Slackers’s saxophonist Dave Hillyard wants to make one thing
abundantly clear: Although his band is technically considered ska,
they’ve got nothing to do with No Doubt.
“We play very old music,” he says. “We call
it Jamaican rock ‘n’ roll—but we’re not faking being Jamaican. We
sing about our lives in New York and we put an American accent to it.
You’re not going to hear metal guitar solos or the pop punk sound of
most American ska bands. We’re not No Doubt, and we’re not The Mighty
Mighty Bosstones.”
The Slackers have certainly earned the right
to distance themselves from their poppier SoCal and Bostonian cousins.
The group has existed for nearly 18 years, and despite changing
lineups, presidential regimes, marriages and children, their sound
remains the same; ska-flavoured bounce, a touch of ’60s swing and
thoughtful lyrics about about daily life, politics and love.
And in fact, it’s love that’s brought them to
Halifax for the first time since their inception—the band was
initially scheduled to come play a wedding. Their show at the Paragon
is an bonus for the rest of us and represents one more tour mark for a
band that plays nearly 100 shows a year.
“We’ve played weddings, bar mitzvahs,
birthday parties, booze cruises,” says Hillyard. “As long as we get to
play our own stuff, it’s a good vibe. We’re very lucky that our fans
want to bring us out into their lives.”
The Slacker’s music isn’t just about revelry
and romance, however; Some of their most popular songs are political.
“International War Criminal” echoes the weariness and defiance of bands
like The Clash by pointing out the hypocrisy of the Bush regime. The
question is, now that Bush is out, do they still have any axes to
grind?
“Well, obviously a ‘Hey, our president is
pretty cool’ song doesn’t go over as well as an anti-Bush song,”
Hillyard says. “Songs just come around sometimes. We had songs that
were hopeful about things getting better, and now things are better.
Sometimes people just want to hear music that makes them feel good.”
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2009.