SNAKE RIVER CONSPIRACY's SLATER Speaks Out On New Songs, Label Situation

SNAKE RIVER CONSPIRACY mainman Jason Slater recently spoke to Rock N Roll Experience about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the group's forthcoming sophomore effort, tentatively due in late 2003 through an as-yet-undetermined label.

"I've got like 13 songs written, five of which I think are great and the rest suck, so I figure if I write another 13, I'll get another good five," Slater explained. "I've been working on [the music for the next album] now for close to a year, and it's time to finish this thing up and move... I've gotten rid of the old band and the old management and everything else, so there isn't a lot of business going on, but it's coming along pretty well. I think I have a lot of the music done and I wrote some songs with Charlie Clouser from NINE INCH NAILS and and couple with Troy Van Leeuwen from A PERFECT CIRCLE and it's all kind of coming together. It's just all of the normal songwriting stuff — when it's good enough, it's good enough, so I'll probably go through that for another three or four months and then we'll be done."

With regards to the band's current label situation, Slater said, "We're in between right now. Interests are from a bunch of people, but kind of the main thing right now for me is getting the band in order, getting the right management and waiting until next year. Kind of the deal with record labels is, the end of the year they are all running out of budgets and the deals suck, so I just figured we'd wait 'till next year. We've got time to get songwriting done and I don't want anybody signing the band and going, 'Let's get this out in two months!', and all of a sudden there is a big rush to write songs."

Slater, who is currently producing the sophomore CD from Montreal's SLAVE ON DOPE, also praised the contributions to the group of former ORGY drummer Bobby Hewitt, who officially joined the band in October.

"For so long, the band was totally… I had to do everything — I drove the ship," explained Slater. "If there was a problem in the band, if somebody has an issue I dealt with everything, I dealt with management, dealt with the attorney's, dealt with the labels, wrote the fuckin' thing, produced it — it was like the whole gig. Bobby just kind of came in and was like, 'Let me take 1/2 of the weight off of your shoulders.' Not only is he a great drummer, he's totally overlooked as a drummer because in ORGY, he played electronic drums and you get the guy behind the kit — he's bad-ass. So he got overlooked as a drummer and he's amazing, so he's brought a lot to the band as a drummer and a lot to the business side — the way things get done and how much stuff I have to do. Like, Bobby's brother Fab is playing guitar, and those two guys are dealing with all the web shit, photography, just all the crap I don't wanna do, and they are really good at it and they are probably the hardest-working fuckers I've met — they just come in and kick ass and don't ask for much. They are doing it because their hearts are in it, which is entirely different than every other version of SNAKE RIVER CONSPIRACY where everyone did it for the bread."