Ray Squared
Audio By Carbonatix
As musical genres get increasingly specific, it can be hard to categorize certain bands.
Take local six-piece Sliced Limes, for example. Depending on the tune, they could be classified as a good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll band. Some tracks, with frontman Max Rowles’ crooning voice and violin accompaniment, veer toward a lounge sound. Others sound poppier.
Guitarist and keyboardist Kyle Trueba finds Sliced Limes hard to pin down as well.
“I hate using the term indie rock, but what else would you use to describe [our music]? We have an identity crisis, probably, because we’re kind of a misfit band of people from different ages and different stages of life, right? It’s hard to define us, I guess,” he says.
Rowles adds, “our Instagram says indie fusion rock, because there’s just so many elements that come in.”
We’ll go with that.
Whatever box you put the band in, it also contains Tough Luck, their album that comes out today. It’s the second LP for Rowles, Trueba, and the rest of Sliced Limes: Tim Caggiano, bass, vocals; and vibraslap; Jonny Falasco, vocals, percussion, and acoustic guitar; Ryan King, guitar and vocals; and Alex Lopez, drums and percussion.
They’ll be celebrating the release tonight (Friday, February 24), with a release show at Last Exit Live. Aura May and Dead Hot Workshop are also on the bill.
Tough Luck is available on CD and on streaming services.
Sliced Limes
Pre-produced largely during the pandemic, Tough Luck became something for the band to focus on during quarantine.
“In 2020, when everything was shut down, we had a brief hiatus, but then we were like, ‘Hey, we can still practice if we’re smart and responsible about it.’ If we’re not going to be practicing for shows, we might as well be developing some of this content, and we kind of started recording on our own, and [the songs] sounded pretty good, I thought,” Trueba recalls.
The band turned Rowles’ central Phoenix home into a makeshift studio: Other members left their equipment there for weeks at a time, and “I was singing vocals in my shower,” he says.
The songs on Tough Luck sound noticeably different from their self-titled 2019 debut, King says.
“I think it’s thematically darker, just as the songs go,” he says. “The lyrics are a little bit more eerie, and the tones of how things sound are darker, too. When we were demoing some of these songs during the pandemic, it was an eerie time, so rightfully so, the songs came out of it that sounded a little darker.”
Last year, when it was time to finish the album, the band returned to Curtis Grippe at STEM Recording, where they made their first album. This time, the months of preparation made for a smoother recording process.
“I think it’s good that we pre-produced it on our own because we were able to make a lot of choices on songs that were more personal to us than having a producer do it,” King says.
Trueba adds, “And it saved a lot of time. For the most part, we came in and laid it down, and then most of the time in the studio was spent refining and polishing instead of ‘Oh, we need to write a part.'”
Working with Grippe, a longtime fixture of the local music scene and drummer for Ghetto Cowgirl and Dead Hot Workshop, was a no-brainer. King is a former STEM intern, and Grippe “is really cool because he can help you make your song better, but he’s not like, overbearing. He’s not going to rewrite it for you, but he’ll help you squeeze the most out of it,” Trueba says.
“He’s just super easygoing and knowledgeable,” Rowles adds, “We knew what we were going to get, he’s really comfortable and familiar, and he’s just a lovely person in general, too.”
Now that Tough Luck is out on CD and streaming services, Sliced Limes can look ahead. They’re featured on Hookworm Records’ Hookworm Two local compilation album, which will come out later this year, and they’ve got several upcoming shows on the books.
And, they’re working on new music.
Rowles, the primary songwriter, says “I’m really pumped about some of the next ones. … There are a couple that I’m working on that I can’t wait to show the team.”
“We’ve spent most of 2022 working on [Tough Luck],” Trueba says, “and now it’s like, we can release this thing and already have some more songs in the pipeline that are interesting and weird and solid. We can just take a breath and work on some new stuff for a while. I think we’re all looking forward to that.”
Sliced Limes Album Release Party. With Aura May and Dead Hot Workshop. Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8, Friday, February 24, Last Exit Live, 717 South Central Avenue. Cost is $10. Visit the Last Exit Live website for info and tickets.
