// Chat! Chat! //

 / a conversation w Eric Slick at YVYNYL / 

David Lynch’s film “Eraserhead” gets batted around a lot when people talk about Philly, or when people leave this city. Eric Slick, the drummer of Dr. Dog, wanted to start a new solo project once he had moved away from our town a couple years ago. We got online to chat about where he went, and how it influences his music writing. I feel like he found the deeper meanings of his work beyond a catchy melody after he ditched. Listen to “You Become the Light” while you read our conversation below. 

Eric Slick: my service is terrible in my apartment. let’s text away

Mark Schoneveld: I hear ya! No sweat. Happens to the best of us. Are you in Comcast Land? I know Philly isn’t your home base anymore…

Eric: I’m in Richmond Virginia now! No longer the land of Comcast. Dominion perhaps? Oh, wait. It’s Xfinity. So yeah. Still KableTown.

Mark: hahah yup. So you needed to get out of Philly? How long have you left our fair city?

Eric: I grew up in Philadelphia, so I watched it grow and become something that’s positive for the transplants and confusing for the natives. I left for the first time in 2013 and I moved to Asheville, then I returned back to the island (like the show Lost). I moved to Richmond in 2016 and didn’t tell a soul.

I’m the kind of person who needs to move. It’s called ADHD

I’ve made peace with Philadelphia though and I love it again.

Mark: Is this a way to tell all your pals that you’re in Richmond now?

Eric: Exactly. Come visit. it’s clean here!

Mark: My sister lived in Richmond for a few years, it’s a really lovely city. The Fan!

Eric: That’s where I live!

Mark: I imagine there’s a great bunch of music nerds living that ‘hood…

Eric: Yeah. My partner is Natalie Prass and there’s the whole Spacebomb music community in our neighborhood. And Jellowstone Records/Butcher Brown crew. It’s unbelievable.

Mark: Oh nice. I didn’t know that, but I’ve seen Natalie play at Boot n’ Saddle a few years ago! Great performer.

Eric: She’s the best, but I’m completely biased.

Mark: Of course! Do you guys play together? Doing any duo work, or do you like having your own personal creative stuff?

Eric: Yeah! She occasionally plays bass and keyboards with me. Very gracious of her. If it wasn’t for Natalie, this record wouldn’t have gotten finished. I haven’t played her music yet - I don’t think I’m skilled enough! Maybe I’ll shake a tambourine on her next record.

Mark: Tambourine works!

Eric: haha

Mark: Traditionally you were mainly a drummer. Are you doing more guitar work now on your new solo record?

Eric: Yes. Guitar, mellotron, Moog, marimba, and vocals. All new territories for me. I read an interview with David Lynch while he was making a record and he said, "I guess I’m making music now.” I can relate to that 100%. I also started practicing meditation because of Lynch. He was an unknown catalyst to my process.

Mark: That’s excellent. I share this practice, too. I was thinking about Spalding Gray - his monolog Swimming to Cambodia, particularly -  when it was mentioned in the email to me. I haven’t read Impossible Vacation yet, but how did this play with your music now?

Eric: I read Impossible Vacation in 2013 and it changed my whole course of thinking and creating. It was so brutally honest. Gray achieved something pure in his writing that I’m still grasping at. It also toyed with the concept of the impossibility of Zen, that you never really get there until the afterlife. You either drift or desire. Life is just a means to an end, so you live in the now moment as much as you can. Grays life was comically tragic/tragically comic. I relate to that. A lot of my friends see me as a comedian. I was the class clown in high school. But the other side of comedy is a tragedy. My album deals with that a lot. I almost wanted to put the smiling mask/drama mask on the cover but I can’t be too literal!

Mark: There has to be some humor in death, doesn’t there?

Eric: I think there is. Death is the ultimate mindfuck. I lost a lot of people close to me very early on my life. They say black is all the colors at once and it’s analogous to death for me. Death is every feeling at once. So humor is there. I love morbid humor.

Mark: Me too. What’s a film or a show that can encapsulate that for you?

Eric: I loved Jodorowsky’s Dance of Reality. That movie hits the mark of diving into death and absurdity. Inland Empire, too. Laura Dern’s character gets stabbed and then the film lights come up.

To me, it was a statement about constant rebirth.

Mark: Does this relate to your work on Jungian dream therapy?

Eric: Absolutely. I started doing dream therapy in 2014. My teacher would analyze my dreams and then do tarot readings. Dreams of death and sickness have plagued me my whole life. Then she told me it didn’t mean literal death. It meant constant renewal.

Mark: I love that.

Eric: She also pulled the craziest card one time. Our last session, I had a dream that I was overlooking an ocean and wearing a gold cape and I was singing. I was leaning on a cane. And someone walked up to me and said “keep singing!”

The first tarot card she pulled, completely random, was a man wearing a gold robe, overlooking the sea, holding a scythe.

I nearly passed out.

Mark: Um, isn’t that now your album cover!? 😊

Eric: You got it. That’s why I did it.

Mark: Amazing. She was on to something there.

Eric: Totally! and I am very self-conscious about entering this territory of writing songs and singing, and it was like my dream was giving me permission to do it. And then the tarot confirmed it

Mark: Fantastic. You have several projects right now, but what about the biggest one: Dr. Dog. How’s that going?

Eric: It’s going well. we’re finally taking a short break after 7 years of nonstop work. it’s been so great. everyone feels recharged. We’re doing a few festivals this year and then recording sometime in the future.

Mark: Recharge and rejuvenation is important for any creative team. And your new solo work is giving you that!

Eric: Exactly! creativity is a renewable resource. people forget that.

Mark: A trip around the East Coast, a bit of SXSW, and then some summer dates with the Dr. Dog festival circuit…

Eric: Like I said, I need to keep moving.

Mark: Both in your dreams and in “reality” right? 😊

Eric: hah! Yes. And hopefully without too much negativity attached to it. Music is supposed to be a great time. It seems to me that the tortured artist paradigm is finally coming to an end. Or at least I hope it is.

My musical friends are all working hard to be healthy. It’s inspiring.

Mark: So important. Health should be our all #1. Mentally, spiritually, physically. It’s my point of view, for sure. For me, music helps keep those things all in working together

Eric: I love that! I think you’ve always been a positive force in the Philly scene

Mark: Doing my best. 😉

Eric Slick plans to take his solo act on the road in 2017, starting with a string of performances at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Upcoming dates:

Mar 06 Richmond, VA - The Camel 

Mar 09 Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts %

Mar 10 Baltimore, MD - Metro Gallery %

Mar 11 Asheville, NC - The Mothlight 

Mar 13 Dallas, TX - Three Links*

Mar 14 SXSW - Noisetrade Day Party (Blackheart Bar)

Mar 14 SXSW - Riot Act Showcase (Sidewinder) 

Mar 20 Birmingham, AL - Saturn *

Mar 22 Charlottesville, VA - The Southern *

Mar 25 Ithaca, NY - The Haunt *

Mar 26 South Burlington, VT - Higher Ground *

Mar 27 Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right (School Night) 

% with Delicate Steve * with The Districts