Written by Natalie Ingalls

Last month, Los Angeles’ Slippers released their sophomore album Slippers 08. Clocking in at just over 22 minutes, the 11-song LP is a gut-punch of twee pop, with hardly a breath allowed between songs before the next barges in. Intrepid opener “Blueberry Peel (Reprise)” veers quickly into nihilism, but there’s no time to ponder the meaning of life before the wry “Wants For Everyone” begins. There’s a tenderness amidst the scuzzy guitars and interesting synth work, with singer/drummer Madeline BB questioning her relationships to and time spent with people and music.

I was lucky enough to see Slippers kick off their tour in Chicago (with the very good Hunx and his Punx at the Empty Bottle and later with the Silvers Dolls + Alga at Torn Light Records), and Madeline brought the same barbed wit and charm to the stage as she does on the record. Her voice, sweet and almost child-like when singing, also delivered quips about her guitarist’s outfit (what IS it with men wearing suits on stage?) 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Natalie: Does Atlanta still feel like home, or has LA become your home? How do you perceive these two places? 

Madeline: Yeah, it’s interesting. I was thinking about Atlanta yesterday. I guess practically, it’s not really a home base anymore. My parents don’t live there. I have a certain reverence for the scene in Atlanta, and I do think that there is a very unique attitude of Atlanta that feels relevant to my life now. I think something that I more so carry with me is this kind of Atlanta attitude. In the South, there’s like a chatty way of just going throughout the day and being kind. Obviously, there’s like a lot of fucked up stuff in the South, but, there’s not a weirdness of talking to strangers. In Georgia, there’s a particular music heritage and lineage that is really special to me and I feel very proud of. But LA does really feel like home.

N: I want to talk more about growing up in Atlanta. What was your journey in falling in love with music? And at what point did you start learning to play and making it yourself? 

M: I kind of was a late bloomer with playing in bands; I only really started playing in bands later in high school. I guess that’s not a late bloomer. It’s so funny because when I was 21, I’d be like, oh, I didn’t learn guitar when I was six. 

Well, my dad was always playing guitar. I was forced to learn piano growing up, which I feel like is a classic thing as a kid, and I hated it. I mean, I liked it and I didn’t like it. I just feel like my teacher didn’t really inspire a joy of music in me, but it was fun to engage with and I think I was pretty good at it. 

My grandma played dulcimer and piano. My cousin Seth plays guitar. And then my best friend Rachel, her family started Capricorn Records, and I think her dad, who passed away way too young when we were in high school, introduced me to a lot of Elephant 6 bands. One of my fondest memories is listening to The Apples in Stereo with him. I really liked how that music felt and I had no idea that that was part of Atlanta. I didn’t really care at that point. That came later, moving away. 

N: I did want to talk about your career with illustration and animation. When did that interest develop and do you feel like visual arts and music have gone hand in hand? 

M: Growing up in Atlanta, there was this presence of Cartoon Network and Williams Street and Adult Swim. I didn’t grow up with a TV. I had to really seek it out. Like when I went to my grandma’s house, I would sit down and it really backfired for my parents because then it just made me even more obsessed with it when I was at home. 

Music does, fortunately, help me figure out my pathway with a lot of things related to animation, because of the community I’ve built. I am able to do work, take on music videos. Music is kind of the litmus test of, does this work? Is my job allowing me to still make music? Am I able to write songs? Do I feel stuck? I’ve just graduated grad school, so I’m pretty open-ended right now for what my job is gonna look like beyond. It’s cool because the more bands I meet, I can do more music videos and that’s not like my ultimate goal or anything, but I really like it. I don’t really know if I have an ultimate goal.

N: I was reading an article that Pigeons and Planes put out about the Chicago scene. Joe Glass of Sharp Pins, who’s your label mate, was kind of arguing against this term of revivalist rock. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about that? I feel like there is a new spirit and presence to it today that maybe wasn’t present a few years ago. 

M: I mean, when does it become pastiche? Maybe Joe is kind of interpreting that as like a pejorative, but obviously pastiche to me is a pejorative term. I think there certainly are a lot of bands and always will be bands that are pastiche, and when does pastiche become revival? Like, where do those things overlap.

I mean, you like what you like, right? If that’s what you like, the production, the vibe, to act like you’re not reviving something single-handedly, but you’re also making music that sounds like the ’70s and ’80s, like, you can’t. I think that’s fine because you’re also adding something to it. I don’t think you need to be worried about revival or pastiche. I had a friend say, what other people think of me is none of my fucking business.

