Slimdan Talks '(second) Second Dinner' | LPtv

Hey there, this is Lindsey Parker at Licorice Pizza Records here in the Valley with a Valley legend, Slim Dan. You are here to perform and I believe you also brought us burritos or something like that. I could have brought you burritos. I think my my sweet manager, Kelly, may have just come in with some tacos maybe from Homestead.

right, breakfast of champions. Yeah.

So, you are, like I said, a Valley legend. I We were talking right before this. I grew up in Tarzana. Yes, you did. You grew up in Sherman Oaks.

Mhm. So, that's kind of cool. And you still live in the Valley. You still representing the 818.

I ran away for a big portion of my life. I went to Boston for school and then I lived in everywhere in LA, but I I was thought if I moved back to the Valley that meant I lost the game. I thought I thought it was over, but then I moved back to the Valley last year and I'm in Valley Village and But then you realize like everyone like I don't know like the not that they're not silly cool, but like a lot of celebrities live in the Valley like I believe the Kardashians live in the Valley. Dave Grohl lives in the Valley. The Kardashians, Dave Grohl, Slim Dan. It's There you go. I feel like what happens is you realize that like it's like everything in life like you realize what your parents were doing was actually really cool and you thought it wasn't cool. I used to think it was the lamest thing ever, but now all I want to do is like take a destination walk to a coffee shop and like come back and I don't know. That's the Valley rocks.

I'm I'm I came full circle on it. And it rocks cuz the one and only Licorice Pizza that's left in the world is right here.

Bottom boom. And the you know, there used to be one at the at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. The Sherman Oaks Wait, what There used to be a Licorice Pizza at the Sherman Oaks Galleria?

yeah.

What? I mean, in the '80s. That's what you know, when it was the Galleria not like the office park it is now, but like the proper, you know, like

happening at the Galleria in the '80s? Oh, I'm about to You're so Oh, I'm about to school you about Sherman Oaks and you don't know.

Yeah, sorry. I I have more questions to ask you. I feel like it's an OG Valley person. Well, I mean, you've seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Yes. The The was the mall, the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

even recognize it.

the song Valley Girl by Moon Zappa and Frank Zappa? It talks about the guy Basically, it was like the Valley Girl culture, like that was the mall. Like

Did they have the fountain and everything back in the day?

You grew up in the epicenter of Valley Girl cool, and you didn't even know until now.

I was like paying attention to Castle Park. I wasn't But I want to talk about like, you know, you mentioned Obviously, we're talking about how you grew up here and then you went to Boston to the Berkeley College of Music, but you've had an interesting background cuz even though you grew up in I guess, you know, Sherman Oaks is LA, but you grew up in kind of like a little bit of a bubble, right?

Yeah. So tell me I think it's an interesting story.

Yeah, sure. So yeah, I I grew up in the Valley, but my family is Orthodox. If you grew up in the Valley, you probably see the Orthodox Jews walking around on Saturdays. That was like my people. Like

You were raised I was I was one of those people walking around on Saturdays cuz You were raised Orthodox?

raised Orthodox. Okay. So as much as I feel like I grew up in Los Angeles or as As technically it is Los Angeles County, I grew up in the Valley, which is already like an other thing, and then I grew up in an Orthodox community in the Valley.

So I didn't really I didn't know East LA existed until like 7 years ago. I thought everything east of Highland was Dodger Stadium. And I mean it kind of is.

You're right. To me To me that's what it was. And then like all of a sudden my friends were talking about Silver Lake when I moved back from college, and I'm like, "What the [ __ ] are you talking about?" So

Yeah, I definitely am I feel like I've gotten to understand LA and appreciate it as I've grown older. So if I ask any questions that are sort of ignorant, you know, let me know. I'm actually Jewish myself, but I like not I was I wouldn't say secular, but like whatever what do they call it? Reformed? Like I'm not

I love that for you though. I love that for you.

There's no questions off limits.

to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs in my day, and they were always pretty lit. That was a Valley thing. But I I don't know much about what it's like to be Orthodox. So were you allowed to How much exposure did you have to like secular culture, secular music?

