jay we recorded at Seaside Studios in Brooklyn with Mitch Raskin as engineer. Jay has also been in charge of making dubs of many of the tunes as well.

Together they have come up with several versions of 12 different original tunes and we will be forming them into 3 different 45s, an LP, a double LP, a CD, and a download package.

I'm really happy with the music that we have created this time around. There are references to Psychedelia, Roots Reggae, Ska, Garage Rock, Dub, Modal Jazz, Motown, Country...the list just goes on and on. I think at this point we don't feel like we have a lot of rules about what we can play and record, it just has to feel right for us. A friend of mine who heard some of the tunes said, "it sounds like you mixed together a whole bunch of my favorite albums and made a new style of music." Yes. Exactly.

Now we need your help to bring this music out into the world. We live in a post-record label age where bands are dependent upon the community that is our fans to help bring our music out into the world. Two years ago, we partnered with BIG TUNES and were able to bring out our last batch of music and hopefully, this year with your support we will be able to do so again.