The Slants Premiere Their Music Video for “Ideas of You” featuring Darro

For a band that has already released their final album, The Slants are really going out with a bang. Today, the band reveals the lyric/music video for their latest single “Ideas of You,” featuring Darro. It’s off of the final Slants album The Band Plays On, which was released last fall.

Not just well known for their music, you may recall The Slants as the band that took on the United States Supreme Court. In 2017, the court ruled in their favour, and the group earned the respect of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (read more about it here). The story is so amazing that it was even made into a rock opera.

“Ideas of You” is vintage Slants. It fits perfectly on a final album because it encompasses so much of who the band is and the sound and vibe they sought after. The video runs the lyrics over a nice four-minute scenic car ride around the United States. The band has traversed the U.S. back and forth so many times it’s hard to keep count. Their count stands at over 30 trips around the country, touring in over 40 states. This video is a small commemoration of those thousands of hours spent behind the wheel, travelling from gig to gig.

Discussing the song and its inspirations, bassist Simon Tam states:

“I originally wanted to write a song about expectations and the ideas that we hold: where do they come from and what do we do with them when we see something that counters that narrative? It got me thinking about lessons learned from touring because we often have all kinds of ideas about other places and the people who live there, but the reality is often much more nuanced than we could imagine.

“If you zoom out further, you realize that the ideas we have about our own country are often distorted, biased, and aspirational at best. Are we actually living up to the ideas of justice, freedom, and equality? It’s almost like a bad relationship because we continue to hold on, hoping it gets better without any assurance that it will. And the reality is that it won’t get better unless we put the work in.”

Discussing some of the beauty of touring as a travelling band, guitarist Joe X. Jiang says:

“I filmed way too much of my early tours with The Slants, mainly because I was so excited to finally be in a nationally touring band, having failed many times before. Looking back at the footage, I was surprised at how often I filmed us quietly driving across the country.

“With ‘Ideas of You’ being about touring and seeing the country as something endearing but with expectations it can’t always live up to, it just made sense to juxtapose the lyrics with the landscapes of our road trips. We’ve all dreamed of being rockstars but the reality is more mundane for the majority of musicians, especially for a DIY band like ours. If you can look past the grind of being on the road, and the unrealistic expectations of rock stardom, there’s a lot of beauty in travelling the country, gig to gig, doing something you love.”

Darro is just one of the guests found on The Band Plays On. It in fact features a guest on every track, with a guest vocalist on most songs. The Slants tried to feature both well-known and up-and-coming artists of the Asian American community on the record. As this is their final album, they have tried to use it as a platform to showcase worthwhile artists. Featuring 14 new tracks, it’s some of the band’s finest melodic, danceable synth-pop. The album is a mixture of both new and old songs, many of which are reflective of the band’s personal journeys through music and activism.

When they mostly stopped touring in 2019, The Slants made it their mission to support marginalized artists. The Band Plays On is their final gift in offering these artists the platform they deserve. Over the years, The Slants connected with hundreds of other Asian American artists through the work of their non-profit, The Slants Foundation. Those meetings helped the band rethink what was possible in terms of their music. It has been a remarkable run for a remarkable band whose influence will persist in artists for years to come.

Tour Dates:

06/05 – Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Conference, Detroit, MI

The Slants ‘The Band Plays On’ album artwork