Q&A with Vic Ruggiero of The Slackers
After 30+ years together, the NYC ska-soul band is still touring and putting out new music
When The Slackers — a six-piece New York City band that plays a mix of ska, reggae, and soul music — perform live, they rollick. Brass players swing their horns in all directions, and the guitar and bass players constantly shuffle around the stage, bob their heads, and mouth the lyrics as singer and keyboardist Vic Ruggiero, wearing a rumpled suit and fedora, belts out the vocals as the crowd dances, bounces, and skanks along to the infectious rhythms.
The songs are upbeat and lively, but there’s emotion and depth in the lyrics that give the music added weight.
“Their songs are about real darkness, depression, anger, sadness and loneliness, and some of the political songs as well are pretty vibrant,” Marc Wasserman, author of “Skaboom! An American Ska & Reggae Oral History,” told the Washington Post in 2021.
The band formed in Manhattan in 1991 and became a staple of the Third Wave ska craze of the 1990s and early 2000s. They developed a sound that mixes early roots ska music from the 50s and 60s with reggae, soul, and rock & roll. It’s like Bob Marley formed a band with Bruce Springsteen.
The Slackers have released more than a dozen albums and have toured for more than 30 years, typically playing around 150 shows a year. Last Spring, the band released “Don’t Let the Sunlight Fool Ya,” their first album in six years, and they’re touring Europe, the U.K., and the U.S. this Summer, Fall, and Winter.
MUSIC NERD spoke recently with Ruggiero by phone about the current tour, the new album, New York City, ska music, and his long life as a Slacker.
The band is playing a bunch of shows in Europe right now. How’s that going?
We usually tour Europe at least once a year, typically in the Fall, for about three weeks or a month. We try to hit the festival circuit, we play punk and weirdo city festivals, and try to grab some new fans and show our face to people who may not know we are still a vital band. A lot of bands at these festivals, they just play their hits for fans know them from 20 years ago.
We get that, so we definitely play stuff we know people know. There’s always the usual Slacker fanatics who will come to three Northern England shows and then take a train to Belgium to see us, and they love to hear our old stuff. But it’s important to us that we play new stuff, to show we’re still active, not just resting on our laurels.
The Slackers released a new album, “Don’t Let the Sunlight Fool ya” last Spring. What was the creative process like this time around? How do you approach making new albums?
If you had asked me if we were primed and ready to make a record, I would have said no. I had a few new tunes, but I was like, meh. We were learning how to do live streams during Covid, just like everyone else. Our sound guy had moved into a house, and we could be at a safe distance there, like a live studio. He was like, hey, we’re set up to record, let’s just play some tunes and see what happens. Everybody brought in some tunes. We blinked and the record was done.
The Slackers have released 15 albums and several EPs since forming in 1991. You’ve been a band for 32 years. How do you think you’ve been able to stay the course all these years?
One great thing about The Slackers is that you gotta have a team of people that’s half-crazy. When I met these guys, they would quit their job to tour for two weeks, then find a new job or go get their job back. The priority was doing what we do. You need these adventurous type of people, who are not worried about their girlfriends cheating on them, or don’t care if they do. We all still have that.
Obviously some of the guys are married now or have kids, but you still gotta be a little bit crazy. That’s what keeps the band together. My aunt and uncle have been married for like 70 years, so I asked them recently how they do it, and they just said they never considered not being married. That’s us. Why break up?
How many original members are still with the band?
We started with just three guys. Me and the original bass player stuck with it, then we added a sax player, and then a trombone player came around, and they never quit. Some people did 10 years with us and then they cracked and quit. Life on the road is not for everybody. The newer guys have been with the band since about 03 or 04. They’re all guys from our NY scene who played with Agent 99 of the Stubborn All-Stars, or Leftover Crack. They’re all homies from the original days.
How has New York City helped shaped the identity and sound of the band?
