Exploring the Total Slacker multiverse
The VHS tennis court shine of Tucker Rountree of Total Slacker; press photo courtesy of the artist.
For new and old school fans alike, we present an exclusive and candid interview with Total Slacker’s Tucker Rountree conducted by Cooper Johnson of Wishing Well. Hot on the heels of the fourth album ExtraLife, Rountree reminisces on the early beginnings from collaborations with Beach Fossils’ Dustin Payseur, DIIV’s Zachary Cole Smith, independent labels versus the majors to being included on the Valley Uprising soundtrack alongside greats like Bob Dylan. Providing a barrage of obscure snapshots and anecdotes of the Brooklyn scene from the early 2010s to the contemporary creative evolutions of today — Tucker Rountree presents an inside look at one of DIY pop’s beloved institutions Total Slacker like never heard or seen before:
From cassette collaborations, the beloved Thrashin, Slip Away, Parallels and more — we give you the much awaited Total Slacker album ExtraLife. The record is dedicated to the pursuit of a much more meaningful existence and echelon of unrelenting grace. Tucker takes on tiger mountain by astute strategy on the epic and eternally shimmering opener "The Mountain". Conversations of substance and a greater tier of communication are requested beyond the surficial lip service on "Talk is Cheap" that recalls new romantic passions and classic college radio chart heroes. "Dried Up Well" is a beautiful and heartbreaking heartland hymn and prayer for middle America to rise up from its dust bowl muddle to shine like something brighter than the pejorative of being forgotten as reductive flyover states. Ballads of labor and love ring out on the illustrious glimmer and glow of "Working All Day", to dreams that desire a break in the arid and sweltering drought on the outpour of unbridled emotion that comprises "The Rainstorm".
Modes of memories and radical recollections rock sweetly and dearly on "Distant Pasts" that sounds like an aural collage of everything you have loved about underground pop from the past few decades. "Save Your Love" mixes throwback middle of the road adult contemporary pop with the moodiness of modern times, continuing these current era concerns on "Shadow World" that bops and sways with an "Eye in the Sky" swagger. A search for abode amid the contradictions of beauty and pain in our world cry out in earnest on "Golden Home", before concluding with the smoldering midnight synth glow of "Last Night" that croons about those events in our life that change the course of everything (where the impossible becomes possible and lost connections become mended once again). Total Slacker’s ExtraLife is about us. Our life in a muddled time, with infinite hope for a brighter path of better directions and unlimited possibilities of limitless beauty.
A vintage visual history of Total Slacker curated by Tucker Rountree
Oberhofer, DIIV (Cole Smith and I) Daniel Schlett of Strange Weather, Vincent Cacchione of Caged Animals and Samantha Urbani of Friends.
Cole Smith of DIIV playing drums for Total Slacker (drum head with the Total Slacker logo).
The only known photos of Dustin Payseur, singer of Beach Fossils, playing drums for me in Total Slacker, first album era at Market Hotel.
Total Slacker’s ExtraLife is available now.