ATMOSPHERE

ATMOSPHERE

Making Lemonade

After building a career (and a cult following) out of exploring his own foibles, Sean Daley, aka Slug, is largely at peace with himself as he approaches 40. He chats with JOSHUA HAYES ahead of Atmosphere’s upcoming tour.The subjects that once defined the Minneapolisrapper – women, alcohol, dependency issues, etc – have given way on recent albums to a more reflective and mature outlook. The turning point for both his music and his life came as he began working on what would become 2008’s When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold.

“When I conceived that actual record, I didn’t want to make a record that was, like, ‘oh, here’s another record of Sean complaining about his surroundings,’ you know? A part of me has really made some proactive decisions to change my surroundings so that I didn’t have those surroundings to complain about anymore,” Daley says. “And when I did that, the funny thing was, I started to notice other people’s tragedies, if that makes any sense. I wasn’t sitting there swimming in my own tragic moment as much any more; instead I was starting to build more compassion for other people, and so that took what I was writing somewhere else.”

Of course, Daley’s skill at mining his “own tragic moment” for pathos and self-deprecating humour is what initially drew many fans to Atmosphere – his two-decade-long partnership with producer Anthony Davis, aka Ant.It’s no coincidence that 2002’s God Loves Ugly – easily the group’s most sardonic work – was their breakthrough album. But over six studio albums (depending on how and what you count) and a myriad of EPs and mixtapes, he has evolved from a shit talker rapper (1997’s Overcast) to a self-loathing Lothario (God Loves Ugly) to a wizened storyteller (When Life Gives You Lemons…).

Daley, who turns 40 in September, is now living a relatively charmed life with a happy marriage, a young son (his second) and a role in one of hip hop’s most prominent independent acts. “Personally, I welcome 40. I didn’t know that I’d make it to 40, and I’m not trying to sound like a rap cliché when I say that,” Daley says. “But when I was younger I had no intention of making it to 40 man, I wanted to fucking party, live hard and burn out fast and shit. And now I’m kind of like ‘fuck, I think I want to make like 40 more children’.”

“I’m fine with it because a few years ago I realised that if you practice good decision making - and when I say good decision making I mean less whisky and more forethought - if you practice good decision making, things actually get better as you get older, and so I’m really looking forward to a continuation of that,” he adds. “As long as I’m taking care of myself and eating right and not wilding out, fucking drinking whisky and doing coke off a stripper’s face, I think that things with life are just gonna get better and better. But who’s to say? Who knows what’s right around the corner? Maybe 40 will be great and then at 41 suddenly I’ll get the gout and they’ll have to cut off one of my feet; I dunno.”

Atmosphere’s latest album, last year’s The Family Sign, was their most musical to date, with their touring line up – guitarist Nate Collis and keyboardist Erick Anderson – heavily involved in the studio. Although Daley says it gave the group more scope, it also made recording the album a more time consuming process. “Sometimes it can get more complicated; it can take longer, but not because what you’re doing is actually taking longer; it’s because now you’re adding elements into the process that you never even had before,” he says.

“The funny thing is that we still use Ant’s drum programming, you know what I mean? Ant has been known now, for decades, as the guy with the snares that are way too loud, you know what I mean? And so we’re still making songs where the snares are way too loud but, holy shit, we’re spending all this time trying to figure out a synth-based sound,” he adds. “I really feel like on one hand it keeps the purity of what is Atmosphere in place but, on the other hand, it really gives Anthony that opportunity to evolve and to test the Quincy Jones in him.”

A year on from the release of The Family Sign, Daley says he has a number of projects on the go but none are at a stage where he’s keen to discuss them. “I’ve got my hands in so many different pots right now that I have no idea which one of these dinners is going to finish first. I don’t ever quit; there’s always something a-brewing… I don’t really like to talk about something until it’s closer to arising because I don’t like to get my own hopes up high; you never know what might fall through, so, there’s no need for me to go into my collaboration with Radiohead just yet,” he deadpans. “I’m doing a lot of dumb shit and hopefully some of it will come out some day.”