Yeah, so totally. So, my mom My parents are modern Orthodox. So, my mom like works and like is They participate in society. And I was lucky enough to have a mom with great taste in music. So, she was kind of like dealing with the Paul Simon and the Beatles of it all. So, I was getting this a good steady diet of that.

But, I would say as far as like discovering music on my own, I would sneak off to the TV room and watch MTV, the TRL. So, it was a weird hybrid of me getting like deep Simon & Garfunkel cuts and like Flo Rida and the Black Eyed Peas. I mean, that's that's pretty cool.

I feel like I land somewhere in the middle of that. So, actually right before this interview when we were like chatting about stuff and we were talking about how we're both in the Valley and stuff, you had said something like you wish you could have made music in 2005. That was a specific year you said, which is like TRL was in full effect back then.

What was it about that era or that time What made you say that? Maybe it's me romanticizing my I feel I How old was I? I was 10 years old. So, maybe I'm romanticizing my childhood a little bit. But, I also think that maybe my kind of music was a little bit more uh valued at the time and there was there was also less music to compete with. I mean, 2005 that's before I mean, it wasn't totally before streaming. It was definitely before Spotify.

What was like early YouTube? Like '08 or something or '05? I think YouTube started in 2005.

Yeah, so like I like I very much so came up on early YouTube and I remember discovering bands for the first time on like LaBlogotheque and like [ __ ] like that where it was like it's people knew about it, but it wasn't available to everybody the same way it is now. So, I don't know.

MySpace was maybe not 2005, but like in the aughts, MySpace was a way a lot of people discovered music.

100% I mean, I was on the tail end of MySpace. By the time I was like really making music, SoundCloud had kind of emerged as the thing. But, um yeah, I think like me opening for, I don't know, Counting Crows in like '05. Like, I feel like that would have that would have ripped. That would have been cool. I like how you said, I mean, I agree with you when you were saying how that was the time when the kind of music you make was more valued because it kind of I mean, obviously, indie rock or whatever. I mean, Sure. Sure.

what exactly is indie rock. But, it's still valued now. But, like there were a lot, you know, The Strokes were really big then. You know, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were big. The White Stripes were big. All those kind of like garagy bands were big. And Death Cab was huge and The O.C. was on and like, you know, all these like bands would be on. So, yeah. So, that is kind of the era that you

I think it also paved the way for like interesting bands like Say Anything and like stuff like that where like they kind of replicated that, but made it their own. I don't know, Max Bemis is a big inspiration of mine and he's a he's a LA Jew guy, songwriter guy. But, I think like he saw that and then obviously the pop punk thing was happening at the same time. And I feel like he merged the singer-songwriter-iness and like the songwriting with the pop punk thing in an interesting way. I don't know, that would I I I just think about that. I I do little mental experiments on what would have happened if I would have been alive then. Well, it's maybe the right time because you're doing cool stuff now. Second Dinner is actually you're celebrating at Liquor's Pizza the one-year anniversary.

Mhm.

Congratulations.

Uh and you did a sort of I don't know if you want to call it a remix version, but like a duet's version of it.

Yeah, we did like a feature version of it where I just had a bunch of buddies hop on and sing songs so I can steal their fans. Um that kind of thing. No, they were very nice.

you Name some of the people and how you were sure cuz it's a pretty impressive roster there.

Thank you. Um I uh Let's see. Um my buddy Johnny is on it who's an incredible artist. Uh my friend Lennon Stella is on it and Medium Build and um Ethan Tash who's amazing. It's just selfishly I wanted to hear my friends sing my songs. You know what I mean? And Adam Melcher's on it. So I just kind of bothered them until they did it and then they did it.

That's so cool. So going back to sort of your unique well, unique to a lot people upbringing that you So you mentioned that you went to Boston. So

Yeah. you grew up in a bubble of modern Orthodox culture here in Sherman Oaks. Yeah. And then you went to Boston which by the way, my mom is from Boston.

