Interview, Mark Slaughter & Dana Strum, Slaughter

Nick Douglas takes a walk on the wild side with Dana Strum and Mark Slaughter as Vegas boys SLAUGHTER kick back into action with album No. 2 

TAKIN' IT TO THE STREETS

Everyone knows that Las Vegas, USA, is a place of endless casinos and amusement arcades, and it is also incredibly hot, even in the dead of night, as the city is situated right in the middle of the Nevada desert! However, Vegas is now famous for something else - it is home to rock band Slaughter.

Lead vocalist and band namesake Mark Slaughter has lived in Las Vegas all his life, but the whole band relocated there in the early days and have stayed ever since. The reason for this was quite simple, as explained by bass player Dana Strum...

"For a musician Las Vegas is the cheapest place to live. Where else can you eat a full breakfast for a dollar - that's 50p?!"

Anyway, having sold some three-and-a-half million copies of their debut LP Stick It To Ya, Slaughter have finished album number two entitled The Wild Life, and Mark and Dana, despite trekking halfway across the world at a hectic rate of knots, are in fine form, cheerful and full of chat.

Even though you've had massive success, you're still based in Las Vegas. Is this Nevada city a happening place for bands to get a start?

"No," says Dana, laughing. "People try to escape from Vegas, I think the music scene is zero. Slaughter were the only band that ever did anything at all. The thing is," he adds, "it's the city with the most temptations anywhere in the world. You can get drugs, liquor, and women, 24 hours a day..."

"Plus," chips in Mark, "there's no state tax in Nevada. There's federal tax, but no state income tax."

OK that's Vegas dealt with. Moving on, you were on tour here as support to CINDERELLA last year when the Gulf War broke out. Many Americans cancelled proposed visits to the UK, and several major groups pulled out of tours, some halfway through. How were Slaughter affected?

"Well," says Dana, "there wasn't a young or old person around the world who didn't put their TV on every day just to see who blew the piss out of who. We were very affected. With our name being 'Slaughter' we found radio stations not wanting to play us. We wrote a song for the new album called 'Times They Change.' There's a news broadcast at the end of it which features a very famous American newscaster that goes out at 7:00 PM every night on NBC."

"It's something that people can identify with," says Mark, "as well as the irony of it all - Douglas Mac Arthur at the very end of World War 2 said, 'May peace be now restored to the world, and God will preserve it always.' What a strange thing from a guy who used to blow the piss out of other countries."

Dana interrupts:

"We took some time to think about things, as our band is often stereotyped as nothing but good times and fun."

Mark concludes on this issue:

"We took all these types of moments and put them directly in this record. It is a reflection of the things we went through!"

So, why is the new album called The Wild Life?

"If you have been to Las Vegas and have cruised around with the top down, you can understand why Slaughter would write a song called 'The Wild Life'," answers Dana, "because it's the truth about where we come from - it is fucking wild! It's like no other place. Although the Seattle band might write about the rain and shit all the time, I won't, 'cos the sun's always out in Vegas, and when the sun's not out, you're out 'cos you're out of the heat! Everything does happen at night there - thus our song 'Up All Night Sleep All Day,' and there's nobody that doesn't live wildly! Everywhere we've been, from Tokyo to Iceland, people do live the wild life. You've got to!"

Donna and Mark used to be with ex-Kissman Vinnie Vincent in VINNIE VINCENT'S INVASION. Do those days hold good or bad memories for you too?

"We can remember getting shouted at - fuck you - every night," replies Dana, "so one thing it taught us was to fight harder, because that's so demoralising. We've paid dues beyond belief! But we were KISS fans too and Eric Carr was a real fucking hero. We dedicated our record to him. It's also dedicated to Freddie Mercury and on this album days gone by is an obvious influence."

Would slaughter cite QUEEN as a big influence on the band?

Dana relies:

"Three years ago Slaughter talked about Queen in America, where the band was nowhere near as big as they are in Europe. Now, Freddie's dead and everyone's interested. We told fans, 'If you like anything we do that sounds like Queen intros, or whatever, check the real dudes out!' These guys did some shit that you wouldn't believe. I saw Queen live and it changed my vision of what I thought a rock band should be. A lot of the smoke and lights we use tries to emulate what Queen were doing - it's real, it's hard in raw!"

Mark has his bit to say also:

"Our records have their production, they have their sound. But live, man, it's harder and has a different edge. What you learn when you've done like 300 dates on the road, is a sense of bringing it down and taking chances. I mean I'm not a very good piano player, and I learned the piano on the stage as we went along. And what happened was all these people would sing along to the songs, just like with Queen. That's the most flattering thing that can happen to a band. You can leave gold and platinum records and material goods at home because you can't beat the feeling of walking out onto stage anywhere in the world and people singing and shouting for you."

In true Vegas tradition, Slaughter like to take gambles in life, and so far they seemed to be on a winning streak!!! 

Nick Douglas
Riff Raff
July 1992

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