Hide your kids, hide your wife. The Great Snooky Green is taking over.
Veteran Gainesville musicians Travis Atria (of Morningbell and Pseudo Kids) and Collin Whitlock (of The Boswellians and Cassette) have traded rock for funk and soul. “Killa Dilla,” the debut album from their soul side-project, The Slims, was released on Feb. 12. Next on their agenda is a March 30 show at Common Grounds, 210 SW Second Ave.
The Slims’ first album follows the rise and fall of fictional soul singer Snooky Green: a lover, a cheater and the ideal Greek tragic figure. When we first meet Snooky, he’s at the top of his game, but by the end of “Killa Dilla,” Snooky has met his demise.
Atria and Whitlock play all the instruments on the album, except for strings, which To All My Dear Friends’ Marc Hennessey handles.
Unlike Morningbell’s music, which Atria writes alone, he and Whitlock wrote and recorded The Slims’ songs together at Atria’s home recording studio.
“This album was a dream to make,” Atria said. “It was almost too easy.”
Whitlock agreed.
“Sometimes I find I’m surprised by how much I like this record,” Whitlock said.
Whitlock said the duo aimed to pay tribute to soul artists such as Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Otis Redding — and not in a subtle way.
“We wanted to rip them off as much as possible,” he said.
Atria said he enjoyed writing soul music because it allowed him to dabble in male chauvinism. With the lyrics anyway.
“With this character, I got to basically say, ‘I’m a man and I’m going to have sex with everyone in this audience,’” he said. “It’s not something we could pull of otherwise being two white guys.”
Whitlock’s favorite song on the record, “Believe That Shit,” features some of the most confident and overtly sexual lyrics: “You better scream when you say my name/ You better believe me that I’m your man.”
Another standout track,“Genghis Khan’s Cavalry,” tells of a frustrated man moving on with his life, and it features some of Whitlock’s favorite self-written lyrics: “Don’t tell me I’m lost just because I’m leaving you/ I was never lost even when I needed you.”
Next, Atria said, he and Whitlock may come back with a second album of “sex slow jams.”
“Why not?” he said. “No one’s stopping us, except for common sense and good taste.”
