"Slick 57 - Make E. Dallas, famous."
[Interview with John Binder of Harder Beat Magazine]
“We’re old school punk rock merged with old school country,
merged with chicks getting naked, rock and roll,” states Ward
Richmond, bass player for Slick 57, the latest “on the verge”
band out of Dallas. Or as the territorial band likes to publicize,
“We’re from East Dallas, Texas!” There’s a difference,” says
singer/guitarist John Pedigo, as we all enjoyed some of Dallas’s
finest beef jerky from Rudolph’s, which they brought to kick
off our interview.
Along with drummer, Trey Pendergrass, the band recently signed
a worldwide record deal with Australian–based Laughing Outlaw
Records. “We sent them a CD, invited them to come and see a
live performance during SXSW in Austin, and they signed us that
weekend,” states Ward. Now with the worldwide release of The
Ghost of Bonnie Parker, Slick 57 is readying themselves for
upcoming tours of Australia, America and Europe.
Ward and John first met each other in kindergarten, but started
making music together later on. “We started a punk rock band
in high school called South,” John says. “Then we started playing
oldies, then rockabilly and finally ended up doing Slick 57.”
While in high school the dynamic duo met their drummer under
some painful circumstances. “We were all on the football team,”
John relates, “but Trey only played for one day and broke his
arm.”
Luckily for the band, Trey’s arm healed and they self released
two albums Low-Fi Lorraine and Her Bag of Tricks and Drunk Life,
selling a combined total of 4,000 copies - very impressive independent
numbers. However Ward confides that the new record is not the
Slick 57 many have come to know. “The new CD has organs, harmonies,
steel guitar and a much fuller sound than anything we’ve done
in the past. In a sense, this is really our first album. This
is Slick 57 finally capturing the sound that defines what we’re
all about.
“We started the band in 1998,” Ward explains, “but we were still
in college so it was more of a summer vacation type thing. This
past year has been the first time we’ve all been in the same
city, all working continuously on the band.”
This year has turned out to be quite fruitful. “It began last
August,” he continues. “We didn’t play any gigs. We just rehearsed
every day and worked out songs. We really labored on uncovering
and polishing the sound we wanted to capture, carefully crafting
six songs.”
“Then we went into Last Beat Studios in December and recorded
the songs,” Ward states. “ We shopped it out for two months
and got signed.”
If you’ve ever been to a Slick 57 show, you know it’s usually
a packed house, and everyone is having a great time. “It’s hard
not to have fun at our show,” Ward notes.
"We like to get the crowd involved,” John adds, “act goofy
and just have a good time with everyone there. I hate bands
that just stand there and play. We’re out to put on a show!”
Slick 57 started that first summer together playing every other
Thursday at Club Clearview’s Red Room. “It was great,” Ward
contends. “Before long it was packed every show, and crazy things
would happen like the stage getting lit on fire - we just kept
on playing.”
Lucky for us someone knew where the fire extinguisher was, because
Slick 57 has become one of the most popular and entertaining
bands in the Dallas/Austin/Denton area. No doubt the rest of
the world will feel the same this fall, when they launch their
rock and roll blitzkrieg.
As for the band’s most important goals, Ward and John state,
“We’d like to get 100 naked chicks on stage. That would be cool.”
- Harder Beat
