The Northern Light

Media Credit: Photo courtesy of Don Monick Rap artist Slug and producer Ant comprise Atmosphere, an underground force in the hip-hop universe since 1997. Atmosphere has two Alaska stops on its tour with Brother Ali, DeeJay Bird and DJ Rare Groove. Atmosphere and Brother Ali are on indie record lab [Click to enlarge]

Underground rap group Atmosphere, composed of Slug (Sean Daley) on the mic and Ant (Anthony Davis) on production, will perform an all-ages show at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium Sept. 1 at 8 p.m. A 21-and-over performance will take place at the Alyeska Daylodge in Girdwood Sept. 2 at 9 p.m. Tickets are available at Mammoth Music in the Dimond Mall, Metro Music and Books, and www.groovetickets.com. A long edit of this interview is available at www.thenorthernlight.org.

TNL: You and Ant seemed more comfortable on your last record, "You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having," and "Felt 2." Did something between those albums and "Seven's Travels" contribute to this?

Slug: Feeling more comfortable and confident. We were late bloomers in the sense of finally admitting to ourselves this has become our career and not just something we do.

There are other factors. Ant finally quit his job somewhere in the making of those records. I finally shed a lot of things I'd been staying attached to in the sense of work and having something to fall back on when your music doesn't make it.

I don't think it's a matter of me saying, "Oh, we made it." By no means have we made it. But it's me going, "We could survive off the money we're pulling. Why are you still sweeping floors, why am I still working behind the counter in a record store?"

I had an old friend, who's not really a friend anymore €" he's kind of a piece of shit jackass €" approach me in a bar not too long ago, and he was pretty drunk. He came up to me and was like, "How does it feel?" and I'm like, "Oh god, here we go. 'How does what feel?'"

He's like, "Being in your mid-30s, having no education, no professional life, and you're riding this little rap wave that'll keep you going for another two years, then what are you going to do?"

As much as I wanted to put him in his place, instead I let him have his moment and thought about it. There's something right about what he said. Not that I'm doomed, but I've never taken the time to lie back and float. I've been neurotic about making sure I'm busy, making sure I'm doing something productive, making sure we're prolific. Part of that comes from an insecurity I carry that he might be right.

But up until about 27 years old, I accepted that none of that shit was going to happen for me. I accepted I was going to be a courier who loves rap. And so these new neuroses I have about it, they're not real either. They're fake. I was content with the idea I was going to be driving a cube truck for the rest of my life, for $16 an hour plus medical.

TNL: You've been staying away from a lot major labels €" you've said this a couple times in your raps and in interviews. What's the motivation behind that?

The identity of underground rap at the time people started noticing me, I was going through the same identity crises many of them were, we were running around saying, "Fuck major labels, and fuck corporate America." At 25 years old, that's what you were supposed to be saying. I was just dumb back then. So that's an image a lot of kids had of me for a long time.

I'm not anti-major label. I'm just pro-comfort. I want to be emotionally and mentally comfortable with my decision-making. Offers do come in, every so often, for labels to talk to me again. I'm open-minded. I'm not on some, 'I would never do that.' I'm more like, 'Man, I'll do it if it seems like the right thing to do.' But money is not what makes things feel like the right thing to do.

TNL: You've been touring with your band for a while now. Have you ever considered doing a studio album with them?

Slug: We've thought of things I could do with them that'd be fun. But I couldn't imagine writing an Atmosphere record with them. The energy we create is not the same energy that pushes me and Ant to make the songs we make.

I do write other songs that are a little more Tom Waits-y. Or sometimes indie-rockish, where I'm actually singing or storytelling. Those things, I could see recording, but I don't think it would be an Atmosphere thing.

TNL: Are there any writers that you admire, or that you have been significantly influenced by?

Slug: KRS 1 and Big Daddy Kane are the biggest influences of how I write rap.

As far as admiring, I might be able to write a verse, but I can't write a chorus to save my life. Honestly, 50 Cent is amazing when it comes to writing choruses. He makes great songs, if you ignore the verses.

So the grass is always greener. If you can make a song that makes a bunch of 12-year-olds and 45-year-olds learn the words to it, that's pretty sweet, I admire that.

Stevie Wonder and Billy Joel are the pinnacle for being able to take pop music to a level of pop music that is pretty genius.

Billy Joel, more so on the side of writing a song that everybody thinks they can relate to. But when you tear his songs apart, you're like, "Man, this song is not that good." But the bottom line is, everybody hears Piano Man at a wedding reception, and they're like, "Oh, it's so great." It's corny.

And Stevie Wonder is the other side of it. His art was so incredible, and he was able to turn that into pop music. In fact, I would call Stevie Wonder a genius. Not just a musical genius, but a genius. Because that is a person who in his adult life has never seen a pair of breasts. But he makes songs that make girls lose their mind.

TNL: Anything you want to add?

Slug: I'm really confused lately. I don't even know what to say. There are so many things that need to be said, and so many topics and ideas that need to be spoken on, but I feel like every time I start to go down one of those roads, that I'm furthering a caricature of myself and who I am. So as of lately I've been trying to kind of shut up a little bit and just kind of analyze myself.

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