Shout out to Boston.

Lot connections here. Yep, she's from Waltham. Mhm. And violin's basement, I don't know if that's still around. Uh but anyway, you went to Berkeley. So that must have been I imagine a culture shock to go from where you grew up to that. I hid in my room for the first semester. Literally? Literally, I would go to class and come back. I was so scared. Why?

I The world is so big and scary, Lindsey. It's all these different types of people. I I'd only met Jewish people. I only knew like my kind of valley people really and then I went to school and there was all these different types of people and I I have uh I had never had formal music training. I was all self-taught. And all these kids were like ripping jazz players and I was like wearing a fedora hat from Goren Bros and trying to do Mumford & Sons songs. You know what I mean? How did you get into Berkeley? I don't know what the qualifications are but I would imagine

don't know why they let me. I probably wouldn't have let me in looking back.

I like showed up to the uh audition with like a kick drum and a tambourine on my foot cuz there's this artist named Shakey Graves. I don't know if you remember Shakey Graves. I was doing like a diet Shakey Graves thing. And uh Not to be confused with diet Snapple. Not to be confused

Diet Shakey

Diet yeah, that's that's the thing.

Shakey Graves light l i t e l i t e exactly

Sounds like cool. That sounds impressive. It was like

like the flash dance scene where you had to audition for like people behind a desk? Yeah, kind I don't know if you get that reference. No, but I I get what you're alluding to and it wasn't not that.

go to the Galleria and watch Flashdance.

Okay, I got it. I got you, fam. Go on. Go on. No, no, it literally was at SIR and like I just did that and like they let me in and it was very nice. But once I got past being scared, I met so many incredible people and I feel like I kind of cherry-picked a little all-star team who a bunch of them are out there who are about to play with me right now. And uh yeah, it it turned out to be a very positive experience for me. So I imagine it sounds like even though you grew up in this religious and kind of insular world, your parents weren't like super strict. They weren't like upset about you going or like don't leave.

They tried the strict thing and then very quickly realized that it wasn't going to go anywhere good. So I think they they changed like my parents are [ __ ] awesome. I think like anything, it's like I just I just was built a little bit different than them and then once I think we all got on the same page, which was like the middle of high school, it was smooth sailing. It was awesome. I mean, that's awesome cuz you hear stories and I'm not even just talking about like Orthodox Jews. I'm talking about Christians or any Amish, whatever. Like any religion that is a strict religion where the parents are aghast if their kids want to leave the culture and spread their wings or whatever. It seems like that was not your experience. Not uh ultimately it was not there. We are very close. I I love my parents. That's awesome. So tell me a little bit more about how being in, you know, this melting pot, I assume, of different types of people at Berklee, uh Berklee College of Music, like just shook shook your world. Yeah, I mean, I I had kind of like carved out this identity in my head when I was 18. I think a lot of people when they're 18 think they land on who they're going to be for the rest of their life, which is obviously not true, but I was like pretty dead set on singing Hey Ho and uh slamming an acoustic guitar. Um and then I got to school and somebody showed me Channel Orange by Frank Ocean. I think that had just came out, and like my brain exploded. And then I was living with like three dudes from Georgia who were all gospel players, and I'd never heard gospel music before, and I I think musically and interpersonally, I just grew a lot, and I was exposed to a lot more stuff, um which sort of

it it killed with my musical identity in a very good way. It kind of made me build from scratch and kind of figure out who I was just and I had a lot more tools to use to build myself back up.

I mean, just in the conversation we've been having in this short time, you clearly have a very encyclopedic uh musical knowledge. Like you're just name-checking all sorts of things. Did Did you learn that there? Is that where you sort of got that knowledge?

What happened was when I was in high school, YouTube started happening, like we talked about, and then I was able to go on these down these rabbit holes, cuz I wasn't like like I knew I was listening to the local natives. I just would never know how to even go to a show, or I didn't know how to see Grizzly Bear, cuz I was in the val- like I it it didn't clock to me, but I would be able to sort of hear their music. And once I was able to latch onto that, I was able to sort of piece it together. I'm like not good at remembering anything, but music, band stuff, I can just remember really well.

