S1: In November of 1969 , a small group of 20 San Diego State students joined together and formed KCR radio.
S2: From take two.
S3: Welcome to Basin beats. KCR Radio's deep dive into the San Diego sound. Each week we bring you live sets and raw conversations with the local artists , pushing boundaries and turning up the volume on the city's underground music scene. Slacker plugs in this week , fueling the basement with the raw indie punk spirit. Join us as they perform a live set from our studio and your radio , and stick around for a 1 to 1 interview with the band. Now on to their performance.
S4: This is our first song. Um , we're slacker and , uh , this song is on Spotify. Slacker.
S5: I don't want to dress up in embarrassing myself that they stole from my work class , but I can we just do the story on my phone? Do you gotta rob me to you? I gotta eat , I gotta live. I think it's time to cook something. There is a fast restaurant at the top of the skyscraper office across from the head. I think it's time to cut it out. We just tried to stop me on the board. Do you gotta rob me to help? I gotta eat , I gotta live. I think it's time to put some other ones. Down. Down on. My da da da da da da da. Da. Da. He's trying to slap me on my boobs. He's gotta rob me to live I gotta eat , I gotta live. I think it's time to cook some other one. Yeah.
S4: Yeah.
S6: That one's called Velvet Worms. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. And this next one is also on Spotify.
S5: Naked on a carpet , puking up regret. Like a faucet pouring on my age for issues that I never saw comfortable in my tar pit of toxic spin. I watch that fan. I'm stuck in a dream where you move with more grace and it seems. I gotta stop giving it to you. Giving it to you. Oh. Naked on a carpet , puking up regret like a faucet foreign. All my hatred for issues that I never saw come through in my tar pit. Her toxic spit I watch that fan. I'm stuck in a dream where you were with more grace than you'd seen. I gotta stop giving it to you. Giving it to you. I'm stuck in a dream. Where you were with my Graceland team. I got a song giving it to you. Giving it to you. Oh. It again. Rejected at the ATM. Round like clockwork. At this time of year. I wish I could be anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Everywhere by. At least until I figure out what I'm doing to myself. I wish I could be anywhere but here. Wrinkles up his face. He don't like the sound. It starts to make. It didn't. It was. If it didn't , it could never be. Who cares? Whatever. Keep moving on to anywhere. Everybody. Everywhere. I guess. At least until I figure out what I'm doing to myself. I wish I could be anywhere but here. Anywhere. But he's. Everywhere. I guess. At least until I figure out what I'm doing to myself. I wish I could be anywhere but here.
S4: Thank you , thank you. This next one is called Tinted Windows.
S5: Black tire tracks on rocky fender. Thorns cloaked in madness. Behind veils of your brand of wine. Shaking shadows , feigning innocence. Sharks with sunglasses swim like they're just a shark. You run every red light as long as they don't see you. Shoot as many as you want. As long as the gun is silent. It's pretty easy to step on a couple nuts when all the seals are written to those who. I'd rather hate you for who you are. And fall in love with a shadow sitting in the cold. Frogs running down the highway. And they wind blasting me. Unleashes. Stinging my eyes. Phantom pheromones track heaven. They I stand being a Samaritan. You run every red light. As long as they don't see you fail as many as you want , as long as they got inside. And it's pretty easy to step on a couple. That's when all this is a random pseudo solar wind. I'd rather hate you for you. Than fall in love with a shadow. Sitting in a cold. Blood. Tinted windows are dishonest. The drivers tinted windows are made for dishonest drivers.
S4: Thank you , thank you , thank you. Okay , we got one more. Thank you so much. Basement beats. This was awesome. Love it. Uh , this next one is called Skin scratch.
S5: An award of herself. With. Abide. With. Abide. No more. Fly. As high as a kite. The dried up stream is a bleach big phosphoric street. Was as bleak. As I give Back to your feet. When you beat me up against the wall. Let's fight it out for me. Ooh! I don't know what to do. You burn my fingers in the boiling teeth for every stripe. Ooh , I only gotta leave. The fire. Of you. Copulation. Protects me for. The impotent realization. And my skin screams. When your nails run too deep. But it still feels like bloodletting , only excelling. When you beat me up against the wall. But try it out for me. I don't know what to do. Burns my fingers in the boiling teeth for every stride. You only got a few. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Me up against the wall. It's right out for me. Oh , I don't know what to do. You burned my fingers in the boiling teeth for every strike. Oh , only got a few. Da da da da da da da da da. Da da da da da da da da da da da. Ooh. Ooh ooh ooh. Ooh ooh ooh ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.
