New Orleans, Louisiana based artist Gem Sluster has had a busy 2025 which began with the release of the album “Marshlands” followed by several new singles and will also see the release of a new E.P. titled “Places Once so Familiar Have Now Faded Away” which comes out this Friday November 21st.
I caught up with Gem Sluster to talk about their early musical experiences, how they started playing music and the making of the new E.P.
Check out Gem Slusters bandcamp page here.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artists and bands did you all enjoy the most?
Gem-I’ve been through multiple band-obsession phases when I was a kid. I think it all started with Limp Bizkit when I was about 8 (and I still like them, I think Wes Borland is one of the best guitarists of all time), a little later through a natural progression of things it was Korn and then Grunge with Nirvana and Alice in Chains. I think those last two were my gateway drugs to a more alternative and experimental music, because I got really into bands like Slowdive, Slint, Duster and Death Grips, but also rappers like Yung Lean and Bladee. There were of course many other bands at the time that I listened to simultaneously that I wasn’t as obsessed with as with those first bands I mentioned, such as Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack, Portishead, Deftones, Weezer, The Butthole Surfers, the list goes on really. I also remember my mom watching MTV and seeing Eminem’s “Without Me” music video, that was kinda crazy, seeing and hearing something like that for the first time. But I think Nirvana had a monumental influence on me, the biggest out of any band, it really set the wheels in motion, so to speak. It completely changed my life, like overnight, really.
CMM-How did you start playing music and developing your own sound?
Gem-I picked up the guitar when I was 13, before that I had no prior experience in making or playing music (unless you count being into hip-hop at the age of 10 and cringy attempts at freestyling, or making horrid beats with this app called “Music DJ” that was included with all Sony Ericsson mobile phones at one point in time). I would mess around aimlessly for hours and then one day it occurred to me that I don’t actually care about playing other artists’ music and I need to find a way to make my own songs. Coming up with my own “singer-songwriter” riffs got boring relatively quick when I realized they mean nothing without turning those bits and pieces into a full song and starting a band was unfortunately out of the question as I could barely leave my room to get groceries without feeling overwhelmed by the outside world, so I started Googling stuff and eventually learned what a DAW is and it was all downhill from there (or uphill, depending on how you look at it). In terms of the sound itself, I’m not sure if there is one, I mean, I don’t think there’s a particular thing that you can pinpoint that would define the stuff I make, some standout attribute. I’m naturally a rather melancholic person (whatever that means), so I guess the sound itself has this kind of bittersweet/somber quality to it, I always try to make it melodic though as I believe catchiness is important no matter what, or maybe memorability is a better word, as catchiness sounds like it could be used for some manufactured radio hit.
CMM-You have a new E.P. coming out called “Places Once so Familiar Have Now Faded Away”. What was the writing and recording process like and were there any particular pieces of gear you used to get the sound you were looking for?
Gem-As with most of my writing it was pretty chaotic, scattered and stretched out over a long period. I write a lot of stuff that I “put away for later” and it tends to just sit on my hard drive for a couple of years (I think the oldest song on that EP is almost 3 years old) until I revisit it and either finish it by adding vocals, or make it atrocious and unlistenable, also by adding vocals. I’m not a vocalist, so it’s always a struggle to record a good vocal take. I also constantly doubt myself and can’t really tell if the stuff I make is any good after a while, so it adds an extra layer of friction between me and a finished song/album, but in the past two years I’ve somewhat learned to work faster, make decisions more efficiently and avoid dwelling on a song for too long. I do everything by myself and mainly work in the box, so I use a lot of guitar amp emulation plugins and record directly into an audio interface and into the Reaper DAW. For vocals I used a Shure SM57. There’s a huge amount of double tracking involved, especially with distorted guitars, I play a 6-string Jazzmaster, but recently bought a 7-string Ibanez that I’ve been trying to get since I was 13 and I’m really liking it, that extra string definitely fills that “missing link” void that I’ve always felt with a regular 6-string. I’ve used the 7-string on “The Meadow After Sunset”, I don’t think that the “wall of sound” thing would be possible without it. I own a couple analog synths and some guitar pedals and amps, but I rarely use them, I like the idea of using hardware and I romanticize it a lot, but in practice working ITB is just faster, easier and accommodates my ADHD habits better. I wish I could say something about some fancy boutique distortion pedal that costs $1000, but I just don’t have those and even if I did, I wouldn’t probably use them, too much hassle to setup and when you work in those weird creativity bursts like I do, everything that creates friction between the initial idea and the DAW is lethal to the process.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Gem-I’ve actually been really into film music/video game music and soundtracks in general lately, I even made this concept album called “Marshlands”, which was a little more cinematic and soundtracky compared to my usual stuff. I’d like to make something drony and unsettling for a David Fincher film or a Darren Aronofsky film. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have been doing soundtracks for Fincher’s films for a while now and maybe that’s why I gravitate towards Fincher as well, I really like those scores. In both cases it would be a dark, raw drama-thriller exploring the human condition and moral decay with dreamlike imagery and some sort of looming mystery in the background. Either that, or something about change, changing as a person, going from meek and docile to ruthless and cold, something akin to Walt’s transformation in Breaking Bad (which had an awesome soundtrack on its own by the way).
CMM-Anything coming up?
Gem-I have an EP/mini album that you’ve already mentioned coming out on the 21st of November called “Places Once so Familiar Have Now Faded Away” which is this alternative rock album I guess, where I whine about how terrible and hard life is, I hope someone will find it relatable. Other than that, I’m constantly working on new stuff, it’s been tough lately because I’m into many things that are stylistically very different from one another and it’s getting harder and harder to release them under one project so I think I’ll have to tackle this issue soon.
