Slim Jim Phantom, drummer and backing vocalist for the group Phantom, Rocker & Slick, is talking about electronic-oriented pop music and the state of rock `n` roll today.
”I`m kind of tired of electronics, period,” says Phantom. ”Maybe I`m just jealous and I don`t understand any of it, but I think it got too out of hand with producers controlling what goes on in the studio. All that English synthesizer stuff. I`ve had enough. I really have.”
Well, it`s a safe bet you`re not going to find any synth-pop disco on the new ”Phantom, Rocker & Slick” album. What you will find is some straight-ahead rock `n` roll that occasionally brings to mind the style, if not always the expertise, of work by the Rolling Stones (Keith Richards, in fact, plays guitar on one cut). The straightforward guitar-bass-and-drums sound played by Phantom, Rocker & Slick isn`t exactly dominating the charts these days, but Phantom says he doesn`t worry much about whether his band has a currently
”fashionable” sound.
”I can`t think about doing something because it may or may not be successful,” he says. ”I wrote the songs, and we went and recorded them, you know? I can only do what I like, what I feel is right. I really can`t calculate something like that. I can`t put a band together because this guy looks right and this guy plays a synthesizer.”
Another commodity you won`t hear much on the new album is the rockabilly that Phantom and Lee Rocker played when they were part of the Stray Cats in the early 1980s.
”We`re just doing rock `n` roll now as opposed to rockabilly,” says Phantom. ”I think we`ll maintain the same fans because rockabilly is just a simpler form of traditional rock `n` roll. What we`re doing now is more of an early Stones type of rock `n` roll. It`s a different avenue.
”I still like rockabilly, though. I didn`t break all my records or anything. It was just that there came a time when the three of us in the Stray Cats were ready to grow a little bit. Brian (Setzer, Stray Cats vocalist and guitarist) wanted to do some things he felt he couldn`t do with the lineup. Lee and I had been writing for years, and we weren`t getting our songs out, and we wanted to sing, which was kind of a natural progression.”
After the Stray Cats broke up, Phantom and Rocker got together with former David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick and took about a year and a half to write, rehearse and work on the new album. Currently on tour, they arrive Friday at the Vic.
An occasional visitor on the road is Phantom`s wife, actress Britt Ekland, who flies out from their home in the Los Angeles area. Ekland, says Phantom, takes a good deal of interest in the band and its music.
”Oh, she loves the band,” says Phantom. ”She cooks dinner for the guys when they`re in town. She comes out and meets me on the road every couple of weeks when I`m starting to climb the walls.
”She knows what kind of music she likes. I don`t know that she`s a dictionary. She wouldn`t know what was No. 1 on March 21, 1958, but she knows what she likes.”
Phantom recently taped an HBO special featuring rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins and says it ”was probably the most pure fun I`ve ever had.” Also on the show were Dave Edmunds, Eric Clapton, Rosanne Cash, Ringo Starr and George Harrison–a lineup, it turns out, that helped Phantom along with a hobby.
”I`m a big Beatles nut,” says Phantom. ”I collect all the little stupid lunchboxes and stuff. I`d never met George and Ringo before, and I became friendly with George. He invited me to his house, and we had dinner.
”Then he gave me a pair of his original Beatle boots and signed them for me, which was nice. He`s got everything. He`s got all the original Sgt. Pepper clothes still. He`s a pack rat.”
