Having met at music college in New York, L.A based Slothrust released their third album earlier this year, and have just supported Manchester Orchestra on a number of UK dates.
With their unique brand of energy-fuelled scuzz rock, the band are now back with a mega exciting new release – a covers EP featuring the band’s take on tracks by Al Green, Black Sabbath and none other than Britney Spears.
We caught up with Leah from the band to find out more…
Hi Slothrust, welcome to Get In Her Ears! Can you tell us a bit about the band?
We like to have a good time, and we leave it all on the stage.
How did you initially all get together and start creating music?
We met in college and played together in a bunch of blues and jazz bands. We vibed well creatively, and so we started playing original music as well.
Your new EP Show Me How You Want It To Be is out very soon – can you tell us what it’s all about? Are there any themes running throughout the EP?
The EP consists of songs of different genres that we thought would be fun to do interpretations of. More or less the only theme is that we dig all the songs and have fun playing them and putting our own spin on it.
And you’ve recently shared an awesome cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Baby One More Time’ – what inspired you to do this?
Well, we love Britney Spears and ’90s pop and RnB. Kyle learned the bass line perfectly on his own, so we figured we might as well fill it out. It’s a favourite to play live.
You’ve been compared to the likes of Deerhunter, but who would you say are your main musical influences?
We all like lots of different types of music, but some artists I enjoy are Fiona Apple, John Fahey, Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Fats Waller and Erykah Badu.
How is your local music scene? Do you go to see lots of live music?
We used to live in New York, where there are tons of shows every night. We played out a lot and I went to plenty of shows. Many of my friends there are in a band. Now we live in LA, and are on the road a lot, so I like to favor quiet time these days unless there is a really special musician coming to town. Which there often are, so, I suppose yes – I still go to a decent amount of live shows.
And what can fans expect from your live shows?
An honest performance.
As we’re a new music focused site, are there any new/upcoming bands or artists you’d recommend we check out?
I really like the new Big Thief record. I also dig Noname – she played at Lollapalooza with us this year and she is an amazing rapper.
And how do you feel the music industry is for new bands at the moment – would you say it’s difficult to get noticed?
Yes, it’s a really difficult industry to make a living in as an artist. It is very competitive and artists are overworked and underpaid. There isn’t any government funding in the United States for it, and I think that leads to a lot of struggle for musicians that manifests in a bunch of different ways. That being said, if you love something enough, you keep doing it. And we all truly love to play music.
Finally, what does the rest of 2017 have in store for Slothrust?
We are finishing up the music for our next record, which we will start recording next year. We are very excited to put some new material out into the world!
Huge thanks to Slothrust for answering our questions! Show Me How You Want It To Be is out 10th November, pre-order it here.
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
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