Slim Cessna’s Auto Club Comes to The Met

Whenever there’s a resurgence of a genre, few acknowledge the resurgence’s forerunners — the musicians who were playing a particular style before it became part of a so-called “revival.” You can say that folk and Americana have made a big comeback in the 2010s, and there are a lot of facts to back it up. With all that going on, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club have been playing their brand of gothic, folky rock ‘n’ roll since alternative rock’s heyday in the early ‘90s, and their influence on a lot of today’s music is evident. They’ll be taking the stage at The Met in Pawtucket on November 29 with fellow folks O’Death and The Huntress & Holder of Hands.

Ahead of the show I had a chat with Slim Cessna about his familiarity with the state of Rhode Island, the band starting their own label, being an outsider in regard to popular music and what his plans are for the holidays.

Rob Duguay: Rhode Island always seems to be a prime stop when Slim Cessna’s Auto Club goes out on tour. What keeps the band coming back on to The Ocean State?

Slim Cessna: I actually used to live in Rhode Island for about three years from 2000 to 2003 and I still have friends over there. The venues have changed but there are people there who I love. We have songs about Rhode Island that almost encompass an entire album that was recorded in 2004. They’re either for or about Rhode Island.

RD: What part of Rhode Island were you living in?

SC: I lived right on the border of Providence and Cranston.

RD: In September, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club released The Commandments According to SCAC, the first full-length album released on the band’s label SCACUNINCORPORATED. What sparked the idea to start the label, and what advantages have you discovered from releasing material on SCACUNINCORPORATED?

SC: We just felt like things had grown a little stagnant and we needed to challenge ourselves. Some of that musically, but also in business; we needed to understand our business better. We figured the only way to do that would be to start from scratch. It’s been great, quite honestly. We’re certainly not getting rich, but through the label we’ve been able to at least offer ourselves tour support (laughs), so that’s pretty cool.

I’m actually on my way to buy a van right now. It’s a ’99 Chevy Express.

RD: Nice.

SC: We’ve been able to purchase that through our label (laughs). So thanks, record label!

RD: Awesome. Do you plan on making it exclusively for Auto Club releases or do you plan on making it available for other bands that are affiliated with the Auto Club or even your solo material?

SC: We’ve already had two releases on the label with one being a compilation with a live DVD. It was original an anniversary release we did with the label Glitterhouse in Germany, and then we decided to release it in the States and Canada on our own. A year ago we released another one of our projects; it’s not a side project necessarily because we love it too much to call it that, but the band is called DBUK. Four of us who are in the Auto Club are also in that group.

We’ll continue to do some of those things; we all have a number of projects that we all work on that are separate from the Auto Club.

RD: What do you consider the influences behind the gothic nature of the band’s music? Did you grow up reading a lot of Southern Gothic literature or was it later in your life? What made you lean toward that musical style with the Auto Club?

SC: I think the influence comes from a lot of different directions. One, certainly the primary, would be Munly’s role in the band. He’s the primary writer of a lot of the songs as well, and he tends to have those sensibilities in his writing. He has been compared to Cormac McCarthy and we use our strengths. He’s an amazing writer and we use him for that.

Also even musically, gosh I was a teenager in the ‘80s and one of my greatest personal influences would be bands like Joy Division and things along those lines. Even in American folk music in general, the tradition of murder ballads is definitely another one.

RD: The band uses a lot of styles, the Auto Club isn’t your typical American roots act and you guys bring a lot of stuff to the table. Being a band that started out during the rise of alternative rock and the Seattle sound to 24 years later being in the thick of an era with traditional country and folk making a comeback into the mainstream, has the band always felt like the outsiders when it comes to what’s going on in music?

SC: I think that we have always been outsiders to anything going on that’s popular in music, which is an amazing accomplishment on our end. We do consider ourselves artists and individuals; we certainly have our own ideas about what type of music we want to play. There really isn’t a lot that we can get grouped into because of that, and in a way it’s kind of difficult on a financial and business side because our audience is exclusive to us. It’s financially difficult, but great artistically.

RD: Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up, what are your plans for the holidays? Does the Auto Club have any shows going on around that time or do you plan on spending it with family?

SC: For Thanksgiving we will be in Canada. We organized the current tour so we would arrange the routing so we would be in Canada because you can’t play Thanksgiving in the States because no one would be there. I’ll probably be eating poutine in Toronto for Thanksgiving (laughs).

RD: That sounds delicious.

SC: For Christmas I’ll be home. I’ll be up in South Park, Colorado, where my parents live and that’ll be amazing.

Buy Tickets to Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, O’Death and The Huntress & Holder Of Hands @ The Met on November 29: etix.com/ticket/p/8426597/slim-cessnas-auto-clubodeaththe-huntress-and-holder-of-hands-pawtucket-the-met?cobrand=themetri; Slim Cessna’s Auto Club’s Website: slimcessnasautoclub.com