A CONVERSATION WITH... SLACKRR
With a brand new album around the corner we talk to Scotty Perry from Slackrr about the evolution of the album, the journey that brought them this far and video games.
“We're, a three-piece, pop punk, melodic punk band, from the south coast of the UK,” said a laid-back man comfortably slumped backwards in his chair. He looks pretty pop punk indeed, complete with a red flannel-style shirt and a backwards dad hat. Scotty Perry from Slackrr’s warm and welcoming smile twists slightly as talk turns to the new album Set The Night On Fire out today, August 4th.
“Every time we go to do an album something interesting always happens. We think it's going by like far too smoothly and this one was, it was no different,” the guitarist and vocalist tells us. “Basically, we started recording it back in December, started doing the tracking and our long-time producer and friend, had a relationship break up. So he lost his studio in the process of that. We had to start again,” he continued.
It's usual and common for a band's private lives to affect their music after all it's always a great place to start writing what you know.” There are a few personal tragedies along the way, which kind of shaped the songs,” Perry began to explain. “Because I think on previous records it's really been us kind of like, not narrating, but we've had friends who have been going through things and we've kind of been writing about what we've seen with, friends and family and stuff like that. Just the world around us,” he said.
Listening to Perry talk it becomes obvious this album is a little bit more about the things happening to the band internally. “I mean, I personally had two deaths in the family while we were doing the record, which dramatically shifted some of the themes of what we were talking about,” he confirmed. Wanting to find a positive in everything is kind of a pop punk trait and it’s no different for Slackrr.
In an attempt to explain how it shaped the album Perry clarifies that the experience meant the album was solidified not only on top of the sadness of the loss but the overall feeling of hope. One that the band try to project with all of their shows and all the music they put out within the scene drawing that hope from the community and being inspired. “The togetherness in the community and kind of coming together to overcome whatever obstacles are thrown in the way,” he said,
“So I think there's like a very strong message from more of a personal aspect on this record as opposed to us observing what was going on,” he offered in conclusion. Perhaps the band who have only been around since 2018 are still on a journey to find themselves. Five years is not long in the music industry to find your feet, although Slackrr has definitely hit the ground running, jumped hurdles and hit some great milestones.
“I mean, it's always the first, every first that you do and everything I think becomes a highlight,” Perry said when asked about his highlights. “Not that doing things afterwards isn't just as exciting, but the first time you find out that you're being played on BBC for example, or the first time Kerrang! play you or you get your first piece in RockSound or any magazines. That's always really exciting,” he continued. We want more details though and he shifts slightly in his chair as he tries to pin one down.
“Something that we never thought we'd achieve when we were kids and just kind of going, "‘oh, wouldn't it be cool if we could actually make some music and people wanna care about it’,” he begins. “I mean, going to America was a massive highlight that was crazy, like going over and playing The Fest in the States,” he continued. His smile beams just thinking about it.
This experience obviously means a lot to Perry and the band playing alongside The Menzingers, Comeback Kid, The Bouncing Souls and Hot Water Music to name a few. “You just never think you're gonna get out of your home town and then all of a sudden you're thousands of miles away from home playing to thousands of people with like, you know, huge bands over there,” he said. There's a pop punk cliche about getting out of your hometown and these guys certainly have made it out.
They are so far out in fact that they have little to no idea what’s going on back there. “We are originally from Southampton, we're just never there these days, but that's where we start out,” said Perry. “We are never there, I think we're playing here for the first time in ages, next Saturday. We literally haven't been in Southampton for so long,” he continued.
Finding himself unable to name any bands in the scene down there when asked he drew a blank. It may not be entirely his fault, it seems that a lot of local bands didn't make it through COVID. “I'm probably doing someone in injustice,” he admits. The band may find themselves often very far from home, after playing over 550 shows in their short existence.
The success has not inflated any egos though the whole band is still down to earth, as Perry’s preshow routine gives away. “Usually, we've got a green room but I'm still insistent on going back to the van, see, like, vocal warmups and just, like, have a, like, drink of water and sort of clear my head before I go on. For some reason, I just feel drawn to like the early days of going back to the van and doing it,” he said. Obviously, during the pandemic touring was put on hold but the band still found they were offered interesting opportunities.
During the pandemic in lockdown, a small game development company in Germany ‘Deficit’ started making a VR skating game. They happened to stumble across Slackrr when they released ‘Reflections’, which was the first single off of the last album. They decided they wanted to feature a track from the pop-punk trio on an independent video game.
“We put ‘The Current’ out in October of 2020, we did like BBC live session for it. Because I was still running socials at the time I noticed notice that they'd put some comments and stuff on it. I was thinking ‘who's deficit?’ I saw they were from Germany, and then they sent us an email saying, would you be interested in being a part of this?” he said.
When the conversations fizzled out and stopped the band thought nothing had come of it. Until entirely by accident one of the band members noticed on Twitter that the game had been picked up by PlayStation. “So they didn't even tell us, we found out via Twitter, basically that we were gonna be on a Sony PlayStation video game. And, it blew my mind if I'm honest,” Perry said. “I don't think I have fully recovered.”