SLTL

SLTL is a Christian band from Phoenix, AZ. This interview was conducted at Applebee's. They played a show that night at the Fire Escape. It was great. Dustin set his drums on fire and they had a guy dressed up as a cow throwing hamburgers at the crowd...for...some....odd...reason. Anyway, they are competing in the Ernieball Battle of the bands. Everyone should go to ernieball.com and vote for them!!!

Cynthia: What are your names and what do you do?

James: Hello, my name is James Allen and I play the bass guitar and I sing.

Roger: My name is Roger and I play the electric and I sing too, and I use Ernieball strings.

Dustin: My name is Philipe and I play the diggery-doo.

(laughter)

Mark: My name is Mark and I play the guitar too.

Dustin: My name is Dustin and I beat the drums.

Cynthia: How long have you guys been a band?

Roger: Thirteen months together as this band.

Mark: Before the foundation of the world.

Roger: Yeah, before the foundation of the world.

Dustin: For about a year.

Cynthia: How'd you guys come together as a band, how'd you guys meet each other?

James: Well Roger was involved in a gay bathhouse. Roger was a swinger. (laughter) We're just kidding. They were all in another band.

Mark: Dustin and I knew each other for a really long time. We were in a band a long time ago before this one and then we decided to start another band. And Dustin's ex-girlfriend, who was totally psycho, knew this other girl who knew Roger, who played bass. So Roger pulled up one day in his low-rider. We thought he was really weird but played bass really good so thats how we met Roger. And then we had this guy named Paul and he used to be our singer, and he sounded really crappy so I called him up one day and said he wasn't our singer anymore and James was our singer. I knew James a long time ago too. We were in a band with him previously.

Cynthia: How would you describe your sound to people who haven't heard you guys?

Dustin: It really sucks and don't buy any of our CDs.

Roger: Can I just say one thing? Our band is called Something Left to Learn, and what our band is about...

Dustin: No, stop.

Mark: Dude, stop.

Roger: What?

James: I'd say our sound is real melodic. Its melodic rock. But its simple in the sense that it goes beyond punk rock, because its more musical, there's more structure to it, there's more ideas to it, but its not indie rock or emo or anything along those lines. And its not as straight forward and easy to listen to as classic rock and roll. I think our music can just be categorized easily as rock. Because we take on so many different genres of music, because we all come from so many different places, and we like so many different kinds of music. So we bring it together, we incorporate our own style and our own idea of the music into every song anyway, and then we have about twenty songs that don't sound anything alike. It's not that we do that on purpose or intentionally just to be eccentric or what-not, its just the way it happens. We actually don't like it sometimes. We want to sound like everyone else sometimes.

Cynthia: Why would you want to do that?

James: Because when you're in this category all your own, you're not signed, no one knows who you are, you have no money to make CD's, you have no distribution, you have no one believing in you and backing you, it can be kinda tough to get shows, know who you fit in with, know who your target audience is so you can get them to come to your shows and buy your stuff so you can actually make a living at doing what you like. It's tough. What's cool is that we kept at it and we kept playing and we just didn't care and its starting to payoff. So thats cool.

Cynthia: Who are your musical influences?

Mark: I like Weezer a lot.

James: I like Material Issue, Social Distortion, Bob Marley, U2, Plankeye, Supertones, Ramones, a whole bunch of different stuff.

Dustin: I like this band, they're one of my favorite bands ever. They're called Maple. They're the most punk rock band there ever was. And they were the best, and on top of that, my second favorite band would be 415 Edward. They were cool too. But uh, I really like the Get up Kids, Reggie and the Full Effect, Supertones, Five Iron Frenzy, Jimmy Eat World, Weezer.

Cynthia: Who's your favorite drummer ever.

Dustin: I would say Pat Wilson, the drummer from Weezer.

Roger: When I used to be secular, my favorite bands were Fifteen, Crimp shrine, Lagwagon, Diesel Boy, Mxpx, stuff like that. Now my major Christian influences are Supertones and Noise Ratchet.

