We spoke with Rand, Josh, and Ramsey of Chicago band The Slaps during SXSW 2022 ahead of the release of their latest album Tomato Tree. The interview was conducted by DJ Wes Simms before their show at Lamberts for the Field Booking X Local Universe showcase.
This Interview has been edited minimally for clarity.
KVRX
Hello. Check, check, check.
We’re here with The Slaps outside of Lamberts for their final showcase of South by. How has the week been so far? Any good shows? Any notable moments?
Rand
Like, good shows of ours? Yes. Well, yesterday was nice. It was a bit kooky. We were feeling pretty low on energy. The sun, it was hot, and it got the best of me. I didn't drink enough water for sure. So that was tough.
Ramsey
Our Spiderhouse show was good.
Rand
Yes, we've been running around, going to the late night shows, and we're not really sleeping as much as we should, but, um, we're taking it easy as much as possible.
KVRX
So, I just want to get into the music. Something I noticed that you guys do sometimes is refer back to previous songs or other lyrics. Like, really self-referential, and the example that comes to mind is on the new song, “Around”, there's a line that says, ‘that's why I will have been being around’.
I think I heard in an interview with another artist, somebody said they thought of that as, like, building a canon for your own music, and I thought that was really cool. I was wondering if you guys have a particular reason for doing that or if it just kind of happens naturally.
Josh
Pretty much just like, to live in our own little… lyrical framework at times is helpful. We do it in a couple of other songs too.
KVRX
‘Watch the dogs and the kids down the block move the snow.’
Ramsey
Yeah.
Rand
Neighborhood themes are steady. Somebody also pointed out we use the neighborhood/neighbors motif. I don't know, it's just… it's a lot like melody and harmony. Like, sometimes it just gets recycled, and beats get recycled. I think every element of music can be used again and again. And that's kind of like the folk nature of our music.
Josh
Just relating, you know, to yourself is a really important thing to do.
Rand
Yeah, it's a part of self-reflection. Like, we self-reflect through music. So, part of understanding who we are and where we want to… where we want our music to go.
Ramsey
Fun little easter eggs for the dedicated listener. If you actually listened to all of it.
KVRX
Do you feel like you made any conscious changes to your approach for this album as opposed to your older music? And, um, do you like to go into the studio with everything all ready to go, or do you like to kind of find it when you're recording?
Rand
Good question.
Ramsey
It is a good question. I think this record, studio minded, was not that focused in that, it's not like ‘we need to make an album. Let's write a bunch of songs. This is what we're thinking about.’ We just like had all these songs after years of writing and recording.
Rand
Some of the songs were as old as four years old. And um, speaking on this past recording is hard because it was two years ago when the pandemic first started, and it was kind of just a flash almost. It was like pretty intense socially… like, outside of the studio, you know?
Ramsey
I think strictly just recording wise, it was the first time we were in like a more official studio. We did it at Pallet Sound in Chicago. And so that was new. Just like the access to different mics and like Pro-Tools type stuff was new, but no conscious conceptual difference.
Josh
It was a smattering. Yeah.
Rand
Yeah. Really just like pouring out our ideas which are never really that linear. Uh, and I think that's what makes it special in my opinion. It's like we don't have one genre, really. We come from different musical backgrounds, and we're not focused on making one thing all the time.
Josh
A lot of our songs are sort of just versions of the song itself, like, we play them all different ways. So doing a recording with these songs, it's kind of like, uh, here's an idea of completion, you know?
KVRX
Cool. Yeah. I think what you said about it being non-linear is interesting because I was going to ask about whether or not you have a jazz background or something because like the chord progressions are all really… like there's so many chords and I feel like I would get kind of lost in that.
But it makes for way more interesting chord progressions. And I think that it's, like, exactly what you said, it’s kind of nonlinear song structure. Do you want to speak on that at all?
Rand
No jazz background. I’ve taken a few lessons and like played with other musicians that have taught me some chord formations and a little bit of style, like different styles of guitar playing. But mostly it's just playing by ear and sounding out chords that sound good.
KVRX
Well, like you said, the songs, you can play them a bunch of different ways so like, do you think touring and playing live has affected how you want to record songs or how you might want to play them live later? You know, you record them a certain way and you're like, “OK, maybe we won't play it exactly this way when we play the show.” Or… do you want them to kind of live in different spaces?
