Earl Slick

It's not often that a guitarist's resume boasts credits that include working with both John Lennon and David Bowie -- but Earl Slick's does. And that's perhaps the best testimonial to Slick's abilities, which first came to prominence when the cocky 22-year-old was tapped by Bowie to join his Diamond Dogs tour in 1974 after a quick -- but obviously potent -- audition.

Over the years, Slick has developed a rep as a guitar player's guitar player -- someone who can deliver on cue with feeling and adroit musicianship. Although Slick has played with a long list of artists -- in addition to forming his own band, Phantom, Rocker and Slick (with ex-Stray Cats Slim Jim Phantom and Lee Rocker), Slick's played with everyone from David Coverdale to Mott The Hoople's Ian Hunter -- being asked by Lennon to play on the ex-Beatles' Double Fantasy album was particularly sweet, as it was the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan show that sparked Slick's interest in becoming a musician. After pestering his dad for a guitar until he caved in and sprung for a Danelectro, Slick practiced diligently, studying music and lifting licks off records, and generally paying his dues, which put him in the position of being recommended to Bowie by the late Academy Award-winning composer Michael Kamen. As a result of that recommendation, Slick played with Bowie for several years, appearing on three Top 10 albums and touring the world.

That relationship has proved to be a long-lasting one, as Slick rejoined Bowie for his tour in 2000, and once again late last year as Bowie toured behind his well-received Reality album.  Having just completed that tour, Slick is finding time to promote his new Sanctuary debut album, Zig Zag, which features some stellar guest vocals by artists including Bowie, Robert Smith of the Cure, Def Leppard's Joe Elliot, Martha Davis from the Motels, and Spacehog's Royston Langdon.  The album, Slick's first in 12 years, was produced by Mark Plati (Bowie, Duncan Sheik, Natalie Imbruglia), and came after a self-imposed exile from the music business.

While on tour with Bowie, Slick took some time out of his hectic schedule to talk to StarPolish editorial director James K. Willcox about his years in the music business, hiding out in the High Sierras, and recording his new album.

For more information about Earl Slick, his new album Zig Zag and his touring schedule, visit www.earlslick.com.

Solo Vs. Sideman

STARPOLISH: You seem to have balanced a career between being a sideman and maintaining a solo career.  What are the real big differences between doing those two things and do you prefer one to the other?

SLICK:  I like both, and if the situations are right, now you are in a perfect world. They aren't always; they are now. Sometimes it depends. I stopped doing most sideman stuff quite some time ago because it wasn't something I enjoyed a whole lot anymore. Doing it with David [Bowie] is great because I don't really feel like a sideman.

STARPOLISH: And you're about to go back out with him again?

SLICK:  We're still out; we've been out for quite some time. Right now we're on a little one-week break. We just got back from three months in Europe and we start the States on Saturday.  In David's situation, there's less stress on you doing the sideman thing, if it's with the right person, like with David. Basically, I show up, I do the best job I can do and it's cool and it's fun and it's stress free. As a solo artist there's a lot more to contend with, and that's why it's cool balancing between the two.

Taking a Break

STARPOLISH: You took a break from the music business in 1994.  I was curious if that was that due to disappointment in how the business worked?  Was there a reason you sort of just stepped away for a bit?

SLICK:  It was a combination of a lot of things.  I kind of hit a brick wall. I did a number of projects in a series over a period of a few years that just were going wrong, and I think a lot of that was that I was getting myself in situations that at the time weren't the right situations, because at the time I don't think I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And as this business can do to you, my head wasn't screwed on as straight as it should have been at the time.

STARPOLISH: Did that break sort of replenish your creativity; did it put you in a better direction when you reproached the business?

SLICK:  It definitely did, and I think it did because when I left I was gone -- I let it go completely.  I just said, "This has been great, this has been fun, and I promised myself when this became not fun anymore, I wouldn't do it anymore."

STARPOLISH: What was is that made you come back?  The reason I'm asking is that our audience has a lot of emerging artists and independent musicians who are trying to find their way in the business, and I'm sure that they sometimes think about walking away from it. It's such a tough business in a lot of way. So it would be interesting to know why you felt it was time to go back.

SLICK:  The actual fact is that I didn't have a whole lot to do with that. What happened was that I ended up working with David Coverdale from Whitesnake in 1998 or 1999, somewhere around then. I wrote some songs with him and helped him do his album.  That didn't really completely spark me back, but when Bowie got back in touch with me in early 2000, or late 99, that interested me.

STARPOLISH: Reading through some of the background stuff on you for the interview, I saw that you attribute your long career to the fact that you never had a backup plan, and it seems to be something you are advocating for artists.

SLICK:  It's insane, but I do advocate it.

STARPOLISH: It seemed like you are saying that if you have another plan, at some point you're going to go to it, and that's the job you'll wind up working instead of being in the music business. I think that's an interesting -- if scary -- perspective. Is that something that you believe -- that artists should really just give it 100%?

