Doug Bennett
of Doug and the Slugs

The invasion began in January of 1979. Into Canada's musical garden came the Slugs, led by a graphic artist/composer/musician/entrepreneur named Doug Bennett. Doug and the Slugs used humour and theatrics to munch their way into Vancouver's music scene, becoming too big to ignore when their self-produced/released single "Too Bad" hit the airways with a splash.

By June 1980 "Too Bad" was a runaway smash - RCA Records had stepped in, offering a deal for the album and national distribution. Subsequently titled Cognac and Bologna (named in honour of the typical "gourmet" fare provided by promotors for backstage consumption), it has gone on to Gold Record status and nears Platinum. The follow-up album, Wrap It (Nov. 1981), included special guests The Nylons on the hit single "Real Enough." Sales have been good, and the U.S. release of their records has spurred several successful U.S. tours on both coasts. Led by the urbane and witty Doug Bennett, the Slugs include Simon Kendall - keyboards; Rich Baker - guitar; John Wally Watson - drums; Steve Bosley - bass; and John Burton - guitar.

Caught in a reflective mood at a midtown bar in Vancouver, Doug gives us this Inner-view...

Most Recent Release:
I like Wrap It better than Cognac and Bologna because it was put together then and there. It was the band working on songs they had just learned, and I find that the energy you can put into a song you have just leanred is so much more powerful than a song you have worked on and performed live. You've got the room ambience to contend with live, and you hear all these things on stage that affect you. When you go into the studio, there is no way that you can recreate that, so I find it better to learn songs as close to the studio date as possible. The sounds on Wrap It are cleaner and more polished than Cognac, without being slick. I think it still sounds like a band. You know, the Straight Lines album to me was a little too polished to a fault because it doesn't feel like it is an actual band. It feels like it is people in the studio overtracking and doing that whole thing. Jim Vallance co-produced Wrap It with us. He did a real remarkable job. He was able to take what we put out creatively and tie it all up and make a presentable unit. I think the guy is good.

Making Records
I haven't really had to deal with recording deadlines yet. The albums have come out more or less when they're ready. I know I have about a year between albums. The way it has worked so far was...we finished Cognac in June, then songwriting-wise I bummed around from June till October. Then I started collecting bits and pieces; where ever I am I jot things down. By January I've collected those bits and pieces into a big pile and I start to shape them into a form that they are later going to take. I finish that by February, middle of March, then go into the studio in May and June. The band was really clicking on the new songs I was pulling out, and I was inspired to go home and write some more...We were lucky....that's how it worked last year, but I don't know if that will be a standard procedure. What I found is that after every album you have to take several months off, and then you start the process of collecting the bits and pieces.

Songwriting
I'm most inspired to write between midnight and 5 a.m. It's really a beautiful time of the night, because it is the end of the night and yet it is also the beginning of the morning...when I go to bed it is getting a little blue out there. It gives me the feeling that I have worked longer because I started on Tuesday and worked through till Wednesday morning. Mind you, that is sitting down with the guitar and sort of setting a mood for yourself. I'll put the bottle of whiskey there, and a shot glass and a package of smokes. I might have three or four drinks and I might light up eight cigarettes, but I have actually only smoked two of them because it's creating what you want of your own little world. In a lot of ways it is creating a table in a bar. The stuff's the same...empty glasses...full ashtrays. You just sort of create an environment around you that could be anywhere, but it just happens to be in your own living room. It is not just these physical things that contribute to this little scenario, you have to put yourself into a state of mind that most people are in when they are in bars, or when they are listening to music. I write on guitar, that's all Ihave. When I play guitar, I play in a very self taught style, which means I have found finger positions that may not be the proper ones. When I present them to the band, there is all this pressure to conform to the way musicians view the world, which is a bit too methematical for me at times. They might say, "Well, this song is based on the one, three or five," or whatever the systems are, and you say, "Well, no, I want to throw a four-and-a-half in there," and then they go, "Oh no, it can't be done," and then we do it, and they all realize that it could be done.