Josh
Uh, we usually try it a lot of different ways before we record it. We write a lot. We pretty much play what we're writing when we're playing live. And I don't know, we like collaborating on things… adding other passages, you know, taking them away, so…
Ramsey
I think a lot of these songs on this upcoming record, Tomato Tree, because they were sort of finished and recorded during the pandemic, we didn't get to play them live, so we sort of run into that problem of trying to figure out how to play these… Like we'll have these finished, quote unquote ‘finished’ things that are recorded, and we've been trying to play them live and we’re like ‘Oh, it doesn’t sound as full or doesn't sound like the record’. So trying to get away from that and just like…
Rand
The new stuff that we've been working on in the past few months, we're really focusing on just using our instruments… I mean, just like bass, just guitar, just drums, or sampler. There's a lot of layers on this new album that can't always be mirrored perfectly live, but we try to supplement those old songs… or not old songs, they’re new songs. In my head they're old songs because we have this new stuff coming up.
Ramsey
It's nice to be able to play the songs a bunch live before you even think about going into the studio, because then you can be like, ‘alright, this is about as full as we can get it live. Does it need an overdub? Does it need a lead guitar part? Does it need keys in the br-,’ or just like whatever. We get to feel what works, what part works, what parts don't work, how people respond to them.
KVRX
You guys have a lot of like stripped back songs, or like, some of the older stuff, I feel like it's just guitar and vocals. Did somebody ever bring a song to the table where you're like, ‘ooh, I really want to play on this.’ And then it’s like, ‘wait, no. That's good how it is. Let's just leave it bare bones.”
Josh
We do that. We do that all the time. Yeah.
Rand
Yeah, there's going to be… Yeah, we do that.
KVRX
Cool. Have you ever found it difficult to fill stuff out as a three piece playing live? ‘Cause I feel like if I was the only guitar player in the band, I would be like, ‘I have to keep myself really busy up there’, or, you know, if you drop out, people are going to notice. How do you keep that going?
Ramsey
(Laughing)
We’ve got two guitars now, Rand plays a twelve-string. So it's like…
Rand
But that is true. Sometimes that feeling is omnipresent when we're, uh, you know… playing guitar, I think that's why I choose a lot of chords in songwriting, especially for this setup, to try and fill that space. But now we're kind of all understanding that leaving space is a fine thing to do. And that, like, letting the waves resonate can be as effective as playing a bunch of chords and trying to fill up space.
Josh
It's good to, like, uh... catch each other. Yeah.
KVRX
Well, what song are you guys most excited for people to hear on the album that hasn't come out yet?
Josh
‘Autotelic’.
Ramsey
(Laughing)
Yeah, ‘Autotelic’ probably. Yeah, I like ‘Strawberry’.
Rand
‘Strawberry’ is cool.
(Laughing)
I don’t know, all of them are cool.
Josh
A lot of it's out if you can, like, piece it together. We've seen some fans come up and, like, have pieced together more than half the album because of the different sessions we've done, so, yeah.
KVRX
Audiotree…
Ramsey
Yeah. But yeah, ‘Strawberry’ and ‘Autotelic’ are cool.
KVRX
What about the album cover? Who made the album cover?
Rand
Leo Horton made the album cover, and he lives in Providence, Rhode Island? Yeah, currently as of today, March 19th, 2022. And he attends Rhode Island School of Design. Is that what the school is called? Yeah, and we found out about him through Lunar Vacation, and we sent him the record and he listened to it, and he did that whole process, sketched what he felt represented the album, and we love the world that he's built. Seriously. Yeah, it's pretty spot on.
Josh
The first time we worked with a visual artist outside of our own practices, like ourselves. So we feel pretty lucky.
KVRX
Yeah. And the first time you're releasing something on vinyl? Yeah, so how does it… I feel like it's so cool. Do you have copies of it yet?
Ramsey
We have the test pressings. We don't have the physic-... we haven't been like, ‘Yes!’, because it hasn't been completed yet.
KVRX
I feel like it's so cool. You know, not only do you get the album cover, like also the… you know, maybe there's an insert or at least the back cover, too.
Rand
Yeah, there's an insert.
Josh
There's a lot.
Ramsey
It’s Cool. I mean, we have the sleeves. We have the inserts. It feels really good. It's going to feel better when it's heavy with the disc in it, but it is neat to have physicals. I mean, we just even had like cassettes pressed, and even that's cool. Like, we haven't done physical music at all yet. We did like a CD once. That's about it.
Josh
That was this year too. Yeah. So… we're doing it.
KVRX
Hell yeah.
Ramsey
People should own the music that they like.
The Slaps’ new album, Tomato Tree, is out now wherever you get your music. We recommend picking up a record or a cassette from their webstore!