MUSIC INTERVIEW: ATMOSPHERE

Slug Sends A Mile High Hip Hop Musical Message 'To All My Friends'

By: Team Buzzine

December 16, 2010

Slug (Sean Daley) and DJ/Producer Ant (Anthony Davis) formed Atmosphere back in the early 1990s. In the two decades since, they have achieved the seemingingly unlikely feat of putting Minneapolis on the hip hop map with a series of vital albums (God Loves Ugly, Seven's Travels, When Life Gives You Lemons...) and EPs (Sad Clown, Lucy Ford, Leak At Will), coupled with blistering live shows from coast to coast and around the globe. Atmosphere also forms the nucleus of a Minneapolis collective which formed Rhymesayers Entertainment and encompasses a record label, a production studio facility, and a music retail outlet called Fifth Element. Buzzine caught up with Slug just before he hit the stage in Denver, Colorado at the Mile High Music Festival this summer for a chat about playing live music, running a multi-faceted business, and a pair of new releases--Felt’s A Tribute To Rosie Perez and Atmosphere’s To All My Friends...

Scott Roon: How’s playing festivals? How’s tricks? How’s business?

Slug: Business is good for us.  We did one record with Epitaph and it was more of a license agreement. It was still a Rhymesayers record, but they did distribution for us and it worked really well.  We gained a lot of new fans, we were able to go on the Warped Tour because of the work we did with Epitaph, and it was cool because when we went to just being Rhymesayers Series again, we were able to keep a lot of the audience—the new audience we gained. Since then, we’ve put out a few records, and things have just been a continuation of its growth. It’s been what it’s supposed to be.

SR: Is it good to be back out on the road?

S: It’s been fun. We took a year off so we started playing festivals again in the end of May, and it was kind of weird because we were all a little rusty, trying to get back into it, but we’ve played a few shows now over the last few months and we’re getting ready to go out on the road and do a tour in the fall. But it’s been a lot of fun, especially being able to showcase some new material to prep ourselves for new music that we’re recording. We’re able to try out some new songs in front of actual audiences to see if they communicate well…

SR: You said you were on Warped Tour for a couple years, and you do a lot of these festivals too where sometimes you’re the only hip hop act. What’s it like to play a show like that?

S: It has its pros and its cons. Generally the pros are the people who are there to see you have a great time because they got to be outside, they got to be surrounded by a bunch of half-naked people… People are just in good moods at festivals. But then the other side of it is we get to perform in front of a lot of people who have never even heard of us, and that’s a good thing too.  It’s weird because I have to learn new ways to address people who have never seen you before. You get so used to playing the club dates where the people who are there are there to see you. I guess there’s really no cons—it’s all pros because I do appreciate being able to make an attempt to make a new fan out of an audience full of people that have never heard of us. 

SR: Going beyond that, catching some of these other bands, are you still a music fan at heart, as far as going to concerts…?

S: I do like going to shows. I don’t do it so much in my own city anymore because I try to be a little bit more responsible when I’m at home, but when I’m on the road, I do try to go out. Especially on off days, we try to go out to some bar with some band in it. Festivals are great because I have an opportunity to see stuff that I never would have gotten to see otherwise. This is the first time I’ve been anywhere where Jimmy Cliff was playing. My mom loves Jimmy Cliff, so now I can be like, “Mom, I was at this festival and he was playing, and I was stuck in this tent with these cameras…” It’s awesome.

SR: What can you tell me about Felt? How do all these come together?  I don’t hear anything about it, and then all of a sudden there’s a Felt record out...

S: They’re not the kind of things we need to promote or market. We look at them as pet projects between a bunch of friends. Murs—good friend, goes way back with me—that’s kind of how Felt began and that’s how it’s kind of stayed and continued. We don’t tell anybody we’re making a record. We finish it, we turn it in to the label, tell them they can put it out whenever they want… Felt is a low-stress thing for me, so it’s generally all about having a good time with my friends.

SR: You touched on it a second ago about being back in your hometown, Minneapolis. Do you still have time for Fifth Element?

S: I would be a loser if I was trying to actually still play a role in the management or the organization of the record store just because of how often I’m gone. I don’t have as much time to dedicate to it, but I try to stop in every day and hang out for a little while, sit in the office, see what people are talking about or what’s going on in everybody’s lives. We took a year off from touring because I have a new son and then my keyboard player had a new daughter, so with that and us being on the road, I have been able to play a stronger role. There’s a lot of stuff in my city that I’m connected to because maybe I helped fund it, but I’ve been able to be more present as well, over the last year, but it’s all kind of winding to an end now because we’re getting ready to start up all the touring cycles again. 

SR: How many kids do you have?

S: Two. One is 16 now, and the other one is four months and some change. 

SR: Do you take him on tour?

S: No, I don’t think that would be in his best interest. He needs to stay at home, do his homework, get his studies in...…

SR: Apart from some good parenting instincts...What have you learned—good and bad—about yourself through this whole journey?

S: That’s a good question. Everything. I think it’s more about just kind of whittling yourself into the person you desire to be for the world or for your family, or for whoever, and it’s a learn-as-you-go kind of process.  I don’t think there’s any way to really explain, to an up-and-coming artist, what his or her life is going to be like once they start touring heavily. There’s no real way to articulate that, but you do get to learn all of your ins and outs. I’ll never need therapy because I have all of this stuff to show me who I am.

Atmosphere’s ’To All My Friends, Blood Makes The Blade Holy’ and Felt’s ’A Tribute To Rosie Perez’ are available now.