Pennsylvania native Langhorne Slim first got public attention while touring with The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, and then when his song “Electric Love Letter” was featured on a Rolling Stone editor's top ten picks. Since then, he's recorded three LPs, the most recent of which was 2009's “Be Set Free,” performed on “Late Show with David Letterman” and had his songs covered by Seth Avett. Tonight he plays at the Opolis with the Paste Magazine tour, also featuring Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Jesse Syke and Mimicking Bird.

The Daily's Annika Larson spoke to Slim about life on the road, making it big and recording in his friend's basement.

The Daily: You're playing with the Paste tour. What's the whole show like?


Slim: Actually, I haven't met any of the other acts. I'm familiar with everybody's names, but it'll be a new experience for me to really hear and hopefully get to know them a little bit. I can't really answer it, I don't know yet what it's going to be like, but we're excited about it.

The Daily: What's a Langhorne Slim show like?

Slim: Um, fun! We try to be a great, great live band. We try to bring a lot of energy and passion and give it everything we have every night that we're out there. I'd like to say people can expect to have a great time.

The Daily: Sometimes people think of indie-folk-type music as boring, weepy stuff, but your music has a lot of energy and passion. What genre do you identify as?

Slim: I really don't, I just identify as music. I used to think it was Louis Armstrong, but someone told me it was Duke Ellington who said, “There's two kinds of music: good music and bad music.” If I had to be on one of the sides, I'd prefer to be on the side of the good music. Nobody wants to say, “I do this” or “I do that” because — where do you go from there, you know? You want to be free to go any direction creatively that your heart wants to take you. So, we play good music. That's the category I want us to fit into.

The Daily: It sounds like you have a lot of diverse influences. What kind of music has been the most influential on you?

Slim: When I was a young guy, just from listening to the radio in Pennsylvania and stuff, like most kids probably growing up, I listened to a lot of classic rock music, still do. Like Beatles, Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, stuff like that. Then I got into Nirvana, and I got into punk rock bands, and then everything just sort of opened up. I turned into a sponge. My older brother is a great music lover, and he would play all kinds of stuff in his room, like James Brown to the Violent Femmes. Then I got introduced to the early American music, and bluegrass music and blues. Anything that's just raw and feels real to me, that's what speaks to me.

The Daily: What's it like playing shows with the Avett Brothers?

Slim: I've been friends with those guys; we've known each other for years now. I don't even remember how many it is, maybe seven years at this point. It's great. I think that a lot of people who tend to like them tend to like us, and vice versa, so it works great for us. We've been fortunate — just the years that I've been touring, I've been able to go out and support great bands, not just that are musically really good, but just cool people. Now that we're doing our own headlining shows ourselves, we've been able to get to know and hear some great bands. So I haven't had a totally s****y experience yet.

The Daily: You tour a lot, right?

Slim: Pretty much constantly, yeah.

The Daily: What's life on the road like?

Slim: For me, it's what I need. I've been doing it now for most of my adult life, so I'm getting pretty used to it. I guess it's the same as like, whatever your routine is, this is what it is. I love it, I think what's best for me is just playing for live audiences and connecting with people every night, hanging out and meeting people, having a good time. It's what I enjoy the most out of any of what goes into this. At least now; maybe later I won't, but I feel like I would be lost without playing so many shows.

The Daily: Do you prefer smaller crowds or bigger ones?

Slim: I like both, but keep in mind, we don't play arenas or stadiums or anything like that. I think sometimes it is easier to play for a smaller room, easier for a connection to be made with a few hundred people than a few thousand. I don't know. Some of my favorite shows have been in front of the biggest crowds I've ever had the opportunity to play for, and some of them — the other night we had a show that I thought was a special experience, just a small town in California, not a big crowd at all. But the people that were there came to throw down, and we did as well. It just depends. That's probably why I choose to play so many shows —always chasing magic.

The Daily: What are your favorite songs to play live?

Slim: Usually the newer ones. For obvious reasons, [they] feel the most exciting.

The Daily: 2009's “Be Set Free” is a lot fuller and more orchestrated than early albums. What's it like to change the recording process over the years?

Slim: It is true that the first album I ever recorded was in my friend's basement, and it's true that we didn't have any other choice. And it is true that my last album was recorded in a studio, and hired a producer and everything like that. But it's not necessarily as you get bigger and maybe have more money, that you make it more lavish. This was an experience I wanted to have — in a proper studio, I'd never done that before.

It's all just a matter of not necessarily spending more money or doing things fancier, but just continuing to challenge yourself and trying to be honest to your heart and in that, find the best way to record. I think the next album, we'll probably go back to a basement or a house to make it, as opposed to a studio, just because the songs I'm writing now, that might be a little truer to them than taking it into the studio. I don't even know if that makes any damn sense.

The Daily: I'm always wondering how you are not a household name. How do you feel about that, or is gaining widespread fame not high on your priority list?

Slim: Don't misunderstand me — that is very important, I want everyone to know who we are! Just like our friends who have gotten fortunate and become very well-known. We're very fortunate too, we're not that big, but we have a crowd everywhere, we're able to make a living doing this. I appreciate that you would like us to be household names, and just so you know, I would like us to be as well.

I'm not trying to stay under the radar necessarily, but what's important is not [getting] everyone to know my name and my face, but I want to be proud of what I'm doing when I'm going to bed at night, or perhaps breathing my last breath in this body on earth. So that's what's important. But I've been as honest with my personal self as much as I can, and I've made really good work. So I hope that's what I'll do. So in doing that, maybe everybody will know who the f**k we are too.

If you go
WHO: The Paste Magazine Tour presents Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Langhorne Slim, Mimicking Birds and Jesse Sykes and Phil Wandscher
WHEN: 9 tonight
WHERE: Opolis, 113 N. Crawford Ave. in Norman
COST: $15
INFO: For tickets, visit www.ticketstorm.com.