(February 1996)
By TOM DOUGHERTY
In the words of Slaughter’s lyricist, Mark Slaughter: “Nothin’s ever gonna slow me down/I always got my foot on the ga-as/And if you can’t groove to these sounds/Well pucker up and kiss my ass.”

In the words of guitarist Tim Kelly: “With the change in the music scene lately, we still seem to be very lucky and have great crowds and good support wherever we go… The only number-one single we ever had was in Indonesia… there’s a lot of bands out right now playing a lot of rock that’s lyrically and show-wise very depressing — talking about how screwed up the world is and stuff, and for us it’s never been about that. It’s been about havin’ a good time, and we’re just a great live party band to come out and have a good time and I think there’s still a great audience for that kind of thing.

Big Shout: Uh-huh.

Kelly: I’ve been to some shows lately… some of the newer “hip bands,” but I just don’t enjoy gettin’ pushed around. You know, for me, I don’t find that a really good time. We’ve tried to always keep it positive and have our music about positive things. That’s always worked out for us, that whole concert-rock vibe.

Big Shout: That’s good, man.

Kelly: Lots of bands today that are big right now are really delving on the negative side of the world today and what’s going on, and for us it’s not like we’re really a depressed bunch of guys, you know what I mean?

Big Shout: Yeah.

Kelly: We’re all pretty happy, up kind of guys. We’ve been lumped into the ’80s rock although, we didn’t even come out until 1990… we’re really a ’90s band. Slaughter is what Slaughter is, and I think the key to us is we’re gonna always do what it is that we do which is play good-time party commercial hard rock… You’re not gonna see us shaving our heads and wearing flannel shirts and shorts…

I’ve seen articles and stuff, people saying that hard rock and metal is being killed off, but I think there’s always gonna be people that enjoy that kind of music.

Slaughter is now touring in support of their record “Fear No Evil.” They will be performing at the Big Kahuna in Wilmington, DE on Feb. 14, 1996.