I saw like I wonder how many songs like between the two of us we just know in our head. Uh how much time you got, guys?

I feel like we probably know like 20,000 songs between the two of us.

than that. Or however many. So it's like for some reason that's the one thing our brains latch onto, and music and it musical information is the one thing my brain latches onto.

Were you like that? I mean, obviously, you know, all these experiences we're talking about are the things that sort of form you, but like at what point in your life were you like, "I'm going to be a musician." or like, "I want to play music." Was it ver- Were you very young?

very young. Yeah, I think it was when uh when was it? There was this camp counselor at my camp in Canada named Jordan Lass who uh

a Jewish Oh, of course, yeah. Camp Mach Hava. Yeah, he could play the general by dispatch. And I saw that and I was like that should be me, too, I think. And then since then I've just been chasing it. That's awesome. So, after Berkeley, you came back to LA. Maybe not to the Valley per se. That came later.

Right back to my parents' back house, actually. Yeah.

So, did you start off as a songwriter for other people first? Yeah, so

that happen? Yeah, so what happened was I came back and I was I was pretty uh set on being in a band and doing that thing. Um and I have a really good friend named Sasha Alex Sloan who's an amazing artist. I know that name. She's like the LeBron James of songwriting.

She's my favorite. Um and we were she was a songwriter, so I had seen her doing songwriting. And then she became an artist. She made that transition. And I don't know if you watched Entourage, but I was like her Turtle. Like she would like kind of take me around everywhere. And I was in her band. I was playing guitar in her band. And I got to have this whole experience. In that experience, we started writing together a lot. And I wrote this song with her that ended up doing well in the pop space. What was the song?

It was a song called Older, um which was her first kind of like breakout song.

song? Her song, exactly. And from that, I was kind of thrust into this pop songwriting world where they're like, "Oh, you're the pop songwriter guy." And I was like, "Me, really?" And they're like, "Yeah, you." I'm like, "Oh, sick. This is awes- I'm something. That's amazing." And that led me to like a five-year journey of failing so hard at pop so- I mean, I did the thing. I like You've written for some other people successfully, though, right?

Yeah, yeah. I I love songwriting for other people, but I think a specific type of songwriting which is called pitch songwriting, which I was kind of put into. And it was a very interesting experience and I'm glad I had it. And um it sort of is the reason that uh I ended up doing Slim Dan because I crashed and burned pretty hard at that. And then I had to like sort of look myself in the mirror and say, "Who do we want to be when we grow up, Danny?" And I wanted to be Slim Dan more, I think. So, you don't Do you ever still do that? Do you ever still

songwriting for other people. I do that all the time. Um I think I just like working with artists now versus like aimlessly writing songs. Right, got it.

So, some of the stuff you write about in your own music on Second Dinner, you know, we're talking about how you grew up how you grew up in the modern Orthodox Jewish culture. Like you you sing about that sometimes. Like I want to ask about I'm going to pronounce it wrong. Weinerschnitzel? Did I pronounce it right?

It's like the the restaurant.

actual like place in the Valley.

Magnolia and Laurel. Can you picture that?

Okay, I can actually.

Yeah, that's Weinerschnitzel. I mean, there's that one and there's there's another one I wrote down that specifically kind of mentioned that. But you definitely bring that Well, first of all, I want to ask about Weinerschnitzel not just because I want to hear about the hot dog story, but there's also because, you know, like I just mentioned, my grandmother is from Encino.

Uh there's a line about like half of Encino being like drunk on your lawn or something. What are these two What are these stories? I think it's sort of an amalgamation of my high school experience, the parties I would go to. I mean, you grew up in Tarzana, right?

Correct. Like

Correct. You can picture I'm sure you that you have a similar version of like these kind of like reckless Valley nights where you're like It's like a John Hughes movie.

