BAND bio - deep dive
Minted: 2001
Members: Scott Armstrong, Mark Armstrong, Blake Gibson, Zane Greig.
Envisioned and made flesh by brothers Scott and Mark Armstrong in the summer of 2000/2001, theSlacks began literally from scratch. One $2 instant kiwi later and the fledgling fun-bus fuelled by fumes of rock n roll had in its possession two acoustic guitars, a $20 electric bass, and one 4-Track TASCAM recorder. Enter Slack.
Survivalists, Revivalists, Textual Pugilists and Proactivecrastinators, theSlacks is a band comprised of four good friends who share a few common drivers: love for "rock n roll" and the wide umbrella of its rebellious arms, love of word-play, love of horse-play and the joy of playing music together.
theSlacks owe their self-pinned moniker "survivalists" to the Main Slacks Goal of writing, recording and performing good music with good people. The philosophy being thus: if those two essentials are taken care of, the rest shall follow.
Proof of survivalist claims can be traced all the way back to the band's origins in the turbulent "burn and get burnt" 2000's through to the "A.I. does it cheaper" 2020's. It wasn't any easier during the 2010's. The Mayan calendar was predicting the end of the world in less than 2 years and other than Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance', it seemed the music had already died. But we endured.
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theSlacks is very much a self-funded, self-managed and self-aware band, grudgingly accepting technology whilst gracefully accepting mortality.
After numerous recyclable national tours, 3 full-length studio albums, multiple singles and videos and a profile only slightly bigger than a billionaire's tax return, theSlacks continue to operate on the highly sustainable concept of "breaking even". Slack is the new black. Financially speaking.
The “revivalists” tag hangs largely because the music is inspired and informed by the sounds of the turbulent '60's whilst the stage show ignores a lot of modern technology by choice and circumstance and holds more admiration for instrument-bashing than precision-prerecording.
Textual Pugilists battle with words, in every sense of that phrase. Lyrics are an essential Slack ingredient.
Long hours stuck in second-hand vans, criss-crossing the country can become something less than arousing and indulging in games of a word-jousting nature and pun-upmanship sharpen the verbal knives and whet the wit. It's a healthy obsession for songstriths.
And proactivecrastination? It's in the nomenclature itself - you'll figure that one out, I'm certain.
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Where do you put us on your record shelf? If you go alphabetically, the answer is clear. If you order by genre then put us firmly and squarely under Rock n Roll because that ethos is our fuel.
And if you really do need a genre to list us under then you may choose from the following list:
Folk-Rock-Pop (Fo-Ro-Po). Country-Ska. Fizz Pop. Rural Drift.
Rockabilly-Blues (Celtic Country-Ska Folk) Boogie-Woogie Swing.
The list goes on and only gets wordier, so call us whatever you want, just listen to our songs!
Peace and Proactivecrastination!
Waitangi Day 2020
Old King Young - single release.
Old King Young - single release.
Information Ape. album release date: 2024.
Clearly a play on the term Information Age, the title of the album and lead single refers to our human experience in a technology-drenched habitat that seems to seek some kind of detached perfection.
Each song on the album is an observation on life as an “information ape”, which is not necessarily meant in a derogatory way, more in a “still green and learning”.
The video for the single was made with this in mind - using the latest, cheapest, most convenient technology.
High-level production quality often glosses over the validity of the message. It's a big part of what we're being fed via our phones and why people struggle to discern the likely from the unlikely. So we headed for the ditch with this one, trusting the message then moving on.
