An Interview with Sea Slug

Graphic by Sofia Giarrusso

by Sophie Parrish

Sea Slug, a local Emerson-Berklee-MassArt band, is an up-and-coming, passionately charged group with a distinct indie-folk sound and an inspiring live performance archive. The band is made up of four friends, Hanlon on bass (she/her), Ben on vocals and guitar (they/them), Ciara on drums (they/them), and Caleb on bass and guitar (he/him). Their music has a folky, stripped back quality to it with an emphasis on evocative lyricism accompanied by pushing drums, melodically charged guitar, and a driving bass line. Last Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to interview both Hanlon and Ben in anticipation of their set at WECB’s Spring Showcase on April 16th. We discussed everything from new releases to our favorite kinds of slugs! 

Where does the name Sea Slug come from? 

Hanlon: The only thing I remember is that we were sitting in my bedroom at home going through a list of potential band names. 

Ben: I think it was the first one on the list because I remember you read “Sea Slug” and I was just like “that’s great.” 

Hanlon: And it sounds like Snail Mail!  

How did you all meet? 

Ben: We (Ben, Hanlon, Ciara) met at the Berklee summer program before our senior year of high school. We were in this country-shoegaze band called Oak Rodeo.  

Hanlon: We kept making music together over senior year and the summer before college. When college started, we both just ended up going to school here and so we hit up our old drummer, Ciara, and they were like “yeah I want to be in a band with you guys still.” Which was really awesome because they’re really good at drums. And they go to Berklee which is great because we get to practice there. And then Caleb was on the floor above me at MassArt before I transferred and was like one of the only people I met that played music, so we would just jam all the time. I said he could come to one of our band practices and it went really well. 

Ben: Yeah, I think we did a cover of “Weird Fishes / Arpeggi” but we replaced all the sounds with meows and we all really rocked with that, so we knew that it was working.  

How do you practice with members going to different schools? 

Ben: It’s very difficult. I think we’ll meet up a little bit more for writing or jamming because we go to the same school, which is great. But it’s harder to coordinate with four people, especially when they go to different schools. I mean, at Emerson most of our classes are pretty standard, but Ciara at Berklee has a lot of rehearsals so it does get tricky. I think that’s something that we’re always trying to do more of is practicing and coordinating.  

Do you all write the music? What’s everyone's role? 

Ben: I would say it’s mostly us two. 

Hanlon: Yeah, it’s mostly Ben. 

Ben: That’s something we’re also trying to figure out. I feel like my favorite songs we’ve written are ones where like, even if Hanlon or I had come with a sort of shell of a song, the ones where we sort of jam on it and it works itself out live are my favorites ones as opposed to songs where its written and everyone has a specific part. I think that’s always something that sucks about being apart is that we don’t write with the whole band as much as we’d like to.  

Hanlon: At first, it was just Ben’s songs then we started writing stuff together that I really like. Ben is better at the production side, the mixing of it all, but I’ve been learning a lot. We all do different things, but most of the songs are Ben’s.  

Ben: In terms of roles, that’s where it gets a little longer because Ciara obviously plays drums, but they also sing sometimes. In the past we had a show where I’ve played drums, and they played bass and sang which was fun. Ciara plays drums and I play guitar and sing sometimes and those two are the clearest roles.  

Hanlon: With me and Caleb it’s unclear. Caleb was supposed to join the band as a bassist but now I started taking bass lessons like last year and I’ve been playing a lot too. 

How did you start playing music? 

Hanlon: I played violin in fifth grade for a year. When I was 12, I started playing ukulele and I was in this ukulele and guitar club. I ended up always forgetting to bring my ukulele and they only had extra guitars so I was kind of just forced to start learning guitar so I could play the songs. But then I was like wait this is so much better. I ended up liking guitar a lot more. After Covid had happened I took guitar lessons over Zoom and did that for years. Ever since then I’ve just wanted to play guitar but now this year has been my year of bass playing. 

Ben: In seventh grade I got into pop-punk and grunge, and I remember my cousin had an acoustic guitar for his birthday and he never played it so I would borrow it for a month at a time. Then in high school I got really into classic rock, and I remember playing this really messy cover of Van Halen’s “Eruption.” Somehow, I did a pivot to sad indie and so I listened to Phoebe Bridgers which is when I really started writing songs. Because I feel like with classic rock, songwriting is less of a part of the culture where playing really good solos and writing cool riffs is a thing. But I wasn’t totally into learning songs until I started listening to indie music which is when I really started writing. I feel like I was sort of a late bloomer, I didn’t listen to cool music until senior year of high school which really pissed me off. I sort of got into shoegaze and then my palette expanded into all sorts of music when we started writing. I think I wrote “Bottle,” the first song we released, that summer when we were at Berklee.  

Hanlon: I just remembered I was also in choir and concert band and jazz band in high school.  

Ben: Yeah, we both did jazz band. 

