Ilike it because it’s a parody, but it’s good. It’s not like a Weird Al Yankovic parody; it’s the actual art form itself?actual rap music with actual beats, good bass and hooks?all the stuff that makes a song successful. But when you turn it around, lyrically you’re suggesting just this absolute decadence and death and drugs . . . and it’s just ridiculous because we’re all suburban white kids who don’t live that lifestyle at all,” Spring Street Slangaz vocalist J.D. Short said.
That is, in a nutshell, the Spring Street Slangaz; a gang of MTSU students, most all of them originally from Memphis, who decided to form a group as a drunken joke and were amazed when the act caught fire with local fans.
At its core, the Slangaz are made up of Nik “Nikki B” Onder, Derek “Spitz” Newman, Andrew “Sleepy Time” Swanson, Brandon “Double Bubble” Bell and J.D. “HypnoFlow” Short, all supported by a rotating cast of guest vocalists. Bell and Short are also members of The Compromise, who sometimes appear with the Slangaz at live shows.
For all the attention they are receiving, the Slangaz never meant to be taken seriously.
“We were partying on New Year’s Eve a year ago and messing around with ProTools, and auto-tune was getting really big with people like T-Pain. The original plan was to have Brandon sing an R&B song and Nik was going to rap behind it. I decided I wanted to be on it, and Newman decided he wanted to be on it, and J.D. was like, well I have to be on it.’ So it turned into a rap song with Brandon singing the chorus with auto-tune on his voice. It was just ridiculous,” Swanson said.
From there, the Slangaz popularity grew through friends and word of mouth.
“It took a couple weeks, but people kept hearing our first song, ?Bitch Problems,’ and freaking out over it and we just said ?Alright, let’s make a MySpace,’” Bell said.
Likewise, their first show was accidental. Josh Hearing of local groups Alert the Sky and Mr. Satisfaction asked them to join his show line-up at The Boro Bar and Grill.
“We got up there, tore it up, and people loved it. I mean we didn’t know what to expect. There were legitimate rappers that kind of scoffed at us, but after they saw us, they understood and came and partied with us,” Swanson said.
What’s followed in the wake of that first performance was a string of successful shows with local acts, as well the recording of “Drive Tha Bus,” their most popular song to date.
“Everything about ?Drive The Bus’ was deliberate?the dance in the chorus, the beat?we wrote that song to be our club hit and built it from scratch. It’s our ?Soulja Boy.’ A few weeks after we wrote it, we found out it was the anthem at a strip club in Memphis. Somebody got a copy of it and some stripper was dancing to it,” Bell said.
More recently, the Slangaz have been working on a number of new songs that they will likely “consolidate into one or two good tracks.” They’ve also managed to set up a major show opening for a national act.
“We’re opening for Rehab, and that’s a big deal. They have a lot of plays, so . . . we better be good,” Newman said. Their show is scheduled for Feb. 15 at 527 Main Street at 9 p.m.
As for the future, the Spring Street Slangaz plan to continue performing while working on a CD.
“The plan has just been, once we get enough tracks, to invest our own money and print a CD to just give away. We’ve had people at our shows asking for them. We might take donations, print and sell T-shirts and that sort of thing, but we’re not really looking to get paid. We’re just doing it for fun,” Bell said.
“We didn’t think it would be anything but making one song, thinking it was funny and that was it. Once it started to get big, we figured we’d make a CD over the summer, have a CD release show, and then have a big fake fight on stage and break up. It’s still just weird to me that this has gotten as big as it has,” Swanson said.
And how long will the band continue to perform?
“I mean, we’ll just keep doing it as long as people like hearing it and we enjoy making it,” Bell said.