S7: Ooh.
S4: Thank you. Thank you.
S5: Basement beach.
S4: It's so fun.
S8: Welcome back to Basement Beats with KCRW. I'm Adam , and today I am joined by slacker. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves individually and your preferred instrument?
S9: I'm Avery and I play the bass.
S4: I'm JP. I play guitar. I'm sam , I play the drums. Awesome.
S8: Awesome. Well , tell me , guys , when did this slacker journey start of yours? Like , how did you three groovy souls come to cross paths with each other?
S10: I met JP and we were both transferred to Sdsu , and we were at the we were at a KCR general meeting. Well , JP was looking for people who were into music and I was just looking for like people to fill my void. And I saw him wearing a Nirvana shirt. It was an In Utero shirt. And I walked up and was like , that's my favorite album. Then JP was like , I don't really listen to them. And then I then asked me if I like music and I said , yes , I play drums. And then we started jamming. Awesome.
S8: Awesome. Yeah.
S10: Yeah.
S4: And then Sam was wearing , I think , a LED Zeppelin shirt.
S10: Oh , probably.
S4: No , no. You had a LED Zeppelin , uh , wallpaper on your phone. Oh.
S10: Oh.
S9: So cute together. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. Um. And I was like , that used to be my favorite band. And then that's how the two of us met. And then we kind of had a bunch of people , like , come in and out of the band for , like , I don't know , like a couple months or like , more than that.
S10: Like , it was like a year.
S4: Yeah , like a year. Like they were like , there was a point where there were six people in the band , and , um , four of them were not Avery. And , uh. But then we started playing with another Avery. Avery Cochran. Yes. And , uh.
S10: Take it away.
S9: And I met these fine boys in an Avery Cochran rehearsal , and they were the sweetest little fellows. And , uh , JP had a couple of original songs , and he was like , oh , nice. We need to record this with Mike B , shout out Mike B! Uh , and so I was going to record with them , and then we did a little rehearsal of a couple of songs , and I was like , these go insanely hard. And so , uh , I was planning on not being in the band , but we ended up rehearsing so much and like creating these songs together and playing shows together , and then it just kind of like fell into place and I became the third slacker. And now here we are with my little Kurt Cobain and my little Sammy boy. Couldn't be happier.
S8: Also , speaking of Kurt Cobain , I have to say your guys's aesthetic is very like Nirvana , but also like , I don't know , like they're saying earlier before the interview. Boy genius. The suits , the ties , sometimes the glasses. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you. Uh , did any band or any specific people inspire the look , like. Like Kurt Cobain?
S4: Or for me , talking heads. Are.
S8: Are.
S4: The suits for , uh , the with the giant suit. Mm. I really like that. Well , I personally just really like talking heads. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. And I think , like , our own little spin on the suits is that we're slacker. But this is the day job. This is like , what we would have to wear if we have to go through our whole , like , 9 to 5 and everything. So we want to dress up like this to maybe.
S4: Kind of way. We don't have to wear our suits. Exactly.
S9: Exactly. We do it now so we don't have to do it later.
S8: Well , speaking of , uh , inspirations , do you guys have any musical inspirations either as , like , bands as a whole or even a specific guitarist or drummers even?
S10: Um , I'm a big fan of Elvin Jones , and he I just see I don't even remember the name. I have the album , but it's the first song on the album. It's like an 11 minute song and it's pretty much just a crazy , like drum solo. And it's like my favorite drum thing ever. But then also like Dave Grohl , it just hits the heart. They had to tape his they had to tape his cymbal stands down on stages because he hit so hard. It was it was awesome. Oh , yeah. So those are my two. Vegas Joe Morello was the reason I started playing drums. So his take five solo. Nice.
S8: Nice. Yes.
S10: Yes.
S4: Would you say for a year.
S9: I mean , honestly , I have so many inspirations from so many areas , but I would just say my biggest genre inspiration is funk. So I kind of take a lot of like my lines from funk melodies , but I kind of incorporate more of like , a smooth , less like choppy style because I'm a classically trained bass player on upright , so I kind of take like from both worlds and turn it into like smooth but funky basslines. I really like flea. Um , and I have a couple other , like smaller , like there's a bassist called Vincent Garcia. He's like one of my favorite of all time , and he's super funky , so I'm just trying to get there. Okay.
S8: Okay.