Yeah, it is and there it's sort of this like un- it's un- the Valley's unchecked. Like obviously there were police that I guess were there, but like for some reason they never showed up in in the Valley. So, we would be like in That's why the Valley rocks. That's why the Valley rocks cuz you can get into trouble and no not actually get into trouble, but you can do dumb [ __ ] So, it's a bunch of dumb nights in Tarzana and I feel like that the second that's more speaking to the second verse, which is like my experience of kind of testing my boundaries and my limits in high school with uh parties and stuff like that. Yeah. But the hot dog story about like eating a hot dog for the first time

That's the first verse, yeah.

hot dog

Yes. Is that based on That's exactly what Like I I I'm often envious of writers who can use metaphors. I Maybe I can use metaphors kind of, but like or can speak vaguely. I I I tend to write pretty matter-of-fact, so I literally biked to the Wienerschnitzel and took a hot dog and shoved it in my face.

And did you have an existential crisis over that? I remember feeling like I was like I was I nobody could ever get me cuz I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to eat it and then a thunderbolt was going to come hit me and then I was going to go like and then I died, but

you might die from eating a hot dog, but not

I found that out I found out later that hot dogs are the way But not from God.

When I realized that I didn't die and I wasn't going to die, I was like it broke the whole illusion for me and I feel like it was a pretty game-changing moment, which is why I wrote that song. Are you still religious now in like your own way?

I I think I've found my own path with it and I I I have a very uh strong Jewish identity and I I I feel like I I resonate with that, but um I I don't know if practice is or rules is like where I find my meaning in it. I assume you had a bar mitzvah. [ __ ] yeah.

Was it lit? No. I had a bar mitzvah and it was lit.

Really? I had a bar mitzvah with a Jackson impersonator of mine. That's so Jewish.

Yeah, mine was pretty lit. I'm sorry yours wasn't lit.

It's okay. But I was, you know, mine wasn't like a super religious Mine was like all my friends got parties and my parents made me go to like Israel to hang out with like my 95-year-old grandfather who didn't speak English and I just had to like watch him pray. It was the weirdest. Well, it's going to be lit when you perform here. This This is my bar mitzvah. You're very before very very before In many ways this is my bar mitzvah.

The tacos might not be kosher, but it's all right. Uh like the whole idea of being like culturally Jewish, is that something you try to infuse in your lyrics? You mention it sort of like in a kind of almost Paul Simon-esque storytelling way in Celebrity Look-Alikes, which is I think about your honeymoon or

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I it's interesting cuz it's like I try to be myself and I don't whatever comes with that is what's going to probably come out. I don't know if I'm intentionally trying to be like I feel like we could Jew this song up a little bit. Like I that's not where my head's at. It's more like let's just let's just talk about what happened. I'm just picturing like a a Saturday Night Live sketch where he's like, "Can you do that?"

do the It's like I'd imagine Larry David probably faces this a lot and Seth Rogen. They're like, "Can you do Just do the Jew thing." And I feel like for me it's like as long as I'm being myself all parts of me will come across hopefully and that is definitely part of the the Slim Dan Salad, if you know what I'm saying.

That's the reason why I asked is cuz it's just not something I mean I guess they have there's like Matisyahu or something. But it's just not like a and obviously there's lots of I By the way I I Matisyahu. I I that's really fun. One time I saw him in concert and he in the middle of the show said he had to pee and just left for 15 minutes and like left the guitar player hanging. It was Remember Trevor Hall? Does that name ring a bell? A little bit.

Like white dude with dreadlocks was opening for him. Crazy show. But yeah, shout out to Matisyahu. Um But obviously there's a lot Jews in rock like David Lee Roth, Perry Farrell, Adam Lambert, Adam Levine and the list goes on. But you know, maybe not I you know, there are certain artists that definitely who are who are Christian who are like mention it like you know, Carrie Underwood doing a song called Jesus Take the Wheel or whatever.

