Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Sweet Home High School graduate Andy Slaght will bring his music back to Sweet Home in a performance at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23 at the Rio Theater.
Slaght has recorded and distributed a 16-song demo, “The Mourning After,” and has completed recording of a new demo, “DEMOns.”
The demos have captured the interest of two independent labels, Slaght said, one in Eugene and one in Los Angeles.
Slaght plays and records under the stage name “Drew Wylie,” based on his first and middle names.
Slaght will be joined by Tractor Operator and Andy Combs of Portland for the show, he said. All three are one-man acoustic performers.
Slaght, a member of the Class of 2004, was active in choir all through high school.
With Austin Strickler, he also helped in a yearlong after-school program at the junior high teaching instruments to students. He was never involved in high school band programs, but he did perform for talent shows and in non-school bands.
Slaght plays guitar, bass, drums, piano and whatever he can get his hands on, he said. In his latest recording, he used “found objects” as percussion instruments. Those ranged from sticks found in the yard to salt shakers and vacuum cleaner attachments.
While recording, he would visit his brother in Seattle two to three weeks at a time to lay down tracks, Slaght said. He returned in October to go to work on his second CD.
“My dad was in some Northwest bands when he was young,” he said, and he got everyone in the family into music.
Slaght’s brothers, Ben and Jay, had their own bands, he said, and Ben was the one that really pushed Slaght into music. “He let me go along with him to gigs. I got to see how everything went down.”
“My brothers were in bands, so I decided to try things out,” Slaght said. At 11, he picked up the guitar and started learning Beatles songs and figuring things out.
“Eventually, it kind of drifted into the Ramones and the Clash,” Slaght said. After his foray into punk music, Slaght’s interests branched out into a wide range of music.
He said he doesn’t really have a favorite kind of music, although lately he has been listening to singer-songwriters, like Tom Waites and the late Portland singer Elliott Smith.
“He’s (Smith) the one person that I’ve got more comparisons to,” Slaght said. His influences range from the Beatles to the Clash and Smith.
“I love expression, the way you can just get out things that would be taboo otherwise,” Slaght said. “You can sort of reach more people through music than you can just talking.”
Music brings people together from all walks of life, Slaght said. “If music is good enough, it’ll bring people together.”
“(DEMOns) is sort of a play on words,” Slaght said. It has the word demo in it, and “it’s very personal music about whatever was bothering me at the time — personal ghosts.”
Slaght describes his music as “singer-songwriter” style, a kind of “indie folk,” with a Simon and Garfunkle, Beatles pop sort of thing, all acoustic.
“I’ve tried to do some narrative stuff,” Slaght said. “One is kind of three different stories together, things that bother me about society.”
The song is about three different people, Slaght said. One is a Wall Street guy who will do anything to get fame. The others are a homeless man and a pregnant teen.
Slaght enjoys vampire novels and is reading the Ann Rice “Vampire Chronicles,” so his new CD has a song about vampires, along with a variety of random things.
“In the near future, I have a few shows booked,” Slaght said, three or four in March and at least one in Ashland in April.
He also is helping publicize Michael Graves of the Misfits on the West Coast, Slaght said. Graves is touring to support Damien Echols, who wrote the book “Almost Home” from prison.
Echols is one of the West Memphis Three, Slaght said, who were locked up for a murder in Arkansas on circumstantial evidence and targeted by police there because of the way they dressed and the music they enjoyed. They were labeled as Satanists.
The issue is big in the punk and underground scenes, Slaght said.
He is also promoting his own music, he said. “Recently, I’ve been talking to people all over the world through myspace.com.”
Slaght always wanted to be able to make a living with his music, perhaps developing a local or regional following, he said, but said he has found encouragement and support from around the world for him and his music. Now, he hopes to take his career much further.
In the meantime, he’s looking for a local day job.
For more information about Slaght and his music, he can be reached at myspace.com under the user name Drew Wylie.