The Beauty Of Analogue w/ Smokestack Slim
We caught up with Dillon and Toby, the boys behind one of Aotearoa’s most promising blues bands Smokestack Slim, to talk about their fantastic new EP, Get With This.
The Auckland-based duo set out to caress your ears and calm your mind with a subtle, gradually building collection of six tracks bringing retro vibes and a 60s-inspired sound.
Their planned YouTube live play to celebrate the release of the new EP was thwarted by some tricky digital logistics, but looking ahead they’ve already set their sights on some post-COVID goals. “We have some really exciting plans after lockdown. Watch this space, and stay tuned”
Smokestack Slim aren’t trying to reinvent the past. They’re not trying to reinvent the future either. You can listen to Get With This here.
Kia ora guys, congrats on the new release. What can you tell us about your new EP Get With This?
Kia ora! Yea, so Get With This is a collection of six songs we recorded last year at Earwig Studios over a weekend. It was produced by Darren McShane who is the head producer at Earwig and is our first ‘studio recording’—all recorded to 24 track tape. The whole process from writing the songs to the finished product was much quicker than our previous releases, only taking about six months to write then a month to record and mix. We think this gives the EP quite a concise, cohesive feel compared to our other stuff.
Where does the name Smokestack Slim come from? Sounds like there could be a bit of a story behind that?
We named it after the Howlin’ Wolf song Smokestack Lightning. It’s meant to be a bit of a tongue-in-cheek homage to bands like The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, Pink Floyd etc, who named their bands after blues songs and artists. People sometimes struggle with the name. I think it’s all the S’s in it haha.
What’s your writing process like?
Dillon: I’ll usually write the sketch of the song on guitar. It involves a lot of plodding and fumbling but eventually something hatches from it. I do a rough demo of it and play it to Toby, then we choose the direction of the song together from there. It always varies though, you don’t want to get too trapped in formulas. We’ve done a few songs recently where Toby has written the foundation of the tune and I’ve put words/melody to it which was a really fun change for me!
“We love a lot of modern music but we do seem to lean toward bygone eras of music and art in general.”
The vibe that comes through in your music is nostalgic and kind of old school. Would you describe yourselves as old souls?
Hmmm hard to say. There may be aspects of us that are for sure, but we’re still guys in our twenties at the end of the day. We love a lot of modern music but we do seem to lean toward bygone eras of music and art in general.
Current music is such a minuscule percentage of all the music created, so I don’t know why anyone would limit themselves to exclusively that. There is so much great stuff out there through time if you dig around for it, contemporary music isn’t even scratching the surface! I think because we love diving into all eras of music it does give us a nostalgic feel.
Tell us about the recording process, keeping it analogue and going straight to tape.
Yea for sure. We’ve always preferred the sound of recording to tape, it just has a more organic, rounder sound. The process is way more enjoyable too. I have spent a lot of time staring at a computer screen for hours late at night recording and you end up feeling very edgy and strung out by the end. With tape there’s no screen. It’s all ears, which we really like. There wasn’t much thinking behind moving from DIY to studio other than us being really keen to record to tape and have someone else take care of the technical aspect so that we could just focus on the performance of the songs. It was a super enjoyable experience and we are stoked with the results!
The artwork is reminiscent of Tea for the Tillerman to me, with the retro palette and inset image. Can you share some of your other inspirations?
Haha we love that album! We definitely based our artwork on albums from that time. We wanted to use the same kind of composition as our previous album so there is an aesthetic path to follow.
Musically we’re definitely inspired by bands and artists from the 60s and 70s. It was a huge explosion of creativity and talent which is what makes it such an exciting era to listen and dive into, and the fact that people still are influenced by it is a testament to how good the work was then. Everything musically now for the most part really started then. I love so many bands and artists but some that I keep coming back to are Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Karen Dalton, The Kinks, Syd Barrett—I could go on and on!
Okay, one last thing before you go:
Favourite instrument
D: Guitar, because it’s the only instrument I’m decent at! For listening it’s the violin when played by Warren Ellis.
T: Hammond B-3 organ.
Something you’re looking forward to?
D: Playing again!
T: Playing the drums again!
Best record of all time?
D: Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde. Predictable maybe, but the truth.
T: The Eagles - The Very Best Of. I always empty out rooms by playing it at parties.