SLICK:  It depends on what you want to do with it.   Do you want a career with it or do you want do it part-time?  If you want a career in it, you're going to have to immerse yourself 24 hours a day. First off, you've got to be a little kooky to do that, because you're going to suffer the consequences emotionally and financially. But when I'm immersed in it, there's a payoff at the end of the day, artistically.  Maybe it's just me, but I can't be in two places at the same time, and I don't think that anyone else can. And if your really going to give this business a shot, you've got to give it a shot and go for it totally.  If you're working part time at a day job, how creative are you going to feel when you come home from work every day? And if you have to work full time to pay your bills, how creative are you going to be then?  But then there's a dilemma -- how do you earn money?

Opportunities for Artists

STARPOLISH: Do you think that there are more opportunities or fewer opportunities for emerging artists right now?

SLICK:  I think there are different opportunities.  I think opportunities that once existed don't anymore, but I think there are a lot of new opportunities that exist. I think what doesn't exist anymore is the idea that you can put together a band and just keep playing clubs, one after the other, indefinitely -- those places where people used to just go on the weekends to see music, regardless.  They didn't go to particularly to see a particular band all the time, they just wanted to go out and see live music. I don't know how much it exists in the rock "n" roll world anymore. I don't think it does.

Earl Slick

STARPOLISH: So what are some of the new opportunities you think exist?

SLICK:  I think -- and this is another double edge sword -- because of the technology being what it is today, people are actually able to go and at least write music and record it at home without having to figure out where they're going to get $10,000 to make a demo.  I think in that way it's good.

STARPOLISH: But by lowering that barrier, more bands and artists are capable of recording and releasing music, and that creates more noise -- and I don't mean more noise in a bad way, but it results in so many more bands competing for maybe fewer...

SLICK:  Well go look at Tower Records, go look at Virgin Records -- go look at how much product is in those stores; it's spooky. It's a weird time, because technology is changing everything.  It's not the way [it was when] I came up. My interest originally was playing live music and rocking and rolling and going out for the whole experience -- the rock and roll experience.  I don't know if that's something that interests the new guys; maybe for some of them, I don't know.  Things have changed quite a bit.

Zig Zag

STARPOLISH: Let's talk a little about your new album, Zig Zag, which is about to be released on Sanctuary Records.  You've probably dealt with a variety of types of labels, both major and indie -- what made you choose Sanctuary?

SLICK:  First of all, I didn't think that approaching a major label was a great idea because of the way things are.  I don't even think they would be that interested, in the first place.  Even if they were interested, the curse of that is, sure, I can get the record out on a major label, but if I don't sell as many copies as they say I need to sell within a week of it coming out, I'm dropped. I'm not doing this to sell a trillion records; obviously, you like your records to sell a lot, but this is what I do. I thought with a company like Sanctuary, I get to do what I do, and hopefully we can sell enough records so they're happy financially, which enables me to make more records.

STARPOLISH: So the expectation levels are a lot different?

SLICK:  They're a lot different, and I think from what I've seen with this company that things get done way more efficiently, and way more in a timely manner -- more than any major label that I ever dealt with -- and I can get right to the source. There are key people at this label I can call up and say, "What's going on with this?" and he'll say, "Give me a minute, we got that covered."  Try that at Sony.

STARPOLISH: The business has changed so much in the past decade; I was wondering whether your approach to making the record, and then getting involved in the business aspect of it -- the distribution, marketing, and promotions -- has that changed at all? Do you get involved with it? Is that sort of what the label is doing?  Are you more hands on that you would've been 10 years ago?

SLICK: I'm more hands-on for the simple fact that first of all it's just me, and to a great degree I am in charge of my own destiny, and I want this to be, this I can continue to do it. And I've been doing this awhile, so I know what I want and these guys know what they're doing, and between us we sit down and bounce ideas around the table and we go for it.

STARPOLISH: You have a website set up for e-commerce, something a lot of artists have been slow to do. How important has that been to you as a career musician, having a direct outlet and connection to your fans?

SLICK:  You know, right now we have EarlSlick.com going up, which is different from the other thing that you saw. The other thing serves its purpose for what it is, but I need an Earl Slick site that's not selling anything.

STARPOLISH: When I visited the other site, I was disappointed there wasn't a lot of information about you, and the news hadn't been updated in a while. [Note: Since the interview was conducted, Earl's new website, www.earlslick.com, has been launched -- Ed.]

SLICK: Ahh... let's not even get into it...(laughing)

STARPOLISH: (laughing) OK, we can just talk about the new site.

SLICK: Yes, we can. Hopefully the new site will up within the next week. It's www.earlslick.com.  We are going to do all the usual, but at least there will be a way for fans to leave us messages, there'll be new photos, and we can let people keep up with all the Bowie tour dates and where we're going to be. Maybe we'll do some contests...