But I don't really hear a lot of people singing about being culturally Jewish or what or just being Jewish in general in mainstream pop. So that's why I wanted to ask about. It's kind of unique. I I mean yeah, I think it's like my job as a songwriter is just to talk about myself as and [ __ ] as honestly as possible. So I mean you're good at that. I'm trying. So I should probably let you go so you could have your your belated secular bar mitzvah.

I'm chilling right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to entertain us. But, what's next for you? So, second Second Dinner came out a year ago, and then there were second second

Second Dinner, and this is us kind of like I feel like putting a nice little bow tie on the whole Second Dinner uh

Trilogy is three. What's two? Duo? What Yeah, uh Whatever. The Second Dinner era. Let's call it that. I feel like it's a nice little era.

like Taylor Swift. You got eras. Exactly like Taylor Swift.

I'm exactly Taylor Swift. Exactly. I feel like it's the end of it's sort of putting a little Not at the end. Nothing ever ends. Everything is forever. But, I put a little bow tie on that, and I'm focusing on making my next record right now, which I'm still in the early innings of, but like Second second Second Dinner? Third second lunch breakfast. I don't know.

Something like that. Something like that. But, I think we're just uh I'm enjoying uh writing I love writing so at the end of the day, my favoriteest thing to do in the whole entire world is write songs. Like, that's the coolest thing to me. I'm obsessed with it. I think about it all the time. So, I write a lot for other people. So, I've been doing that. I've been working on other people's projects, and

And when you're at liberty to say?

Um I mean, I so many I I'm trying to think of people I'll tell you I'll tell you one person I'm excited about right now. There's an artist who named Noah Kahan, who now goes by Noah Kahan, who I'm just I'm just a big fan of, and I think he's great. So, I I think I'm working on a lot of developing acts. I'm working on a couple different bigger artists, but it's like regardless, I have this whole thing that's all it's the the core of it is all songwriting. So, I'm very lucky that I get to do that, and I'm really grateful that I get to do that, and I have this life where I get to write for myself, and then go write for other people, and kind of hop back and forth. So, I'm really enjoying just being a little park hopper right now, and just getting both of it, and just writing songs.

You living the dream. Um I know I need to let you go cuz you need to perform, but I ask this of a lot of people who write for other people.

So I'm going to we're going to start

by the way. What what time is it? Oh. Yeah, don't make me go back out there. I'll talk to you all day about Snapple and all sorts of

I'll talk to you about anything, Lizzie, but yeah, what's up? Okay. If you could write for anyone, let's put it out there into the universe. If you could write for any star or whatever, any artist who's like your dream? Um Bruno Mars would be my answer. And I think not because I'm like obviously successful and it would be so cool to have that, but he's the best songwriting brain I can think or the one of the brains I think of where I'm like, what is going I just want to understand

with him. I want to learn from him.

That's who I would want to write with. I feel like he's he's a brilliant, brilliant songwriter and um I think we think about songs a little bit differently, but that's why I would want to work with him cuz I want to learn. Bruno Mars. Hit him down up.

hit me up.

Come to Liquor Store Pizza. Hit him up.

Store Come to Liquor Store Pizza.

That would be awesome. And I well, you know, you never know. You never know.

let's say Bruno Mars and then let's say let me throw one more in there cuz I feel like we can we can maybe like

Jason Isbell. Let's say Jason Isbell. Yeah, as like as the other side of it, which is like who I very much so have learned so much song writing like I feel like I studied the [ __ ] out of his songwriting. Southeastern, one of my favorite albums this year. I mean so gangster, so awesome, so cool. And he's like I think he's he's a pro truth teller. He's really good at it and I've been very inspired by him and I would love to see what would happen. So, Bruno Mars, Jason Isbell. Jason, Bruno, hit him up. In the meantime, I'm looking well, I'm looking forward that happening someday. Looking forward to the next album and anything else you're working on with Noah and Noah, but looking forward to seeing you perform out there. So, I'm going to let you go, but thank you so much for coming. It's been Sister Tree

Thank you for having me. Of course.

You're welcome back anytime and thanks everybody for watching.