Who are your biggest musical influences? 

Hanlon: I grew up listening to a lot of indie and alternative rock because my parents were into it. In the car I had to listen to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie, they had every one of their CDs and they would just play them over and over again. I was really into Declan Mckenna for a while and then I became super obsessed with Nick Drake and a lot of guitarists. During Covid, I only thought about guitar and listened to endless amounts of famous guitarists. I also listened to some math-rock, but I couldn’t play it too well. 

Ben: That’s okay, me either. 

Hanlon: All of my music taste is alternative rock and stuff from my dad. Actually, my biggest source of musical influence in my life was probably WERS because my whole life my dad has always played that station in the car, and I get all of my tastes from him.  

Ben: Like I said, the classic rock thing was big for me when I started really getting into music, like I really liked Led Zeppelin. I still think that style has influenced the way I play guitar. There was a period where I got into indie music when I was more focused on ‘let me write a song that’s very simple’ and I definitely still write simple songs now. Since then, in college, I’ve been listening to a lot of indie rock like Built to Spill and Modest Mouse recently which has gotten me really excited about guitar. I think it’s a really fun instrument and I do like playing a lot of guitar riffs even though our songs are often very simple. I also think shoegaze was a big thing for me for a while. You know Alex G and Elliott Smith are obviously very influential. Caleb and I’s tastes diverge a little bit more, he has a lot of folk knowledge, and he’s played in bluegrass bands. Ciara also has a lot of overlap with us. 

Hanlon: Ciara leans more towards soft indie sorts of stuff. We have a radio show together. But Caleb’s mom is a music teacher, his parents have a band together and so he does a bunch of performances together. He was forced to play violin and his sister to play cello, so they have this sort-of family band. 

Ben: I also just remembered that for my own influences, Yo La Tengo is another huge one. Just in terms of like the sounds they create with guitar and balancing pop songwriting while also getting a little bit funky, it’s something I really love. Also, Lowertown and Feeble Little Horse. Combining electronic stuff with rock music is something that I think is really cool and I want to do more.  

What was your reaction to finding out you would play the spring showcase? 

Ben: I was really excited because it’s crazy to see our names on the same flyer as an artist like Field Medic who my friends have talked about and that I see on Spotify. Same with Otis Shanty. They opened for Lowertown when we saw them, so we’ve been aware of them for a year or so plus they performed at the Milk Crate launch party which was so exciting and fun. I think seeing our name on the flyer as those two bands was really crazy.  

Hanlon: I was super excited. I couldn’t believe it. Field Medic is also on one of my favorite record labels so that was also crazy. We also talked to Otis Shanty after the showcase and really queened out together, it was great.  

What are your favorite albums of the year so far? 

Ben: Can it be from the end of last year? 

Sophie: I feel like I know what you’re going to say now. Can we all say it at the same time? 

Hanlon, Ben, Sophie: Heavy Metal [by Cameron Winter]! 

Ben: It’s the correct answer.  

Hanlon: I remember the day after “$0” came out on YouTube I listened to the first two minutes of it and I just thought, this is gonna be insane, but I need to come back to it. Since then, I’ve listened to it nonstop on repeat. I stayed up and listened to it at midnight when it came out. 

Ben: I didn’t listen to it until the middle of winter break but when I did, I was just like “whoa.” I think “Cancer of the Skull” might be my favorite, but I really couldn’t decide.  

Hanlon: Yeah, I think “Love Takes Miles” or “$0” are tied for my favorites. 

What’s your favorite show you’ve ever been to? 

Ben: I saw Underscores in fall of my freshman year, and it was so “hype” for lack of better term. Everyone was going absolutely crazy, it was the craziest mosh pit I’ve ever been in, it was like the whole audience. I think it was at the Sinclair. I had just recently gone to college. It was one of the first few concerts I had been to, and the energy was very good.  

Hanlon: Mine is at the Sinclair too. In 2021 I saw Adrianne Lenker right after “songs” had come out. I went with my dad and tickets were like $20 or $30, it was just standing so I was really close to the stage. It was just the most emotional thing ever. It was just a feeling I haven’t really experienced again since then.  

Ben: I also remember I saw Snail Mail in 2022, and my friend had been camping the line all day, so we hopped over and got into the very front of the line. We were just looking right up at her, and I really liked her a lot. I still do. She gave me her guitar pick at the end, it was very fun.  

What’s your favorite show you’ve ever played? 

Ben: Mine was the gig we played on my birthday. My friends in the audience said it was the best Sea Slug show, and I felt really good about it. I think I’ve gotten a lot better at singing this semester, so I feel like it finally hit with that show.  

Hanlon: I think my favorite one was our Midway Cafe gig the other month. 

Any departing words? 

Ben: If you read to the end comment slug! 

Check out Sea Slug this Wednesday, April 16th, alongside Otis Shanty and Field Medic at the Paramount Center!