October Spotlight: Slippery People

Pete Davies is the creator and director of the band Slippery People - an indie/dance/pop/rock band with an island vibe. Pete is a Napa native and has been playing music in the scene for more than 2 decades. The Slippery People live band features an all-star array of Napa talent, including Robinson Kuntz (Last Pleasure, Change!Pop, Buttercream Gang), Max Bonick (Jealous Zelig, Invincible Star Jazz, Buttercream Gang), Joel Fennie (The Iron Heart, Once Over, Zak Fennie band) and Alex Garcia (He literally plays with everyone!)

We talked with Pete about the history of Slippery People, his experience writing and recording and his thoughts on the Napa music scene. Slippery People is releasing a new EP - “Out the Other Side” - later this month and will be celebrating the release with a show at Jam Cellars on October 31st.

Pete Davies in his element, performing live with Slippery People

Napa Noise (NN): You've been a veteran of the Napa scene for many years. Can you talk about the origin of Slippery People and how it became what it is now? 

Pete Davies (PD): Well, as long as I've been making music I've had ideas that I wanted to express, and when I was in the Buttercream Gang I was mostly satisfied with that as an outlet. But I always thought it might be nice to make something of my own. I looked at it as a challenge to my own limitations. In one sense it offers freedom, where no one is telling me no, but in another sense I'm confined to my own abilities. I started working on the album, it took about 3 years and about 3 years ago I released that album. That was during the pandemic, so there was no serious consideration of a band at that moment. Then about a year or so later I thought Porchfest seemed like a fairly low-stakes way to debut a live band so I put out a call to some musicians and we put together a band that played the music from that album. Slowly but surely it's developed and the songs have taken on different dynamics as the musicians have put their touches on things and we've gelled as a band.   

  

NN: On "Fandango", your first record, you wrote everything yourself. Did you play everything also, or did you have any contributing musicians? 

PD: It was pretty much me. I had some horns on the album, so our bandmate Alex Garcia played saxophone and he roped in some other players to play like tuba, trumpet, trombone and baritone sax. Those are all instruments I don't have the ability to play. There's a handful of songs that they played on and most of them were parts that I had written. The guitar, bass, drums, keys, percussion was me. I was limited by my own abilities, so in some cases I would be like "hey - can you do this thing that is in my head that I've kind of made a version of but it's way less precise and nuanced" and they would play their instruments on top of it in a way that would make those parts shine more. I was really happy with how all that stuff turned out. 

"Fandango" is available now on bandcamp and all streaming platforms.

NN: Your music, at least on Fandango, is pretty fun and energetic. Now that you have a band playing your stuff, how has it developed these songs and future songs?  

PD: It's developed in a few different ways. When I'm writing music, there's been a bit more of an electronic element to it. Using software, using drum machines. There's a lot of loops and grooves that I'm working on. Our live setup is not one that relies on a lot of technology in that way, our setup is more traditional. All of the individual players have their own styles, and sometimes they coalesce or diverge from the original idea and sometimes it is something that I would not have thought to do it that way but it sounds great. Sometimes things can become a little more funky or a little bit more heavy hitting and rock than what the original vision was. When I'm writing the songs I'm not thinking about a band performing it live necessarily - but then you have the band, there's our keyboardist, there's our guitarist, there's our drummer, me on bass, a saxophone - it becomes a little more rigid, it changes things. How can incorporate everyone, give them something to do? Most of the time it works out and doesn't require huge changes. Does it change how the songs are written? Yes and no. There's definitely times, like on a new song "Dance Until I Drop", where I had it more 70s/80s synth and disco vibe, but when we play it live our keyboardist played this salsa-y piano part that sounded really cool. It seemed weird to say "no, we're doing it this other way", so now my question is how do I incorporate that into the final product? At the end of the day, it's whatever is going to make the song the best.  

  

NN: Slippery People has the reputation of being a fun live band. What in your mind is the secret to a successful live show?  

PD: That's kind of like the dragon I'm always chasing. Personally, I'm drawn to things that make me want to dance, that have a groove to them. In our case, that's what is appealing to people. I enjoy things that aren't too self conscious. I know that I'm having a good time when I'm performing, and I try to live physically in the music. We're all people who have played in a number of bands and have diverse tastes, and that is definitely to our strength. We can all do certain things that lift the songs to be something more. I also really like to bring the audience in to sing along, or to give out percussion to them. I think anytime you can make something feel more communal, and less like "oh we're on stage, you're in the audience", and doing it well enough so there's a sense they can feel comfortable too because we've got it on lock. 

The current Slippery People lineup from left to right: Max Bonick (keyboard), Pete Davies (vocals/bass), Robinson Kuntz (guitar), Joel Fennie (drums)

NN: Let’s talk about the new EP. Is it a continuation of the sound established on “Fandango”? 

