Sean "Slug" Daley, one-half of the Minneapolis-based duo Atmosphere, has a unique connection to Dallas, to which the band is returning soon for a show. Before Slug quit his day job as a delivery driver to take on rapping full-time, he'd never left his home city for a show.
"The first time I ever left Minneapolis to play a show was a show in Dallas," Slug says. "This was probably '98 or '99. We drove all the way down [Interstate] 35 to Dallas for one show. For 200 bucks. And we slept on this couch and then turned around and drove all the way back."
He didn't mind the almost 2,000-mile round trip drive itself. "It was the beginning," he says. "It put that seed in me that there was more out there than just delivering boxes of glassware."
Slug and DJ-producer Anthony "Ant" Davis are headed back to the Dallas area for a concert with Sublime with Rome and Slightly Stoopid at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving on July 23.
Atmosphere had their first paying gig outside of Minneapolis in Dallas over two decades ago.
Dan Monick
Atmosphere gets under your skin like that. Literally, there's a particular line that's found its way inked onto many chests and forearms: "God loves ugly." It's not a Christian slogan about loving ourselves or our misgivings or about forgiving our neighbors for parking in front of our house. Everyone has their own interpretation, but somewhere self-loathing and anxiety are stitched together with a thread of acceptance.
"I can't necessarily quantify this with any sort of evidence, but when I first thought of the concept of a song called God Loves Ugly, it was supposed to be self-defeating," Slug says. "You know, a God must love me kind of a thing."
If a line in a song could have a cult, this one would go through gallons of Kool-Aid. Slug says the lyric was a response to a popular bumper sticker at the time, "God don't love ugly." He had had no idea what the lyric would turn into.
"I kind of wish that there'd been a mentor or somebody around who would've been like, 'Hey, by the way, that one and that one and that one are pretty good, let's lean into 'em.' Instead of me always having blinders of being genuine and true to my values," he says.
Slug has never signed with a label, steadfast about autonomy when it comes to producing and writing. However, now he releases music with fewer emotional ties.
"Because at the time [when you're young] you don't think like that. You're just looking for something cool to call a song or to basically title a mood. I wish I would've possibly leaned into it a little heavier back then because it is kind of a universal thing," Slug says, now a smidge over 50 years old, still producing and touring. "At the time, I was like 'If you don't understand where I'm coming from, then fuck off.' I guess that's kind of the younger person's way of viewing art."
Early on, Atmosphere albums were rife with anxiety and self-deprecation (with a few upbeat songs for good measure), but the protagonist was always Slug. With their new album released this year, So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously, it's more of an outward view, quite literally from Slug's front window.
He penned and produced the album from September 2020 through late fall of 2021. George Floyd was murdered within blocks of Slug's home and studio.
"From start to finish, you're talking about like a little over a year and a half of me tinkering with it at a time when there was a lot of paranoia, there was a lot of unknowns," he says. "I was being put into a whole new experience for the duration of this album."
The songs on the album are ordered as they were written. The first track Ant gave him is where the album starts. "Ant gave me a beat, he was like 'I've been meaning to give you this and I think now's as good a time as any,'" Slug says.
Titled "Okay," the first song starts with a light beat bouncing around, and Slug assuring us in the opening line, "It's gonna be alright." But it's delivered a bit like mom offering you a cupcake with a smile before telling you the family is splitting up.
After the first song, things dig into what was happening in the world. "The shit hit the fan everywhere," Slug says.
Halfway through the album, the lyrics of "Thanxiety" start: "I exhale like I'm breathing out for those without the option/I do believe in monsters that's why I never treat you like a monster."
Slug says his hometown is still reeling in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder. Cops have stopped doing their jobs, "just hanging out, not doing shit," taking things personally.
"Which is weird for me to be a person now that's going, 'Hey, do your job,,'" he says. "I'm 50 years old saying all cops are bastards. If I worked at Subway and made sandwiches and I was putting my own personal shit into those sandwiches, I'd get fired."
He sees his city still reeling from the civil unrest. For three days following Floyd's murder, Minneapolis and Saint Paul experienced riots resulting in more than $500 million in property damage, scars that Slug says are still visible; boards still cover windows. The city hasn't been able to recover.
"So the police are reacting to how the community reacts to the police being bastards (...) but everything here is fucked up. Economically and socially," he says. "The only thing I can do is hope that the fucking youth and the organizers are on top of their shit so that everything can come out of this as a phoenix rising."
Said much like the theme in all of Slug's messaging: pull that Band-Aid off, deal with it, but it'll be "Okay."