Art vs. Commerce
Concerning the selling of music, I didn't have a problem with that, because of the years I spent in advertising. To me the music business is nothing more than commercial art. You're putting out pieces of creativity by a deadline, and putting them out with the idea in mind to sell. A good campaign in advertising will be really creative and innovative and will break new ground. I think that is what people should do when they approach music. You know, I think advertising gets dumped on these days just because people react to the fact that ads are often selling crap. If you analyze pop, ninety percent of pop music is selling crap...but ten percent of advertising campaigns are works of art. I know in Europe they have a greater appreciation of advertising. They have yearly shows where they hang ad photography in galleries as works of art...and I think they are. I think what saved me was that while I was in advertising I had this approach, and I was able to apply it to the music, because they are so much the same. For this reason, I get a bit schizophrenic because the artist side of me wants to make the next big statement, but the business side doesn’t want it to be so innovative that it freaks out the buying public.

Artistic Growth:
I think musical growth is necessary and inevitable. Had we not gotten recognition in the clubs in the early days, then you’d see stagnation setting in. Because we try to stay one step ahead of ourselves, I think that contributes to what you’d call growth. The music however, must maintain the original spark it had. It is inevitable that when you grow you lose a certain percentage of your original audience, but you just have to make sure you are collecting enough new fans along the way to make up for the loss. I imagine that some people who came to see us at the Savoy (Vancouver nightclub) in our early days still come, but think we’ve gotten too hard. We do a lot of swing stuff and a lot of west coast music, and now my writing is going into a more rocky period. I’m sure a lot of those flower children who saw us in the early days don’t relate to us now. Couple that with the fact that people really like to discover a band. They like going into the shitty little warehouses and climbing up four flights of stairs and being part of an event. People who are the underground tire of you when you become the overground. When you start to get some success it becomes, "Oh yeah, they sold out you know..."

Attitude:
I think one has to go onstage expecting to get booed...then if they like you it’s great. You have to go prepared for the worst, and that way it’s easier to walk out among the crowd with this feeling you have nothing to lose. If you go out expecting them to love you it will never happen, it will never live up to your expectations. It is antagonistic to go out like that, yet I guess it is like the football player who must go out there and be ready to kill.

Warmups:
We do a vocal warm-up in the dressing room, and then when the band goes on to do their first number, I’ll sort of howl a bit. They say the voice is sort of a muscle, and it’s important to go out there with it as loose as possible, ‘cause when you get out there that initial anxiety sets in and you can almost feel your throat closing in on you.

Equipment:
I’ve stuck with a Shure SM58 microphone because I have yet to find anything that I am more comfortable with. My latest revelation is the idea of wireless microphones because of the freedom they give you.

Rehearsing:
While on the road, we don’t have a hell of a lot of time to rehearse, but our sound checks usually last 45 to 60 minutes. We find that is a good amount of time to do the vocals and then work on any new tunes that we want. I think it is also a good time to discuss what went wrong with the previous night’s show, and to find a way to rectify it if you can.

Touring:
I think the band stands up pretty well to the rigors of touring, because I know that at the end of every tour they are pissed off at the way I’m doing things and the way the management is doing things...but by the beginning of the next tour they are happy. We have meetings at the end of every tour and we discuss what went wrong and what they hated. It is a very emotional scene, yet by the time we go out on tour again they know what points can and will be rectified. It is not always possible OT change all the points that cause problems, but we change what we can. The routing of the last tour was excellent. Before we go out on tour, I have to explain that in Canada we have a certain amount of clout, but when we go into the States be prepared to be treated like pieces of meat. We’ll keep that period as soon as possible, but the fact remains that when you’re trying to cover as much of America as you can in three or four weeks, it is going to be a gruelling tour. We have bonus systems and incentives, anything to balance out the fact that these guys are doing what they have to do to get to the position to do what they want to do. Trying to reconcile the two things becomes hard. I mean, just sitting in Vancouver...in your room practicing...you tell yourself that you want to be a musician, to tour and be successful. When you actually get out there and are doing the whole thing, you realize that all those things you were dreaming about in your room don’t even relate to the truth. I mean, the fact that you can’t get liver and onions done the way you want in Saskatoon is a small point, but because it happens time after time you end up want to strangle somebody.