I wear it on my sleeve, I think, in a way of just not being too precious about things. I like referencing bands that I like in song titles. The record title, Slippers 08, is a reference to Butter 08, which is a supergroup. I like referencing Butter 08 because they were a weird band and if I can in any way be associated with Butter 08, it’s fun. So You Like Slippers? is totally a reference to Something Else by The Kinks. 

Learning how to play music, I just played along to other people’s music. I’m a huge of Montreal fan, another Athens, Georgia band. I [have a] song, “Blueberry Peel”, which I shudder at a little bit, but at the same time, I’m like, okay, whatever. I’m trying to very openly be like, yes, I love this. If you like this, maybe you’ll like Slippers. I really try to make my music sound like The Apples in Stereo, and it doesn’t. There’s intention and then there’s the actuality of what it turns out as. And I think that that space in between the two is fertile ground. Because you can intend to make something and then what it actually is going to be is a different thing. And that’s really interesting to me, how disparate those two things are and yet people can still connect them. 

N: That is a really good observation, and I’m glad you name some of your references. I thought it was really interesting to reference your own name in the album title, and I feel like there’s just a lot in a name for a lot of bands. Your labelmates Touch Girl Apple Blossom draw from Beat Happening, and Good Flying Birds, that’s from a Guided by Voices song.

M: Yeah, and I’m sure with these people, you don’t sit down at a table and you’re like, what’s the coolest reference we can make? That’s lame, you know? But I think it happens for me, usually it’s kind of a joke. I’m like, wouldn’t it be funny if we called it this? And usually it’s like, what was my first idea when I wasn’t in the headspace of trying to choose something that will be good? It’s so annoying, but I find that with music and with art, the more I stay close to that initial spark, the more it is actually what I want to do. And I think for me having a sense of lightness or levity around that is the way that I feel most connected to my original intention. 

And I think it takes a lot of discipline to go back to that first idea because you’re like, no, I just spent so long coming up with all this other stuff. That to me is the lie of capitalism, this work for work’s sake thing. It’s like, you did all this work. So what? What’s the good idea, actually?

N: I think it’s joyful to follow your first instinct, and it often is the best expression of yourself as well. 

M: And sometimes it’s not. I think artists can get high on their own supplies. There’s also the attitude of everything I make turns to gold or something. And I don’t want to be like that either, where my first instinct on anything is perfect. That’s crazy. I learn a lot of lessons from design or animation. For me, it’s so fucking frustrating, but you have to make like 50 different versions that suck. It can be so annoying because I want to make one version that’s awesome. 

I think there’s not a right way of completing something, but there can be a right way of starting, which is a lot of the time to just start. You’re not gonna think your way into an action. I heard this from PawPaw Rod. I saw a video of him and he was talking about how being ready is not a feeling. It’s an action. Things just have to start with an action. And whatever makes it easier to start that action, that’s the way to do it. It’s just so so easy to get caught up even before you begin. 

N: He seems very wise. I’ll have to dig into this. 

M: It’s really cool. I would love to play with more rappers. I would love for a rapper to really like Slippers. That’s another thing about growing up in Atlanta. We have freaking Outkast. I have overlap with them and I would love to be more a part of different hip hop and rap scenes. It’s such an immediate, improvised thing. I’m sure many rappers write their lyrics before, but I feel like that kind of improvisational way of working, and it can be super collaborative with people making beats, there isn’t this perfect arrival.

N: I feel like something that rap music often has that I’m very envious of is the ability to reference cultural things, like art and events. I feel like there is a shared absorption of what’s going on around in life and in art and not being afraid to use that in your art. 

M: I was talking to one of my bandmates from Le Pain, Alan, who was also my next door neighbor. He was talking about, who are the political rock bands right now? You think of this moment that we’re in, they’re rolling back the voting rights act in the South as we speak. It’s bad. We have to ring the alarm and be like, this is fucked up. And I just think it’s a really hard thing to do as a rock band.

There’s Kneecap. They’re obviously speaking out a lot about Palestine. And then you see The Strokes talk about Palestine. And it’s a little ham-fisted, but I think that’s awesome, at Coachella. 

I’m not gonna police somebody trying to advocate for what’s right, but, I think as a rock group, it’s hard to do. I don’t know what about it, but in rap the message is a lot clearer. And maybe because rock was co-opted by white people in the 50s and 60s.

There’s not a right way to do activism, but there’s an expectation to check every checkbox on a list of things in order to do it right. And that’s not fair either. I think that that keeps so many people scared. Myself included. I’m a member of DSA, and I try to stay active in that, and I think being a part of certain communities, there are opportunities to lend your hand, to use your music as activism. And then there’s some times to keep it separate. Sometimes you’re at a show, and maybe it’s not the right moment. But I think it’s okay to have there be moments that are good, moments that are not good.

