Catching Up With... Langhorne Slim

Photos by Doug Seymour

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Langhorne Slim got his start touring with eclectic novelty band the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players. To this day, he is deeply loyal to the group that gave him his start, but Slim has more than forged his own path since then.

This past summer, he toured with Josh Ritter and his band, including an appearance at Lollapalooza and a couple East Coast folk festivals. Unfazed by these seemingly incongruous bookings, Langhorne admits he is at his best when playing live. But with his latest album Be Set Free (out today on Kemado) he is the proudest he’s ever been of his singing and of this album, which offers a smoother, more refined take on his banjo-picking, alt-bluegrass sound.

When he caught up with Paste, he discussed Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, his love of smaller venues and bigger crowds at his shows, and the trials and tribulations of writing the bubble-gum pop hit of the summer:

Paste: How’s it going?

Langhorne Slim: I think that Beyoncé had a big night last night [at the VMAs] and Lady GaGa had a big night last night. I think next year it’s my turn.

Paste: I think that’s fair. I like your song, “Say Yes.” Can you put “Say Yes” up for the VMAs?

Slim: Well, that’s what we’re gonna work on this year. You gotta keep it going. Did you watch the VMAs last night?

Paste: I watched the Kanye West debacle.

Slim: Yeah, what is this guy doing?

Paste: I don’t know. Why are they even letting him on the stage?

Slim: I don’t think they do. I think that he’s Kanye West. I think the dude is probably insanely talented.

Paste: Yeah. He is talented, of course, but surely these backstage people are seeing him coming and they know what’s about to happen.

Slim: You might be right. It’s caused controversy. I mean, we’re talking about it right now… What we wouldn’t normally be talking about. So I’m sure it’s good for the show and everything like that. I mean, the girl won. There are other ways of saying I don’t think she should have won. That’s why I don’t watch these shows anymore. I don’t think most of these people should be winning. It’s not that I don’t like them as human beings, it’s just that a lot of the popular kind of stuff isn’t always my favorite kind of stuff.

Paste: Well, you get to MTV, and that’ll be good.

Slim: I just want to have the big summer hit. Kanye’s been calling me to do a song and now I think I’m just going to have to say no because he’s been a little disrespectful to that young woman.

Paste: Speaking of TV appearances, you were on David Letterman a year and a half ago and it got you a lot of attention. You are a great live performer and you do shows that get a lot of buzz. But I was curious how that compares to a TV audience, also live but very different, and if that changes the situation.

Slim: It is live. But it’s a totally different sort of thing. It’s people there to see this whole show that is a very famous show. And in our case, last year, there might have been three to five people who knew who we were in the audience. And I have a feeling that was my mom, and [our] family and friends. So it changes. And also, just to be honest with you, it’s scary. I’ve been waiting for that call my whole life that I can remember. And, yet, when I got it… I felt like we were ready, but I was still really nervous.

I think that the way they have it set up when you get there, it does have such a casual vibe to it, that it makes it easier to just do your thing. Everybody on the set, I mean, we didn’t get to meet David Letterman or anything, but everybody else [are] total pros. They do it every day, sometimes two times. They do it a million times.

Everybody was super-sweet to us, and just like, "Get out there and do your thing." I feel like the song that we did was kind of a mellower song so that was one side of what we do. One kind of song that I write. I would love to do [laughs] like a freak out song to show the different sides of what we do…And be less nervous, and have more fun with it. ‘Cuz that’s really what all this is about but it’s hard to keep it in mind all the time.

Paste: Well, I’ve watched David Letterman a lot, and when he came out after you played, he seemed to have genuinely liked it. You can tell when a late-night talk show host is thinking, "Ok, I don’t know why we booked these people." But he seemed to get into it and was impressed, and you certainly got a good reaction to that appearance.

Slim: Other people have said that as well. I was so… kind of like… in the moment. I couldn’t really tell what was going on. But other people had said that who worked on the show. It’s always nice. It’s the same as when a sound guy comes up to you in a club and says, "I’m here every night for the last 30 years. I really, really loved your show." I mean, that means a lot because these people are doing these things for their jobs.

Paste: You performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago this past August. I was wondering how you feel about a big fest like that as opposed to a smaller bar or a club.

Slim: Oh, I like ‘em both. Lollapalooza worked out great for us. When it works in your favor and you’re playing for a few thousand people, I don’t know how many people were watching us, a thousand or more, and everybody is throwing down, I really like that. You know, if it’s 50 people throwing down, I really like that. When we come through towns and there’s 25 people there, and they’re having a good time at the show, that’s a beautiful feeling. But still, I want it, next time through, to be more people. When I have an opportunity to, hopefully, shine in these bigger events, then that’s very exciting.

Paste: Compare Newport Folk Festival to Lolla.

Slim: We did [Newport Folk Festival] and we did Philly Folk Festival. They’re really contained where Lollapalooza is in Grant Park, which feels terribly massive.

Paste: Yeah. It is gigantic. It takes half an hour to walk from one end to the other.

Slim: Right. And a festival like Newport, which, it was our first time getting invited to do that, is very contained on beautiful grounds right by the water and it’s very kind of family... To me, it was a Paste/NPR kind of [thing]. You know what I mean?

Paste: Yeah. NPR did cover it too.

Slim: Right, right. It’s a certain kind of a vibe, whereas Lollapalooza… well, I know Paste was there. It’s just a different kind of thing. One thing I preferred about Newport is that the lineup this year was ridiculous. Just really, really good. And you can see a lot more. You can see a lot at Lollapalooza, but if I have too many things in my mind that I want to go do, I just [want to] go back to the hotel room and go to sleep or something. Newport, you can look at the list, it’s not that many bands or that many performers, and you can see most everybody.

Paste: But it is a testament to you too because you do straddle these genres and you’re playing a folk festival with families and you’re playing Lolla, which is what it is.

Slim: Yeah, we can do that. I think a lot of bands probably can do that, but it’s just… I hope we don’t fit into one kind of a thing. I never want that to be the case.