{"id":47958,"date":"2023-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/jacob-slichter-the-daily-vault-interview\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:31:33","slug":"jacob-slichter-the-daily-vault-interview","status":"publish","type":"feature","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/jacob-slichter-the-daily-vault-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob Slichter: The Daily Vault Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"jacob-slichter-1_400\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"jacobslichter_soyouwannabe_400\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In the short history of rock and roll memoirs\u2014which for obvious reasons have been a thing for only a few decades now\u2014my favorite has long been <\/i>So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star<\/a> by Jacob Slichter. The drummer for Semisonic, the Minneapolis trio that burned brightly across the media heavens circa 1998, Slichter proceeded to pen one of the most piercingly witty and self-aware autobiographies in the genre, cast in the role of the insightful Everyman who thinks\u2014and reveals\u2014all of the thoughts that you or I might have if we suddenly found ourselves thrust into the funhouse-mirror world of chart-topping rock and roll hitmakers.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>The band arrived at that pinnacle\u2014achieving a #1 Alternative hit with the ubiquitous \u201c<\/i>Closing Time<\/i><\/a>\u201d\u2014just five years after coming together as a musical vehicle for three friends: Slichter, his college pal Dan Wilson (lead vocals, guitar), and John Munson (bass, backing vocals). (Wilson and Munson had previously played together in indie cult darlings <\/i>Trip Shakespeare<\/i><\/a>, which had just broken up when Semisonic\u2014<\/i>initially called Pleasure<\/i><\/a>\u2014formed.) Semisonic followed \u201cClosing Time\u201d and its accompanying smash album <\/i>Feeling Strangely Fine<\/a> with the less commercially successful collection <\/i>All About Chemistry<\/a> before being dropped by MCA. <\/i> <\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

Semisonic then slipped into a lengthy hiatus that saw each member pursue alternate creative avenues: Wilson wrote songs for himself and others; Munson started a new band (The New Standards); and Slichter wrote his book. In time, Slichter\u2019s writerly pursuits led to a gig teaching writing at <\/i>Sarah Lawrence College<\/i><\/a> in his current home base of New York City. (He also launched a warm and welcoming presence on social media, where we first connected years ago.)<\/i><\/p>\n

Despite going on the back burner for an extended period, Semisonic never broke up. Friends first, then and now, the trio continued to collaborate in various ways, play the occasional reunion gigs, and talk about making new music together. The latter pursuit eventually moved from theory to reality, and in 2020 the group released a new EP titled <\/i>You\u2019re Not Alone<\/a>. This month will see the first full-fledged tour by Semisonic\u2014second-billed with the Barenaked Ladies and Del Amitri on a string of shed dates\u2014in 22 years. The group has also been busy recording new music.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n

It’s exciting times for a band that went quiet but never went away\u2014anchored by bonds of friendship that feel as genuine today as they did in 1998\u2014and a great time to catch up with the man behind the kit. Our chat with Jacob Slichter last week covered everything from meeting Dan Wilson in college, to playing the Letterman show, earning a compliment from Carole King, strategies for dealing with stage fright, and what\u2019s next on the horizon for both the band and its resident drummer, author, and teacher.<\/i><\/p>\n


The Daily Vault: From time to time I think about how my life might have turned out differently if just one or two variables had been changed along the way. Which led to me thinking about the path you\u2019ve taken. Fresh out of high school, you went off to Harvard, where you met a classmate named Dan Wilson. What were your first impressions?<\/p>\n

Jacob Slichter:<\/b> I had been at Harvard for a week, and it was such a weird place that I just wanted to spend time at my drums, because I felt more comfortable there. The day my drums arrived, my roommates helped me go get them and I set up and started playing in the dorm\u2019s common room. After a minute or two a head popped into the doorway, and I don\u2019t even know if we introduced ourselves right away, but this guy said \u201cI\u2019m gonna go get my bass, I\u2019ll be right back.\u201d Five minutes later, the person I came to know as Dan Wilson rolled in an amp and his bass. I think we introduced ourselves then, but we didn\u2019t really even talk at first; we spent an hour or so just playing. Our first real conversation was just grooving together on the drums and bass.<\/p>\n

And then we got to talking and getting to know each other. All that first year\u2014especially that fall when you\u2019re sort of meeting all the musicians and figuring out who you want to be hanging out with\u2014Dan and I would go off to various jams. These would usually be Dan on bass, me on drums, and, like, 15 guitar players who want to play the blues. (laughter) And so we\u2019d sit around playing very slowly, like \u201cdun\u2026 dun\u2026 dun\u2026 dun\u2026\u201d (more laughter) And each guitar player would take a turn, and it was just horrifically boring.<\/p>\n

But Dan and I quickly found our way to the people who wanted to jam a little more creatively than that, and then Dan started getting involved in other bands, but we kept in touch the whole time. In the last year of school, in the spring we got together and had a band with a friend of ours named Hal Movius.<\/p>\n

