A Rising Star Feature
by Melissa Minners
A couple of weeks ago I reviewed Slants! Slants! Revolution, a dance remix album of songs from Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts from the Portland, Oregon
group known as The Slants. I enjoyed their music so much, I was thrilled when the opportunity arose to interview members of the band. Here’s what they had to say:
How did each member of the band decide that a career in music was what they wanted to do? What was that defining moment that made you want to perform?
Aron: Well, I already had the sex and drugs as a little kid....it just made sense to have the rock follow.
Tyler: I've wanted to be a rock star
Johnny: There's nothing quite like playing for the first time in front of an audience. At the age of 13, I had been playing guitar
Simon: Actually, Johnny’s first show was on bass when you played with a band called Rockaway Teens! But I guess that was the debut on guitar. For me, I’ve been wanting to perform music as long as I could remember. There are home videos of me pretending to be on stage with my dad’s guitar on top of the coffee table
Where did you come up with the idea for the name of your band?
Aron: Our eyes!
Johnny: Simon came up with this brilliant idea. Probably while watching Kill Bill.
Simon: For a while, I nicknamed the project Jiang Hu which means underground in Chinese. But one day, when thinking of ideas for the band name, I asked a friend what is a trait that is common to most Asian
Describe your band's sound / music style.
Tyler: Chinatown Dance Rock says it all!
Johnny: We dub it China Town Dance Rock. More or less it's rock n roll.
Aron: Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts was more electro-rock. But with Pageantry, our sound became more rock with electro elements.
Where do you get the inspiration for your song lyrics? How do you decide what kind of music you want to accompany your lyrics...or does the music come first and the lyrics next?
Simon: In this band, we’ve almost always wrote the music first. It usually starts out as a guitar riff or bass line, then it gets more developed as we start working on the arrangement and different parts. Once we have the basic structure of the song, Aron will take it and then work on vocal harmonies and lyrics.
Aron: It’s funny. I either sit with a bottle of wine
Knowing how hard it is to break out in the music industry, what makes you keep coming back for more?
Johnny: It's what we love doing!
Tyler: Playing music is what I live for and I will continue to come back for more until my body can't physically play music.
Aron: I was built for the road and living kind of an uncertain, unstable lifestyle. Paycheck to paycheck keeps your mind sharp.
Simon: All of us do this because we’d love to be able to make it our full time career, something that we can take care of ourselves and families with. But even if it never gets to that point, we really enjoy it. We get to travel the country and play rock ‘n’ roll, you can’t beat that.
Of all the songs you have recorded, which one has the most meaning to you and why?
Johnny: I love Lucky Strike. It's named after an excellent Chinese restaurant. Food has a deep connection with this band. When we're not playing music, we're probably eating or talking about food.
Simon: For me, it’s probably a toss up between We Will Never Die and You Make Me Alive. We Will Never Die was the first song ever written for the band; it was originally a song idea that I had for my previous band, The Stivs, but one that we never got to. So when I was auditioning musicians for The Slants, that was usually the song that I showed them. As for You Make Me Alive, it was just a really fun, danceable song to write at the time and was one of the first ideas we had for recording our newest album Pageantry. It’s only coincidental that both song titles have something to do with life and death.
Simon: We don’t really have political messages or anything, but I think that all of us try and tell others to be true to themselves. Be proud of who you are, whatever your ethnic heritage might be. Don’t be afraid to stand up. Buy more Slants records.
What sort of message do you hope to send with your music?
Aron: Be unwavering. It's okay to be broken, most of us are, but be unwavering and censor with your heart.
Any regrets?
Aron: Nope
Johnny: Never.
Any upcoming plans for the band?
Johnny: Tour, tour, and oh yeah tour....
Aron: Tour, tour, tour, record again, tour, tour, tour, record....infinity!
Simon: Along the same lines as my band mates, check our calendar. We’re always planning for more. We’ll keep what we’re doing. Who knows? Maybe you’ll hear our songs in an upcoming video game or movie. Maybe you’ll see us broken down on the side of I-5.
10. Any information you would like your fans to know about you or the band that hasn't been revealed previously?
Aron: I like anime
Simon: We’re pretty transparent with our fans. Stay in touch via our mailing list, Facebook, Myspace, etc. and you’ll get to know every little detail about the band.
Johnny: We have a new unreleased track called "Heartbeat is Heaven" aka Slanted Heart, which will only be available from G Sake. It's one of my favorite songs that we recorded because it has a really cool vibe to it. Keep checking our website http://www.theslants.com for more details.
That wraps up my interview with The Slants, a fun-loving, talented band from Oregon with a great sense of humor and a knack for knowing exactly what type of music is going to get you out of your seat and onto the dance floor. For more information about The Slants, visit their new and improved website, http://theslants.com/, or check out The Slants on Facebook and MySpace. And don’t forget to pick up their new album, Pageantry, now available in stores.
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