Mark: I like Weezer a lot but I really don't hear Weezer in any of the songs I write.

Cynthia: Speaking of song-writing, who is the lyricist of the group?

Mark: James and I.

James: Like when I came in the band, I came in singing and I played bass in all the other bands I was in including the one I was in before this band with Mark, and a lot of the same songs we play in this band, we played in that band. So we really wanted a Christian band, so we changed all the words and what-not. So when I first came in the band, there were a lot of songs that were already done, already finished, really didn't need to be written. I just needed to learn them to be in the band. So a lot of those lyrics Mark wrote, but lately its more like, Mark comes with a riff or Roger does and I'll write the words for it, but Mark writes, Dustin writes. So we're all gonna use each other's words. We all use each other's music. If someone comes up with an idea, by the time it's a song, everyone has thrown in their two cents like so much that it's unique in itself. It doesn't sound anything like it did when you first came up with it by yourself. I guess I write everything.

Cynthia: So you guys finally toured out of state. How was that?

Dustin: It was supurb.

Mark: A bad day in California is better than a good day in Phoenix.

Roger: It was good when I drove.

Dustin: I could debate that, but anyway....

James: It wasn't hot in San Diego. It was hot here.

Cynthia: How did you guys come up with your band name?

Mark: We fought. (laughter) Just kidding. We had two other band names, they all ended up being taken. Took a trip down to Tucson and we beat each other up and the winner got to pick the name.

James: We actually have a song that Mark wrote called "Something Left to Learn" and we were throwing around ideas for band names. One of us came up with the idea of having our band name be No Compromise, which is the name of one of our songs. So instead of having that, Mark didn't like that. So instead Mark came up with the idea that lets call it Something Left to Learn. I like that one better. He said if it was gonna be a name of a song, he liked that one better than No Compromise.

Mark: I was gonna say that when we picked that band name, I think that was the first we ever agreed all four of us at the same time on anything, so we knew it had to be that one because it's never happened before.

James: Yeah, we never agree. And then we made it an acronym--SLTL. What a lot of people think is that SLTL and Something Left to Learn are two seperate bands.

Cynthia: Really?

James: A lot of stupid people, yeah. (laughter) Sorry, don't put that in there.

Cynthia: What are your views on the Phoenix punk scene in general? As far as non-Christian bands and Christian bands. Do you think there's more Christian bands than non-Christian bands or is it equal or what? Because it seems like there is more Christian bands here than in other areas. Do you guys notice that too?

Dustin: I don't know. I'd say that depending on the band. Because there's a lot of secular bands, theres a lot of non-Christian bands. I know a lot of bands that are non-Christian that get a pretty good draw and stuff here. I just find that when it comes to playing venues, I don't think there is a lot of good venues to play here unless you are a Christian band because we play a lot of different places, but secular places, we'll play those too as well and we've only played like three or four different places, but when it comes down to playing churches or playing little Christian coffee shops, we've played many many of those, at least twenty different places. I'd have to say, it depends, but as a secular artist, if you're going out and playing, I'd say that there are less places for you to play, but thats just my opinion.

James: I think the Christian scene is far better. Through my eyes, it's what I appreciate and what I like more. There comes times when I get fed up with Christian music because there's no depth or substance to it at all, and there's times that I get fed up with secular music as well because of what it talks about. So I think right now, secular music is stronger than the Christian music scene here, but because they have bigger venues, bigger clubs, people willing to put the money and time into it to make it happen. There's not a Christian radio station here, there's no Christian music videos, there's no way at all to promote Christian music here except for flyering, the old-fashioned way. And a band going to school full time, working, practicing, having a girlfriend or life at all outside of those things, doesn't have the time to go out and flyer every single night and talk to everyone they see. Most bands don't and they wonder why they don't even get anywhere. I'm sure if there was a Christian radio station here, people would start seeing the need for it, people would start building better venues, having more serious concerts. I'm sure that would help out a lot. I'm sure the secular scene is stronger and has more people following it, but I would prefer to go to a Christian show.

