MC: Even without a full band, Southsiders took 10 months to wrap?
Slug: Yeah it took about 10 months to put it together, but the funny thing is that’s usually standard for us. This time, though, we were able to knock out the album as well as an EP and a bunch of other fun stuff. Ant lives in the Bay Area now and so considering how we’re working it’s making us both super productive. I almost feel like when we were sitting in a room together making music, so much time was spent just talking shit and hanging. Now that we’ve eliminated the ability to do that it’s [more efficient]. And also, we’re working at our own pace, ‘cuz Ant works during the day and I work at night. That’s great because I can work my own hours after the kids go to sleep and then send him what I did and he can wake up to it the next morning and reapply some stuff to it.
This has probably been the most productive year I’ve had in I don’t know, man. And we both know it, like we’re both super excited. Ant, man, it’s great seeing him get excited. I love that dude and I’ve known him for so long, so seeing him get this energy going makes me feel like, “Shit I’m doing something right if I’m making him this happy.”
MC: The single “Kanye West” was released not too long ago. You’ve said the track is “a high five to a rapper who’s sometimes misperceived.”
Slug: Well I’m nervous to elaborate too much on it because everyone who cares about what we do has a theory about it.
MC: Ah. Don’t want to debunk those fan message boards!
Slug: Yeah, I was pretty specific when I even gave that statement and I was very strategic about how I said what I said, because I want people to have their own interpretation of it, you know? The funny thing is, I didn’t anticipate people saying, “Oh, they named it that just to get clicks.”
MC: Like after 18+ years you’d just now decided to jump on a mainstream bandwagon…
Slug: I can totally see how somebody who has never heard of us [might think we were going for clicks]… The name of the song is reaching a group of people who have never heard of us before. And so, you gotta take the good with the bad, you know what I mean? … Even though it was unintentional I kind of have to be like, “Aw shit. I guess I gotta take that one on the chin.”
