By Veronika Lancaster Deliyannakis
Slim Twig’s kind of a skinny guy. Though the name does well to describe his appearance, it also speaks to his music.
Travelling with his tour band, the Mercy Mercenaries, Slim Twig is going on a bit of an adventure. It is his longest tour thus far and the band’s first out west. He says that previous experience has given them a lot of insight.
“With the live show, we really try to have it be an entertaining experience,” he says. “It’s not just something where we show up and look at our feet and play for 25 minutes then leave. So if people are curious, hesitant or not sure, then I’d say come because we like to put on a show.”
Twig’s gritty experimental sound has some unconventional origins. Growing up in a family of film-makers heavily influenced his music along with literature, David Lynch and directors like Peter Greenway. His inspiration comes from many different mediums with the element of fantasy added to the mix.
It is hard not to be fond of a character like Slim Twig. His style is definitely not ordinary. He is a Dr. Frankenstein creation of Elvis, Beck and the essence of funk. The lyrics are catchy and harsh, but sung in a very melodic and at times hypnotizing way.
Signing to Paper Bag Records, he’s put out two records this year and he’ll be getting another one out in the near future. It will be a bit darker with a different approach. The images he gets in his mind from the perspective of someone unsavoury gives his music that darker feeling, Twig says.
“My goal is to come off as sort of a crooner, but a crooner lost in a junk yard or something so everything is kind of noisy and disturbing but there’s still that element of a rock’n’roll classic singer,” he says.