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By Waleed Rashidi After nearly a decade of performing throughout Southern California and touring the nation in the most hatin'-it Chevrolet Astro van you've ever set your sights on, Upland's Sloth have finally been promoted to the big leagues (flip through back issues of a few years ago and you can read about the band during their teething stages). A recent, notable accomplishment for Sloth includes their Hollywood Records signing last year, giving the band the opportunity to finally properly release a full-length album. But, more importantly on the day of this interview, is the paramount fact that Sloth were finally able to purchase an upgraded tour vehicle courtesy of their new-found label situation - a 31-foot, 1989 Winnebago RV. "I think it's the head gasket," says bassist Andy Kowatch, seated outside of the booth, during a mid-morning band breakfast in their hometown. "There's like a big, white cloud of smoke behind it." Yep, that sliver of conversation is about their most recent and prized acquisition, the aforementioned RV, meaning that life is running quite normally in the Sloth camp. You see, head gaskets are merely minute idiosyncracies on the never-ending scale of shit Sloth's had to encounter throughout its eight years as one of Southern California's gazillions of broke, starving and struggling rock bands. Their time together - at some points tumultuous, others victorious, but almost always later reflected upon as pure battle experience - is testament to the sheer commitment the act has to its music, fans, and most importantly, themselves. And unlike most major label signings (which lately, have been with bands that hold blank touring and recording resumes), Sloth boast the prized ability to subsist solely on their own, with little record company assistance or intervention. But, let's be realistic - given the opportunity, they weren't about to turn any of it down. The act recently signed with top-rated booking agency William Morris, for example. "A Perfect Circle, I think that'd be great," drummer Adam Figura says, in regards to potential tourmates on the act's wish list. Sloth were also willing to enlist the talents of producer Bob Marlette (whose credits include Saliva and Black Sabbath) when it came time to create their Hollywood debut, Dead Generation. "[The album title] was picked for us, we didn't even pick it," jokes guitarist Kristo Panos, between bites of his breakfast. "Well, it was the easiest quick wrap-up on the record," adds vocalist Rich Love, in an attempt to curb an hour-long conversation that largely yielded very little usable information on the band. "We had a longer title, The Evolution Of Progression. But, you don't want to berate the audience or the crowd, because ultimately they're the ones that are supporting you. So, you don't want to come off pretentious, so I guess we went with the lesser of two evils." Luckily, the album itself wasn't crafted on sheer compromise. In fact, the 11-track Dead Generation is a fascinating melding of many disparate worlds, lest it be old-school versus new-school, classical versus metal or dissonance versus consonance. From the deliberately-flowing bass foundations of "Broken Crutch" (replete with Love's vocal chord-straining, balls-out chorus blares of "Jeeeesus!"), to the up-tempo, dynamic blaze of "Myself" to the hook-laden progressions of "You Can't Look Away," Dead Generation favorably forces elements of all walks to interact with one another - regardless of whether they have a desire to, or not - much like the "clueless generation" of the present. "You look around in the news or the fucking music industry, it's just aimless," adds Love, on his songs and his album's concept. "Everyone's just kinda like swimming around in a big fucking pool and no one's going anywhere." So what's Love going to do about it, besides whine and complain? "Well, hey, isn't that the rock star's function?" he responds, smiling. "Not to walk the talk?" Panos adds, "I think that's the shittiest part of bands nowadays. It takes them like eight years to get here. And now they're all bitter, so it's like 'Fuck this!'" On the web: www.slothmusic.com |
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Copyright © 2002 Mean Street Magazine, LLC |
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