S4: My , I , I really like , uh , King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard. Yeah , I really like them. Just as a band. Totally as a whole thing. But , um , I started off , like , playing guitar because I liked LED Zeppelin , so , like , I just learned every LED Zeppelin song there was. And , like , Jimmy Page was pretty much like my blueprint when I first was starting. But then , like , I wanted to be a musician and not just like a guitar player who plays LED Zeppelin. Yeah. Um , and like , in terms of songwriting , like Adrian Linker , Big Thief , like all I mean , she's just a genius. Yeah. Even the songs that don't make any sense , it all makes sense.
S8: Like , it's just like , uh , flowery and , like , quirky type of , like , lyrics and language. Yeah , yeah.
S4: But it's also something you can , like , get into , and it's heavy.
S8: That actually ties into another question of mine. I wanted to ask you about your guys's lyrics. Um , I've noticed that , like , when I was doing my research , all of your guys lyrics are so , like , playful and quirky , but can also get , like , vulnerable and gritty at the same time. Like in your song Tinted Windows , you guys are talking about sharks with sunglasses. But but then in like giving it to you , you're talking about a guy throwing up on a carpet , contemplating his issues , and who's ending up comfortable in his tar pit of toxic spit. Like , how do you guys tap into these different emotional states while writing and also , like , make it into that flowery , like , just cool lyrics?
S4: Oh thank you. I the I don't really try to do any kind of thing like I don't go into a song trying to write something specific. Mhm.
S8: Could you like , also walk me through your , uh , mental state while writing Velvet Worms? Uh , yeah. Like , uh , at least in my interpretation of it was , um , like taking kind of revenge on someone who , like , keeps. Keeps you down. Like , in order to get themselves up. And then like the velvet worms. And in order to live , you decide. I think it's time to eat some velvet worms. Yeah , yeah , yeah. How do you interpret it?
S4: Well , I wrote that angrily because , like , it was a it was just my. It's like , that's more like of a political song or it's like more of , like a criticism of capitalism. Yeah.
S8: Yeah. I go to very like , eat the rich vibe. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. Well , that.
S4: Was kind of that because. Because a velvet worm is a real animal. And like everything I say in that song that it does is just what it does. And I thought it was interesting that like an animal that is like the name like velvet is a is a fabric associated with wealth. And it's like a worm , though , and the worm is like wrapped itself in like this luxury. And it did it by doing something that you would only see from like a spider , which is like , not so like , yeah , you know , um , but like the. Yeah , not so glamorous. But , um , I was just really upset and I didn't know how to communicate it , but then I remembered that there's an animal called a velvet worm , and I was like , I feel like there's an analogy there.
S8: When people think of slack or what message or , you know , like vibe. Do you guys want , like to appear in their heads dirty?
S10: We have. Yeah. Grimy slime. Deplorable.
S4: Deplorable. Yeah.
S10: Yeah. We discussed.
S4: This in.
S10: Every single rehearsal. We discussed this at length and it's always something different. Yeah. Like , what do we want to take off? Yeah.
S4: It's always that is that is tough because of what you're asking about. Like the difference between velvet worms and like a Puzzled. Yeah , or something like that. We. We couldn't decide on a genre of music because , like , if you as soon as you do a genre or whatever , now you're confined. Yeah. So like , we did not come up with this word. My hometown , uh , BF's dad invented the term scrap scrap. Yeah. And , uh , you know , it's up to interpretation. Yeah , but , like , I feel like we all get a similar vibe. Mhm. Um , so we just call it scrap rock. Nice.
S8: Nice. It leaves it open up to interpretation from the audience. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. Scrappy though. Yeah. Really?
S8: Think about it. Yeah. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. It goes back to what he was saying about songwriting , where like , if you try and create like a general niche for yourself , you're putting yourself in a box. So like , we don't have necessarily like a specific vision , but I think the vision just kind of creates itself like as we've been a band and as we've played the pictures that get taken of us , the suits and everything. It all has kind of naturally fallen into place. And as we continue , I feel like we're creating kind of our own , sort of like sort of gritty and like , I don't know , like weird ish , abstract kind of dirtiness. And that's what we like.
S8: I can't just cannot wait to like , see how you guys just take on the world , honestly.
S11: KCR with another heavy hit set.
S3: That's a wrap on this week's Basement Beats. I'm your host Conor O'Toole and the interview was done by Adam Acosta. Sami Thomas is our producer. Rudy Shroff and Nolan Conrad are recording , mixing and mastering engineers. Kayla Parra is our audio editor and sound designer. The theme is created by Muthoni. Special thanks to Leah Isola on our production team. If you like what you heard , find the full session interview on our website KCRW Edu or follow us on our socials at Bassman to see you next week with more local music and fresh voices.
