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Slightly Stoopid’s Grass Roots

How is it, then, that a band that can sell out a 19,000-person show in Boston and follow Snoop Dogg as the final act for the evening on the tour, not be one of the biggest bands in the business?

Manager Matt Phillips, who began shepherding the group’s career while he was still in college in San Diego (along with his brother Jon who managed Sublime), believes this is due—in some part—to Kyle and Miles’ deep sense of self; a desire to do it their own way, no matter what the industry tries to dictate; and an attitude that’s reflected in the band’s arguably disastrous name.

“I don’t think they really care what people say,” says Matt over lunch at Jones Hollywood, an old school Italian joint in West Hollywood. “Not a rude sense, but I think they are who they are—they’re not going to change for anybody.

“And the way they look at it, people are either going to accept us or not. If that meant they were going to be playing 500-capacity clubs the rest of their careers, they were down to take that path.”

Both the band and its managers—Matt and Jon’s Silverback Management also represents Fishbone, Rebelution and The Beautiful Girls, among others—will tell you an animated story of the time the group almost signed with a major label, which would have jerked Slightly Stoopid’s career down a completely different road—and probably ended it prematurely.

“In 2003, when Everything You Need was about to come out, major labels really started to recognize, ‘Hey, this band is something,’” Matt recalls. “We were about to do a deal with Interscope and [label head] Jimmy Iovine was sitting there. Jimmy was like, ‘We have a studio that Dr. Dre built the specs for on the fourth floor, why don’t you start recording?’

“They started recording at this studio before we even had a deal. The lawyers started going back and forth with the deal. Jimmy was in the studio and had people coming through buying the band lunch and dinner from the best restaurants in Beverly Hills, bringing in sacks of weed from Dr. Dre’s weed dealer. One day, when we were in there, there was a little dispute over writing another verse in the song ‘Collie Man’ between Jimmy and Miles. Miles was like, ‘Look, I’m not going to let you tell me how to write my music.’ The next day we show up and we get the menu for [the Mexican fast-food restaurant] Baja Fresh. Right then, it was like, ‘Let’s go the independent path.’”

Slightly Stoopid’s first two albums, 1996’s self-titled debut and 1998’s The Longest Barrel Ride, came out on Long Beach, Calif.-based Skunk Records, the indie label owned by Sublime’s Bradley Nowell and Miguel Happoldt. Everything You Need ended up on the San Diego-based label Surfdog, home to Brian Setzer and Tea Leaf Green.

In 2000, the band and Silverback Management formed Stoopid Records as a means to release Acoustic Roots: Live and Direct, which it had recorded at San Diego station 105.3 FM. After exiting the Interscope negotiations and as other label deals waned, it seemed natural for the band to pursue the homegrown distribution system that has now become commonplace—and almost trendy—for larger artists. But even now, Miles and Kyle aren’t terribly concerned with business of things.

“We started Stoopid Records mainly just to help our friends,” Kyle shrugs, stoner-like outside the studio. His slow cadence and careful word choice, as well as his pot-leaf clad shirt, suggest weed-induced articulation. “It wasn’t some business thing. We don’t ever do anything just to try to make money. Basically, there are so many talented people out there that are our friends that [the label] gave us an opportunity to help some of them. That’s all we really do. Whoever is on Stoopid Records tours—they don’t just put records out. They put in the hard work.”

Miles, who’s been standing beside him sucking apple juice from a juice box, chimes in: “I think we’ve taken it as far as the underground circuit—or whatever you want to call it—will let us and we’ve been able to maintain a certain level of shows. We’ve gotten to play with so many dope people. We’re about as blessed as it gets.”