[♪ music ♪]
(Tommy McLoughlin) Rock n' Roll is more than just music,
it's an experience, and this incredible energy.
Our music really is... basically rhythm and blues.
Our influences were the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals,
some of the early Beatles.
Aging isn't slowing down and stopping, it can be speeding up. To be able to
look at life in a way, going: "OK, I've done all this. Now here's all this
other stuff." All these things you want to do, we even have a song about that,
called "Before I die".
"Seen the Grim Reaper more every day. Good folk, bad folk pass away."
"Sad to see they never achieved all the dreams that they believed."
"Well I'm still here and I don't know why. I wanna be old before I die."
(Mike Rummans) The current Sloths, in the form that
we are in right now, was kind of another evolution from just getting the old guys back together again.
The Sloths started when I was in high school, in the 10th grade.
Considering the time, 1965, 1966, the Sunset Strip was thriving.
All these kids were coming from all over the greater southern California.
The Sloths came about in an era when we were all wanting to be one thing, which was
The Beatles.
We wanted to have a record, like all the real bands. And these two brothers,
the Jones brothers, they had this little label called Impression Records.
And we went in there and they said: OK, let's hear what you got.
And we took our stuff in, and played it for them, and they said: We want to record you.
"Makin' Love" was recorded, nobody would play it. Nobody was interested in a group
that was basically made up of 16 year-olds with a song called Makin' Love.
So it disappeared.
That initial sense of the Strip scene, you know, the whole scene just kind of dried up.
As we got to 69, all the rock heroes were dying, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin,
Jimi Hendrix, and... Charles Manson hit Los Angeles.
Everything seemed like it soured.
Everybody went their separate ways, some people went into different
vocations entirely. I stayed in music. I played with
the King Bees, with the Hollywood Stars. I played a lot with Rick James.
I am a musician, I've been a musician for the last 50 years. I've been in the
music business for my whole life.
(Ray Herron) Michael and I have been playing non-stop
for all our lives, Pooch as well. I went through a steady succession of bands,
I came to Los Angeles in the mid-70s and met Michael, and then kind of
lost touch for almost 30 years.
When the drummers we were using moved on I called Ray up and had him come down,
Tom liked him and he's been with us two and a half years now.
Patrick DiPuccio, I've known him since the 80s, maybe the late 70s,
I played bass with him in this band called Blow-Up for a while.
Yes, I'm the new member of the Sloths, I joined the band 2 years ago.
The guys I play with are fantastic. Tommy keeps things very interesting.
Tom MacLaughlin has a very theatrical background so he's very much into
performance, so he takes the band to a whole other level. I call Tom "The Show".
None of us have been together in 48-something years.
And we kind of pooled together who was still alive and started to just jam on
Wednesday nights. About 6 or 8 months later, we decided,
"Why don't we go do a show?" So we went down to San Diego,
figured that, hey, who's gonna see us in San Diego? Well we didn't count on
cell phones, and YouTube. So we were photographed and we were
a hit that night.
So, in the era of Facebook, when you start reconnecting with people, people find you.
Much to our shock, it just took off. We've done over 150 shows.
We've gone to Spain, we have an album, we have a music video.
I mean, it's like a complete reinvention for all of us and our lives.
So now, we're bringing ourselves back from the dead.
All the songs on it really have that kind of power, of what we used to be
and now, what we're feeling.
We're all kind of focused on just playing music we like,
and I think what's important is, we are who we are.
We're not trying to be something else, and I think that keeps you young,
certainly young at heart, if not in looks, in spirit.
I love what I do. I don't think anybody should stop doing something if they love it.
Do what it is that makes you excited, do whatever it is that you're passionate about,
if you get joy out of doing that, that's the reward. And that's what I'm getting
out of this.
Going into rock and roll at this age is like, "Where do you see this going?"
I don't know, it just keeps going, and as long as it keeps going,
I'm aboard.
"Got a bucket list of things to try, I'm gonna be old before I die."
"I'm so lucky I've lived this long, maybe my rights outweigh my wrongs."
" (inaudible) love keeps me strong. There's no inside in this song."