The Slew: Decks, Drums and Rock & Roll

The Slew album, 100%, has been a long time in the making. In 2006, cult turntablist Eric 'Kid Koala' San put some Slew tracks on his album Your Mom's Favourite DJ. “The Slew at that point was a project Dylan Frombach (Dynomite D) and I had started,” he explains. “We wanted to make a heavy record that our skater friends would enjoy. I had cut some of the Slew material to test pressings and was beginning to try two or three of the tracks in my sets. I wanted to throw that into the blend of the YMFDJ album so we could warn people what was coming.”

The story of how The Slew came to be involves some celebrated pioneers of rock / rap fusion: “Dylan and I met through Money Mark and the Beastie Boys on the 1998 Hello Nasty tour,” says Kid Koala. “I was on tour with them playing turntables in Money Mark's band. That was also the year I met Mario C, who ended up doing the final mix of the Slew album. We were thrilled when he agreed to that.”

Myles Heskett and Chris Ross (formerly of Wolfmother, now of Palace of Fire) joined later, to embellish the live sound: “At that point we had been working on the Slew stuff for a couple of years at least,” says Koala. He went to see Wolfmother in Montreal: “Chris and Myles were standing outside the bus looking lost. I told them about this great vintage keyboard store in Montreal and we went together to check it out.”

Eventually, the time for the collaboration came. “I wanted to recruit Paolo (DJ P-Love) for live turntable duties on the tour. I knew we would need at least six turntables to pull these tunes off live on stage. The album was the blueprint for the show, but we wanted to leave room for Myles and Chris to interpret the stuff and bring their side of things to the whole experience.”

Performing with a full band rather than decks and a mixer provided its own challenges for Koala: “It's way louder. I had to build special earthquake-proof turntable stands using eight different kinds of shock absorption foam, so we could jump around and rock out on stage and not have to worry about needles skipping.”

Speaking of the project's future, Koala affirms that The Slew will continue as a band. “We had so much fun with this project. Since the tour, we have officially inducted Chris and Myles into The Slew. We are planning on getting into the studio and working on some things which will be the basis for a new Slew record.”

Citing diverse touchstones like the Bomb Squad and Black Sabbath as influences, the question of what it was about these acts that made Koala form a rock band looms large. “The inherent heaviness to the music. It's that stuff that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It's the same feeling I get from playing with The Slew. We wanted to have that heaviness, but also that twisted hand cut sound from the turntables. That was what Dylan and I set out to do from the start. Make that heavy hand cut record we always wanted to hear.”

When we last spoke to Kid Koala he described himself as 'less of a DJ, more of a guy who runs a dating service for obscure records.' What does he consider his finest hour as a matchmaker? “Once I turned a chicken cluck into a beat. I was told Thom Yorke was into that track. My life is quite strange. But you have to understand I grew up listening to Monty Python albums so I blame them for corrupting my impressionable mind about what's acceptable to put on an album. And now for something completely different!”