Dylan Slocum (Spanish Love Songs): ”We’ll have some serious decisions to make very soon”

Frühjahr 2018. Spanish Love Songs auf ihrem erst zweiten Trip durch Deutschland. Man guckt sich um und denkt: Wow, die kommen richtig an.  So finden sich zum Beispiel an einem Montagabend mit Biergartenwetter (normalerweise ein Garant für wenig Zuschauer) satte 100 Leute zum letzten Stopp in Bochum. Wir haben uns mit SLS-Sänger & -Gitarrist Dylan Slocum über sein persönliches Fazit zur Tour und die Zukunft von Spanish Love Songs unterhalten. Denn sollte es so gut weitergehen,stehen bald grundlegende Entscheidungen für die Band an.

Interview mit Dylan Slocum (Spanish Love Songs)

Dylan, I think this was your second trip to Europe. How did this tour differ from your first?

Dylan Slocum: The biggest difference was having Uncle M on our side with the release of the new album. Our team over there did an amazing job of spreading the word, and it led to some incredibly unexpected shows. I also think we managed to shower every day of this tour, which was a huge improvement over the first!

You had new people filling in on bass and keys. What led to it? Was it a temporary thing for Europe thing or a proper lineup change? How long did they have to learn the songs?

Dylan Slocum: Bass for us is a two-man job. Our official bassist Gabe has a young child, and another on the way, so he can’t always tour, in which case our unofficial sixth member Clay fills in (he has also filled in on keys before). For keys, it was a temporary situation. Meredith couldn’t make this tour work with her schedule. Clay already knew all the songs. I think Dave, our fill in keys, had about 3 weeks to learn everything.

I think I haven’t found a single bad review of Schmaltz. Did you expect such a reception? Did you feel that you had something there when you left the studio?

Dylan Slocum: It’s crazy. We definitely didn’t expect the full extent to which people loved the album, just because there’s always someone who hates an album. I think we got lucky with who we went to for reviews! When we left the studio, we felt like we had made the best album that we were capable of, which is really all we could hope for.

In Cologne you talked about your hometown and the nazi dickheads living there. Where did you grow up? When did you leave?

Dylan Slocum: I grew up in a small town in Southern California called Menifee that had a pretty significant neo-nazi infestation when I was a teen (and still exists to this day). I left around 2006 when I went to college.

Now you re based in LA. In typical SLS manner you got to have something negative to say about LA as well.

Dylan Slocum: It’s too expensive. But I really love it there. I think the sunny weather balances out my gloom. I can’t imagine what I’d be like if I lived somewhere like Seattle.

Is Schmaltz a game changer? Are SLS going for the full-time-band+shitty part time job thing? Or is it the trying-to-do-as-much-as-possible-but-there-are-other-priorities-level?

Dylan Slocum: We’re still figuring it out. If it keeps growing the way it has, we’ll have some serious decisions to make very soon. I will say that we do as much as we possibly can, and then deal with the consequences to our lives after the fact. But if we can make it pay some bills, we will.

At the headliner show in Bochum there were about a hundred people showing up on a sunny Monday evening. What kind of venues do you guys play in the US at the moment?

Dylan Slocum: It depends on the market. A show like Bochum is similar to what a good show in the US is like for us. The fact that it happened on a Monday is insane though. I still don’t understand it. We played to far fewer than 100 people this past Monday.
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