I do think making music is itself a political act. Especially if you’re gonna do it,  try to really be a touring band or something, you’re going against the norm. I like going against norm culture. It’s all about creating communities. I love that about music. You do have this community watching music and playing music and I think that’s really good when there are times of political unrest, you actually can lean on that community and I think that’s what it’s all about. I mean, I’ve lived in the same house for 6 years in LA, and I know all my neighbors, and that, in itself, is really important. I think that in the same way, having a music community allows for that, you have this group of like minded people that you could organize if you needed to. 

I do think there is something about music that is inherently collaborative. I was thinking about this because I’m playing in Hunx and His Punx and I was friends with all of them before. But I feel like we’ve become closer friends and it’s so nice because we can become friends in between playing music. It’s like, we have activity as if we were on a softball team together. And it just takes the pressure off. We don’t have to talk for three hours… And you can just become really close with people really quickly. 

N: I did want to ask a little bit more about Slippers 08, and the process of recording this album, how it varied from the last one. Were there any surprises in the making of the record? 

M: Originally, I recorded four songs with my friend Joojoo [Ashworth], who is an awesome producer and engineer in LA. Usually, I write songs on guitar and then record demos and whoever is producing it, we kind of figure out the vibe together. I think so much of recording for me is letting something be what it is. Usually that involves keeping stuff that kind of sounds messed up. There’s some weird dissonant chords on this record, sometimes not on purpose. But who needs to know that it’s not on purpose? Cause I am, in a lot of ways, a novice at this, and I think that’s a good thing to keep. In animation, I’m pretty exacting. Even if I keep this kind of scrappy vibe, I think in music, it’s a lot easier for me to just detach from something, having a right or wrong way because I’m just kind of figuring this out as I go along. 

I think that’s what I would say to anybody who is new. If somebody asks you to play in their band, just do it. Even if I don’t like the parts or if they’re hard. And then you build the community more because then maybe you start your own band. “Oh, I’m too busy.” It’s like, no, you’re not. I mean, I was just freaking in full-time grad school and played in like three different bands. And it was fine. And it was so important too, because having that, sometimes in school, I’d be like, who am I? What am I doing? And then I play shows or be around my music friends and I’m like, oh, right. That’s it, feeling more grounded in myself and you just never know where things are going to lead. 

N: It seems like you have worked with labels for a lot of your releases, for Slippers and Le Pain. 

M: At its best, it is a community and a resource. The other K bands, I’m already in contact with a lot of them, it’s people who are excited about each other’s bands, and that’s some advice that Shannon from Shannon and the Clams and from Hunx told me. When Le Pain was thinking of signing with a certain label, she was like, well, are there other bands on that label that you look up to, and I was like, no. I think that can maybe present some problems. 

I think that at the DIY level, like when you don’t have money, all you have is support whether that’s emotional or community. Or even a network of people that are aware of the reputation of the label and care. I think Jolie and Hayes, who are signing a lot of the K bands right now, just really understand that and prioritize that. And I think that it’s showing, and it’s a long game, it isn’t something that’s gonna pay off immediately or even pay off ever in some ways. 

And I think this DIY spirit is very important to me because I wouldn’t be anywhere without the people who play in my band and the resources I have just through my friends who will lend me equipment or let me use their studio. And to pretend like that’s something that I did all by myself would be laughable. 

And I don’t know how to properly express that beyond just trying to pay it forward. I really try to, if a band’s here, I don’t have a big house, but I’m like, If you want to stay here, no problem. And I think that’s also the Southern hospitality thing. My parents would actually have bands come stay at their house too. And they were just like, yeah, sure, we’ve got to have six people stay at our house tonight. It’s 11 p.m. Figure it out. I think that that’s a really cool quality and extends to this place of wanting to help people out and not gatekeeping, you know? 

N: Well, I feel like we’ve circled back to the beginning, which I appreciate. 

Slippers’ shoutouts

Art, records and ice cream shops mentioned by Madeline, some of which we didn’t include in the full article for space purposes 

• Capricorn Records 
• Red Henry & the House of Bamboo
• RuPaul, Michaell Stipe, Pylon 
• Elephant 6 Recording Co. 
• Cartoon Network, Williams Street, Adult Swim
• Betty Boop & Gumby 
• Boards of Canada 
• Brian Eno
• Cab Calloway 
• Removed by Naomi Uman
• Face Like a Frog by Sally Cruikshank
• Jorge Elbrecht
• Fluffy McCloud’s in Echo Park 
• Froth 
• Jellyfish

You can listen to Slippers 08 out now!