Cool Collaborators

STARPOLISH: You have a pretty high profile among musicians, and as a result of that, you have some cool collaborators on the new album, such as David Bowie, Robert Smith, Joe Elliot, and Roystan Langdon. I was curious, do you write songs with certain people in mind, or do you find the right match afterward.

SLICK: The way the songs were written, I had just been writing. Then, when I decided to do an album, I had a conversation with David about his involvement, and he brought up the fact that he would like to somehow be involved in the album --maybe playing keyboards or harmonica or some backing vocals. And all of a sudden, it organically ended up that he wound up writing that song and recording it, which then sparked me into thinking, "Well, this might be cool to get some people that I really like on here." And the next thing that happened was that I went into the studio with my producer, Mark Plati, and re-cut "A Forest," which is an old Cure track. And when he went over to London to mix it with Robert Smith and he played a couple of my tracks for Robert, Robert wanted to get involved in the record. So it all kind of happened organically, and the way the songs were chosen, I basically gave them each a half-dozen pieces of music and said, "Which ever one of these really hits you, go for it." But when I was choosing, the music was already written already, so I took pre-existing music that had been written maybe a month earlier, and said, "These are the six that David would probably be interested in,and these are the five that Robert would be interested in, and Roy..." And then they just picked which one hit them.

STARPOLISH: Typically an artist has an album out and then they tour in support of it. You're already on a tour, so I'm wondering how you'll deal with that. Will you try and tour in support of your album when the Bowie tour ends?

SLICK:  I want to do some dates, that's for sure. As far as a full-length tour, I don't really know. If [this interview] is going to people who are interested in the business side of things and up-and-coming artists, then you should look at who you are in the business, where you are in the business, and what you're looking to accomplish.  And if I'm looking at keeping a recording career going, and selling enough records so I can do that, then going out on the road for six to eight months in a van, spending god knows how much money a week in expenses, is not going to accomplish that. And in these days, I'm not sure how effective touring is for record sales.

STARPOLISH: I think sometimes people want one cookie-cutter answer for the industry, and artists are often at such different stages in their career that different things make sense for them. So I guess you need to evaluate where you are, and what it is you're trying to do. That sort of leads to the question of where, in the future, an artist's income will come from. It's unclear whether new forms of digital distribution will compensate for declining CD sales, if they do in fact continue to decline. So in the future, will they generate income from CD sales, will it be through touring... Do you have any ideas?

SLICK: I think for certain artists it will be through touring. I think for bigger, established artists who have been around for a while, they will make their money on the road.  I think maybe for certain other kinds of artists that the record companies are creating -- the "Happy Meal flavor-of-the-month" bands -- they will make their money from CD sales and songwriting...

STARPOLISH: Although a lot of those artists don't write their songs...

SLICK: Someone will make money off those songs, that's for damn sure. And then maybe if these people are good enough to exist, then they'll go out on tour and that's how they'll make their money. But I think there are so many different scenarios these days...there used to be a stock answer, which would pretty much cover 90% of everything. That answer doesn't work anymore. I mean, somebody like me, I'm looking to get my songs placed in movies, on TV shows, even TV commercials. And I'm not ashamed to say that -- and there was one point where I would have been.  I need to be able to support myself financially so that I can do what I love to do, so I get to give people more music again, which I can't do if there's no money coming in.

STARPOLISH: And I don't think that stigma exists anymore. I mean, some of the most innovative music you hear these days is coming out of car commercials (laughing).

SLICK: Absolutely!  If you had done that 20 years, you were a sellout, you were a traitor, you were a corporate dude, you know? It's not that way anymore. It used to be as simple as you put the band together, you did a demo, and if you were lucky enough to get signed to a label, and lucky enough to get the right single out, they'd throw you out on tour, you're record sells 2 million copies, and you're home freeend of the game. I don't know about that anymore (laughs).

Earl Slick

Career Longevity

STARPOLISH: Any tips about sustaining a long career in this business?

SLICK: One thing I think you need to do is stay open-minded, and I notice that certain artists -- and I have friends of mine in this business -- as all this new technology and new music -- they hate it and grumble about it all the time. "Oh, these new guys can't play guitar," "Oh the new guys can't write," "Oh, the new guys can't sing..." Well, that's someplace you shouldn't go. Try and just embrace the art form as it changes. It doesn't mean you have to like everything out there, that's ridiculous. But I think that's important, maybe more important than anything else -- keeping your head out of your ass -- because it can end there in this business really quick. And finding out what it is that you do best, actually, too. Some guys don't know that. Some guys I know, they engineer a little bit, they play guitar a little bit, they write a little bit, they do live stuff, they sing a little bit, and they don't do any of it great. Pick one thing and do it great, and stick by your guns, and realize what your strengths are.

STARPOLISH: Do you think of yourself primarily as a guitar player?

SLICK: Yes. And now I'm kind of thinking of myself as a guitar player-writer.