PD: They are songs that are written after Fandango, some as recently as 15 months ago and others older. I took some songwriting workshops, and some of these morphed from there into something I wanted to put out into the world. The main thing that contains them is that it was written in a specific span of a year. They’re a little bit more electronic. The intro and outro on the EP are actually taking the saxophone from a song on Fandango and stripping everything else away, using takes that got taken out or turned down and bringing them to the forefront, using that as like bookends to the EP. So it still has a connection to the first one, but it feels like you’re arriving at and leaving a space in time in my life. These songs are connected to that. Musically I did incorporate more people this time, a little less insolated and take into account more things people could add. There were some things that seemed to lack the ‘wow’ factor, and some of the guitar parts were a little boring, so Rob Kuntz (guitar player for the Slippery People band) came in and added some more guitar leads. And the band has been rehearsing the song “I Saw Stars”, and Max (Bonick, keyboard player for Slippery People band) came up with a part at practice and I thought we needed to record that. It was a rhythm that I didn’t think of on my own, it added a little something. Also brought in Lara (Hoffman of eggcorn) and Cierra (Schuer of Last Pleasure) on backing vocals, I’m always in favor of having more voices on my recordings. And then Joe Shoemaker, our buddy, adding synthesizers that were a bit more weird, he has a mastery of that technology that I don’t. It was fun to get people to pepper their little things in.  

 

NN: How do you feel about the current state of the Napa music scene? 

PD: I feel ok about it! There’s a lot of cool things going on. The fire at the Napa Distillery felt like a bit of a speed bump because that venue and Damian (Burford of Good Omens Presents – booker for the Distillery) were so inviting to local musicians. There was a certain fluidity to things that were helpful. It just felt very good. Now though, there’s still Jam Cellars, The Garden – I hope they start to book more local stuff – but I think it’s a combination of people taking advantage of the resources that are there for them and also people working to build an audience that will come to take advantage of those spaces and fill them and support them. It’s kind of a symbiotic relationship. It’s a delicate chemical balance between the ambition of bands and the support of audiences and the promotors. It ultimately all doesn’t matter if the songs and performance aren’t good, so that has to also be the foundation of this. The more people balance that and make it work in the context of our town. I recently saw Zak Fennie’s band – I thought that was rad, it had high energy, people were excited. There’s eggcorn, Divorces, there’s a lot of good stuff right now. I know that I really enjoy the music of a lot of those bands and I think that is more important and if we all keep doing what we’re doing it will persist.  

Pete performing at the Distillery

NN: Quick hitters - what’s your favorite song to play live? 

PD: I really like musically playing The Clash’s “Let’s Go Crazy” but I always feel self conscious about the lyrics. It’s a little different than how I normally sing and I often mess up the words. No one probably notices, but it keeps me from surrendering all the way to it. I just love the groove to that one. It lends itself well to our live performance. 

 

NN: Favorite Napa-specific show memory? 

PD: This is going way back – but one of my favorite memories was with the Buttercream Gang at Slack Ranch in the Cuttings Wharf area. It was a house show with really good energy. It was kind of a small house, also a little rundown and I remember people getting rowdy and feeling the floorboards bend a little bit. It just had a feeling that it might fly of the rails and it was really fun. Energy, you know? Even the people that are performing, it was a bit cathartic for the people in the audience. I always appreciate when we can be apart of people breaking down their barriers and surrendering to the moment. 

 

NN: What’s your favorite venue in town to play or see shows at? 

PD: Napa Distillery is my favorite to play at. I do enjoy seeing a show at the Uptown. It was pretty cool to see Beck play there, and to see Marc Maron perform comedy there. Classic old school theater.  

 

NN: What’s the best thing you’ve seen or heard lately 

PD: Ooh. I read a comic book today that I’ve been enjoying. It’s by W. Maxwell Prince, who writes “Ice Cream Man” comics, kind of dark horror, spooky stuff. His new series is called “Art Brut”, about a slightly mentally unhinged guy who can hop into paintings that have been tampered with and fix them. It’s fantastical and a little comedic, and there’s also some art history in the writing. The art style is very crisp. It’s just nice, it’s something different.  

 

NN: How can we as a community help to cultivate the Napa scene? 

 
PD: Continuing to preach that it IS a community but it can also even be more of a community. It’s not on any one person to make that happen, but it does require individuals to make a choice to put time into supporting those things. It’s sort of an agreement between bands to continue to make it interesting and audiences to allow themselves the opportunity to be entertained, to take that chance. Often times with local bands, people are more interested in things they know or are familiar with. And I know there are people we all (as musicians) have known for a long time who’ve never come to see us play. If people can put more investment into the local art, the more it will put energy back into the local bands and that will also help create the situation where out of town bands will want to come and infuse their energy in what we’re doing. The more we understand that as musicians and audiences we have to work and exist together. It’s all about human connection.  

 

NN: What’s next for Slippery People? 

PD: Our band is playing at Jam Cellars on Halloween. We’ve got some tricks up our sleeves for some stuff that will only happen that night. It’s Halloween, so you should come dressed up. It’s also going to be celebrating the release of “Out the Other Side” EP. Then in December also, Glial Cell doing another show. But Slippery People first.  

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Catch Slippery People at Jam Cellars on October 31st
New EP “Out the Other Side” releasing soon
Follow Slippery People on instagram

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September Spotlight: Eggcorn