Mark Slaughter’s still out there doing it — working class rock and roll lifer, big hair or no hair. His second solo record, Halfway There, landed like a time machine to the days when MTV still played rock videos and your mom threatened to throw out your cassette tapes. But don’t go calling it a “return to form” — that’s press release spin. “The bottom line is it’s a rock and roll record,” Mark says. “If this was 25 years ago, it would’ve just been another phase of what I was doing.”
He did it the old-school way too: just him, his studio, and a metric ton of overdubs. “I produced it, played everything, just about everything,” he says. “The hardest part is to be objective. You know how it is — you know what sounds good, but being in a band is a lot different than doing it on your own.”
Turns out writing all the parts alone isn’t new to him — Slaughter’s biggest hit, Stick It To Ya, was done in under three weeks. “It’s more about the feel,” he says. “You’re just trying to paint a soundtrack for people’s lives.”
He tried to sequence the album like an actual record — a concept so foreign in 2017 that it counts as revolutionary. “I really wanted it to play like a record,” he says. “There were songs that were good but didn’t fit. They’ll wind up here or there on the next record. Or one down the line.”
One curveball on Halfway There is Conspiracy, which drifts into a grungy, Alice In Chains vibe. And yes, he’s well aware of the irony. “People have said that to me and I didn’t even think of it as the grunge thing,” he shrugs. “I always looked at it as Black Sabbath. But yeah, I’ll nod to those who do it. I’m not gonna run from it.”
There’s a ghost in the record too — Slaughter used a guitar that once belonged to Tim Kelly, the late Slaughter guitarist who died in 1998. “It’s rock and roll history to me,” Mark says. “It was like an old friend came back to join me for a bit.”
Of course he’s still touring with the band — and his other band, and Vince Neil’s band, because the glam-metal treadmill never really stops. “We’re all working,” he says. “It’s nice to be part of the working class of keeping rock and roll alive. It’s what I dreamed of as a young kid, and I’m still doing it this many years later.”
Mark Slaughter, halfway there and never clocking out.
You can hear the interview above, and then check out "Hey You" below!