Me and the guitarist were born in New York City, others have moved here from Australia, Boston, or California for college, intrigued by New York. We all came from the punk scene or the jazz scene. New York back when we were starting out was a great meeting ground for creative people.
Before The Slackers settled on our style and arrangement, we had rappers show up and guys playing weird instruments. One African alto sax player we had was a beautiful musician, but was not into practicing or being in a band, but he influenced us with different kinds of melodies. It was a cool time to cross paths, that was the beauty of New York at that time. Creative people could show up and be in the mix. It was cheap to be in New York at that time, and easy to rent a room. We shared food and lived for nothing.
What are some obstacles you and the band have endured?
Everything is an obstacle to an underground band like The Slackers. Obviously we were a part of that third-wave ska revival, but we never really fit into that box. We were always something different, more of a rootsy band. The Slackers wanted to mine the past, grab stones that had been left unturned, maybe grab a little bit of that magic from the 60s and 70s.
The 80s bleached everything out. We had Miami Vice and Madonna, but we were like, hey, remember when the Rolling Stones were cool? All that old ska from the 1960s sounded like Fats Domino, and The Belmonts, and they dressed like the Blues Brothers and played blues and Doo-wop, but they’re Jamaicans. Somehow it all made sense to me, sort of being postmodern about things.
What were your early experiences like with The Slackers?
Yeah, funny thing, I never wanted to be a lead singer. It wasn’t in my plan. I was just psyched to be in a band, and I knew I wanted to be playing certain styles of music that feel natural to me. In the early years of band, we were always looking for a lead singer. They would have the right look but sang out of tune, or couldn’t harmonize, or just didn’t have the right musical thing. So I would stand in the background and sing all the leads. Naturally I’m not really a front man. I have my [Bronx] accent, I stand weird, I keep my eyes closed. I was always like, hey can you look somewhere else? I’m over here trying not to be seen.
But I realized I had to step up because we had the skills. We had epic sax solos and a slamming rhythm section, so I kind of modeled us on [Bruce] Springsteen, who I was listening to a lot at the time. I’m no Springsteen but it looked a lot like The Slackers to me, and I thought we could sort of make ourselves a little bit weirder than other ska bands, like with the vibe of Graham Parker or Elvis Costello, really song-oriented. We had to figure out our identity as a band.
How did you first connect with ska and reggae music?
In New York there was a big high school scene at the time, and nobody respected the drinking age laws. There were bars in New York dedicated to certain high schools, like Desmond’s Tavern. Nobody was 21 in those places, and the soundtrack was ska. Bands like The Boilers and Beat Brigade were huge. I caught the very end of this amazingly stylized, tough, cool scene and I thought it was great.
It was less violent than punk, there were girls hanging out, so I wanted to go to ska and reggae shows. I was hooked. I made friends. One guy invited me to this Caribbean club to see [Jamaican ska originators] The Skatalites, and that was it. Life went on from there. The guys in The Skatalites lived in the NY area and we got to be friends with them. They gave us advice and showed us things. It was like me getting to talk to Muddy Waters and asking him how he came up with riffs.
You’ve always been a working musician: you’ve played in other ska and reggae bands, done solo work, and played with Rancid.
When we signed with the Hellcat record label, we put in sideman clause that allowed us to play with other bands concurrently while being in The Slackers. It’s such a defining characteristic of our scene in New York. There was no way I was gonna tell the Stubborn All-Stars I can’t do a gig, or not tour with someone else. I wasn’t gonna stifle my moment or opportunities. It’s a jazz attitude.
We always play with different people, and everybody has their side projects. It’s part of our identity as The Slackers and New Yorkers, trading musicians like that. It’s a very communal kind of feeling, without hard feelings for the most part. It’s like, hey someone cant make it, are you free? All of our idols that we looked up to came from the NY music scene, in jazz, folk, punk. There was no way anybody could tell me not do that. It helps keep things in balance. You don’t want to get too tribal about shit.
You’re having a helluva run as a musician.
I’m living a life, that’s for sure!