Slightly Stoopid is busy, so they aren’t the easiest group to grab interview time with, but Rymo greeted us with a warm smile and offered a lot of insight into the bands happenings as well as his own projects. His professionalism and laid back attitude served as a grand combo for the interview. We look forward to hearing the new works from Slightly Stoopid due out this fall. Their shows are always entertaining. Even the acoustic show was charged with energy and gratitude for the crowd. You could really feel it when Kyle offered up a pre-rolled joint to the audience and gave the front crowd a shot gun hit. Their performances at Wakarusa were ones to be remembered.
You guys live in Ocean Beach San Diego. It's a nice spot - I feel like that area just soaks up your music. Do you like playing near home or do you enjoy playing on the road?
Rymo: You know I like both. I like to play at home, because of course our friends and family are there. I really enjoy traveling a whole bunch, eating weird food and drinking local beers. I like the experience of being in different places all the time.
Do you have a favorite microbrewery?
Rymo: I do, but it's in Oregon. Deschutes Brewery, that's probably my top thing right now.
What's the weirdest food you've eaten on the road?
Rymo: Well, we were just in Japan. Eating there is sort of a trip. It's so different than what we're used to here. We had a couple of times where we didn't even know what we were ordering. We were just kind of pointing at pictures and saying with our hands ‘two.’ So, who knows, we might have eaten something funky. It was a cool experience.
Speaking of international trips lately, was Japan one of the highlights?
Rymo: We were there most recently; just two weeks ago. But, this year, yeah, we've been to a bunch of cool places. We went to Australia and Brazil as well.
So you guys have been a part of the summer fest scene for many years now. What makes one different from the other?
Rymo: You know honestly, they're really similar in a lot of ways. Obviously, the line-up dictates the crowd usually, and depending on who's headlining or who are the main acts are - that can change the crowd. But as far a scene goes, as long as you have good weather, people are people. It doesn't matter what state you're in; people are excited to be out and enjoy the sunshine and check out a bunch of live bands. We love doing it, because we get to hang out with our good friends like G Love. We’ve worked with him a whole bunch. Our horn player just played with him right now. We get to hi-five all those guys. So often our tour schedules are completely opposite, so when we have these overlaps we get to see a lot of our friends and the bands we like. I'm really excited to see Primus tonight. That's like one of my all-time favorite bands. I didn't even know they were playing until someone mentioned it today.
Do you plan your schedule where you can see and enjoy the whole festival or do you pack up right away?
Rymo: Depends. For this we're playing an electric set today and acoustic tomorrow. We've been doing that a lot more with festivals and it's been great because it allows us to kind of show two sides of what we do. And it's not just full on let's get crazy and go totally nuts, so there's sort of a controlled side to what we can do. Typically, now that we've been able to do that (kind of an unplugged set and an electric set), that has allowed us to stick around at festivals for more than 24 hours. We’re here [at Wakarusa] for two days. In Australia, we did the same thing. We did electric one day and acoustic the next. It allows us to experience the festival more instead of just pulling in, playing a show, and getting right back on a plane. It's a lot more fun to experience the chaos of festivals.
Is there one set that you prefer more than the other: acoustic or electric?
Rymo:Both for different reasons. They bring out different moods. With electric you can get crazy with full volume and the crowd just going off. I also like the acoustic because it's a lot more controlled, and in a certain way, a little more expressive because there's a little more dynamic control. It's not just full blown the whole time. Live electric shows are typically higher energy. You try to lift the crowd up as much as possible; whereas with our acoustic set, you can play through a little more of a variety of moods.
So you've been doing drum lessons on YouTube for a while now, how did it get started?
Rymo: I have a good friend who's one of the top dudes now doing it. We played in some bands together back in the day. I ran into him at a music conference a few years ago and he was telling me what he was up to. He said he quit his job and started making these videos full time and using them as a way to sort of gain fans and create a following. He also has DVD's that he sells, so he's able to sort of connect one end into the next. It's always been my goal (on top of performing and playing in the band) to be an educator. I studied music in college and even now I always try to learn new stuff and keep growing as an artist. That's just a thing that he s