At that point, Dan\u2019s girlfriend was moving out to San Francisco and he was going to follow her. I didn\u2019t know what the hell I was going to do after school, I just knew I wanted to make music\u2014and I was making music with Dan, so I followed along.\u00a0 We got rolling, and then Dan moved back to Minneapolis to join his brother\u2019s band, Trip Shakespeare. A few years later I moved to Minneapolis too, just because I knew people there, not with any plan of doing anything with Dan, because he was already in a band. And then Trip Shakespeare broke up, and Semisonic happened\u2026<\/p>\n

Where in that sequence of events did you connect with John, and<\/b> what were your first impressions?
<\/b>
I met John when Dan got married; my first trip to Minneapolis was for Dan and his girlfriend Diane\u2019s wedding. I flew out to Minneapolis a few days ahead of time and Trip Shakespeare was in the studio. I met John while he was perched over the control board at Gark Studios. I had an instant, very strong connection with John, too.<\/p>\n

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Thinking about Semisonic\u2019s initial run in the \u201990s, you\u2019ve said that for all the ups and downs, you wouldn\u2019t trade a minute of that whole experience. You\u2019ve also described yourself as incredibly lucky, which strikes me as typically modest of you, but come on. Talent and hard work had to have something to do with it, too.
<\/b>
I think that hard work is a necessary but not always sufficient condition for success. I don\u2019t think you can have success without it. Maybe some other form of success would have come to me under different circumstances, I don\u2019t know. I do know that I look at what happened to me and think, \u201cDude, you were very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

I still practice a lot. I think practice is essential. You\u2019ve got to work hard, you\u2019ve got to write a lot of songs, or do a lot of whatever it is you want to do, in order to make it happen. But I also know that I feel very lucky about it. <\/p>\n

In <\/b>So You Want to be a Rock & Roll Star<\/i><\/b><\/a>, you talk a lot about anxiety and stage fright, and also about the rush of being on stage and performing. Why do you think humans are drawn to doing things that frighten us?
<\/b>
There are different answers to that depending on which version of it you\u2019re talking about. I\u2019ve been watching the 100 Foot Wave<\/i><\/a> series on HBO, about surfers surfing these gigantic waves off the coast of Portugal. I would never do that, never in my life, but I\u2019m kind of fascinated by thrill-seekers. They\u2019re up against the very limits of what they can do. These are the greatest surfers in the world, and they\u2019re all scared out of their minds, because they can be killed, or horrifically injured.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one kind of danger that humans are drawn to; I\u2019ve never related to that. But I am drawn to, I would say, showing myself<\/i>. There\u2019s a performer version of that which requires a stage and happens in real time, and that\u2019s where a lot of my stage fright stuff shows up. I think also with writing\u2014and you can probably relate to this\u2014to really say it, sometimes you have to push yourself to a place that is frightening, and vulnerable, and if you stop short of that, you haven\u2019t done it.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s part of what drives any artist or performer\u2014the desire to show your full self, to own that for yourself. To do it in front of people in a live setting really does get your fight-or-flight body processes going in a pretty intense way. And I think the volume level of rock and roll and the energy of a rock audience and the amps and the drums and everything, it turns everything up to eleven. And so if you\u2019ve got stage anxiety, as I always have, you really do have to come up with some strategies for how you\u2019re going to deal with it, because it\u2019s just going to be there.<\/p>\n

In the thick of things in the late \u201990s, Semisonic played The Late Show<\/i>, The Tonight Show<\/i> and half a dozen or so other major TV appearances. Please share your favorite green room story.
<\/b>
It\u2019s not exactly a story, but one incredible experience was the unexpected joy of being able to talk with the actor Peter Boyle<\/a> and tell him how much his performances and various moments in his acting career had meant to me. What was really special about it was that he just rolled with it and was very open. You could see him rewinding the tape in his mind to get back into each moment and talk about it. It was just super humbling, to have such a talented artist be willing to open up like that to a stranger. He had no idea who Semisonic was, I don\u2019t think he had ever heard \u201cClosing Time\u201d before hearing it over the monitors in his dressing room at the Letterman show. Talking with him was a wonderful insight into what artists can be, for themselves and for other people.<\/p>\n

I also remember when we appeared on Loveline <\/i>with Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew, the advice show for teenagers and college-age folks wondering about drugs and sex and stuff. We were backstage for that show and Miguel Ferrer<\/a> was there and he knew Semisonic and told us how much he loved us. And I was just so knocked out, because I was a huge Miguel Ferrer fan.<\/p>\n

What stands out isn\u2019t so much one story as it is all the unexpected things that happen when you\u2019re suddenly in close proximity with people you\u2019ve admired your whole life.<\/p>\n