Spin-Off Projects:
Right now we are taking a month off. The guys want to work on other things you know, I think it is something that has been bugging them for the last year, and I can understand. It is a very tight situation, they are always working on my stuff. With the month off they can either take holidays or work on other things. It is a good idea. I wish we could give six weeks or two months off so they could find out what the other conditions are like out there. You forget what it is like to have to go out there and hustle jobs and work with other kinds of people. I think it is good for the bend chemistry to go out and see other types of situations and haul the P.A. up and down the back stairs of a nightclub a few times. I think they will see that what they have got in spite of all the flaws is still a pretty sound organization. Moving the P.A. thing is hilarious. I never liked doing that at all, and you tend to forget, because success comes slow for working bands. Those conveniences and luxuries creep in inch by inch. You hire your first roadie and you only have to load in half of your gear, then down the road you hire another roadie, and then you aren’t moving any gear. When it creeps in like that, you forget about all the shit you had to do.

Agents/Managers:
When you are with a management company that has a bit of clout, there is no real fear of not getting paid for the gig. That is a fear that I have been able to put to the back of my mind because our manager, Sam Feldman, controls a fair amount of the city, and has connections all over the country. We fight for our money. If some guy is hassling you, you get the booker on the phone and there is a three way connection, and you argue the money out right there. There is not that fear of being stuck halfway between Regina and Saskatoon without your money. I’ll sit down with management and our road manager and we’ll discuss the whole tour. This is something I don’t want to give up because booking agents have a real bad habit of "Calgary today, then to Toronto tomorrow, and then to Edmonton the next day..." To them it is just driving like Randy Bachman used to do, five hundred miles a night....that’s the rock’n’roll spirit! All you can do is be there to say, "Wait a minute!"

Early Experience:
My early experiences were good for me because I was so new to the business that even the crappy stuff was enjoyable - (Lugging the P.A.). I played all the nightclubs and bars in Vancouver, and when the conditions were bad it was still an eye-opener for me. I hadn’t gone the traditional route of most musicians, playing since eighteen and jaded by twenty eight. I was lucky to be fairly virginal and able to go into a lousy situation and see the positive benefits of it. Maybe that comes from reading a lot of biographies. When you read Charlie Chaplin’s biography, you could see how he had great moments. A lot of political stuff went down, but he managed to live out the later years of his life, happily in Europe. By reading a lot of biographies, I think you get a feeling for your life as opposed to just "now add here..." Like it’s Chapter 3 and I got no money for booze and no money for rent, but I know that coming here in Chapter 4, somewhere, some white knight is going to come in and pump a bunch of money behind us and make us a million dollars.

Musical Influences:
I don’t listen to music enough to pin it down; I list to such a variety that when it goes through the wringer it comes out in a way that’s hard to pinpoint. It’s because I am too close to the music. When other people point out similarities or probable influences, I have to agree with them, but am pleasantly surprised. This whole doo-wop thing...I don’t know any doo-wop bands, but I’ve heard the Persuasions..a little bit of the early Sixties’ Phil Spector stuff. Yet I couldn’t say what particular group influenced me...it’s more of a collective memory. Think back to what was coming over the radio when you were a kid. What you heard then sticks with you; that vague, foggy "Hallmark card" impression of what you listened to as a kid. I’m not a record collector so I don’t have these classics, but when a song comes on the radio I can punch back into where I was at that particular time and really grab a hold of it. I think that is also a good way to approach song writing. You put enough ambience on it, or scenario into it, that when people listen to it they can place where they were at that particular time. That should be the biggest effect that music has on people, because without it you are left with musak. I tend to buy records and listen to them for a month solid, then put them away until I’m drunk at a party, where I’ll pull them out and say that I really like. Again I only listen to records when I buy them, so unless I’m in a buying mood I tend to keep the stereo off. I think that is a mistake. I should be listening to Foreigner and Journey to find out "what is happening."

Stimulants:
Stimulants? (chuckles) Well, I’m pretty liberal. I mean, I know what I do to my body and how I pay for it. I sure wouldn’t want to inflict that upon anyone else. You know, I believe in moderation. I think this business moves too fast to get bogged down by any particular drug scene. On my weekends off, when I don’t have any work to do, I may just for anything...well not anything. I keep it to the standard middle class drugs that we all do....

"Canadian Musician: Volume 4 #5 Sept./Oct. 1982"

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