Cynthia: If you could tour with any band, who would it be and why?

James: I would probably want to tour with Audio Adrenaline, Plankeye or the Supertones because they share a lot of the same theological and philosophical beliefs that we do and their goal for their band, their mission, their ministry is really similar to our's. A couple of them it's the exact same. It'd just be great to be around those guys and really grow with them, read with them, pray with them, become a stronger Christian, to learn from them. And because they're all really popular bands and they get a lot of people there so that helps.

Mark: I'd like to go on tour with Noise Ratchet, a band out of California. They just play really good music and I think they're very strong in their faith and everyone in the band, as I met them, came across as being very nice and amiable. I think I'd enjoy going on tour with them.

Roger: Definitely Slayer.

(laughter)

Dustin: I want to go on tour with Striper. That'd be rad. If we went ontour with Striper...its Striper! (laughter) Either them, or Plankeye. That'd be cool. Or the Supertones. Or Five Iron Frenzy.

James: Suicide Machines would be cool too.

Cynthia: OK, so what's up with the cow?

James: That was a really dumb idea that we'll never do again. We get together a lot and spend a lot of time together and sometimes we come up with some crazy ideas. It was supposed to be a little different than it was.

Mark: I want to go on record as the only one in this band that did not think the idea was good.

Roger: I didn't think it was good, I just thought it was funny.

Dustin: I thought it was alright. I like cows.

James: The people seemed to enjoy it.

Cynthia: So what does the future hold for SLTL?

James: Well, if God wills, we're gonna record a five-song EP for Rescue Records coming out in January. It will be a split EP. We're gonna be on the next Rescue Records compilation and like three other comps we already recorded for and sent off. We're gonna try to play Tomfest, Cornerstone, the next Warped Tour if we can get on it again for the Ernieballstage. Hopefully by summer, do a full US tour and see where it goes from there. Get better, grow more as Christians and men, friends and see what happens.

Mark: I think we're going on tour again in August.

Roger: I'm really not sure, but I would like to hope that we can record an album and tour with a few bands and glorify God and spread his word and talk to kids, Christians and non-Christians and spread the truth.

Dustin: At this point, its hard to tell. We're having some interest from some people and they're looking at our band from a proffessional level and I'd love to do this for the rest of my life really, but I'm trying to not bet on it, because if I get my hopes up, then I don't feel like it dying on me. Just because the chances of a band making it anywhere to where you can do this for a living is not very good. So I'm trying not to put all my emphasis on doing this for the rest of my life but, if God willing and we become successful at this, I would give up everything else for it. I love it. And I think its the most fun thing I've ever done and the most fulfilling thing I've ever done too. It makes me extremely happy to be able to play, and not only be able to play, but be able to talk to different people about certain world views and issues and how they feel and what's going on and stuff. So I'm just hoping we can keep this up for as long as I live, and if we can't, then I'm sure I'll be fine.

Cynthia: Any last comments?

Mark: Everyone out there needs to know that Roger has a daughter.

James: Go to our website, www.sltl.net, and you can click to a link straight to the Ernieball site so you can vote for us in the Battle of the Bands.

Cynthia: Why do you want everybody to know that Roger has a daughter.

Mark: Because. It makes all the difference in the world.

James: Nevermind, its just one of those funny things that no one would get and we don't want them to get.

Cynthia: OK. Last comments?

Mark: Listen to This Past Year, they're a really excellent band from this state.

Roger: We give all glory to God.

Dustin: Is the burning natural?

(laughter)

James: I'd like to thank my friend David Alexander and my band and West Fork Church, thank God and West Minister Fellowship and for everyone who put all the time and effort they put in my life for the changes that were made.

Cynthia: OK, thanks guys. The end.

Links:

Something Left to Learn
NCA