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Their names make them sound like a group of ex-bankrobbers getting together for one last big score, or maybe a squad of rough-around-the-edges crime fighters standing up for the average Joe and cleaning up the Slums of your nearest college town. Formed in 2018, and led by the triple vocal threat of Nevin, Leroy and Josie, the crew subverts the status quo with live performances, packing enough punch to fill the pages of a graphic novel. Greg “The Greek” (lead guitar), Johnny “Sex” (rhythm guitar), Nick “The Machine” (drums) and Toby “Smilez” (bass/guitar) are the instrumental muscle that gets crowds across New Mexico literally jumping out of their seats. With original songs and a great mix of epic sing-along covers, Slums of Harvard unload on the enchanted 505 with explosive pop-punk that they say is the perfect way to get rowdy and escape from the 9-5 monotony that they sometimes suffer from themselves.
Will you describe your sound for us?
Our sound has been all over the place over the years. Ranging from indie rock, pop/funk, pop punk and alternative rock. Currently our sound is leaning more toward pop punk/alternative rock.
Our drummer Nick plays a huge role in our instrumental sound. He’s a massive and incredibly powerful human being, so he hits the drums with a lot of force and really fills any room we play in. Our guitar sounds are usually distorted and loud with a few golden nuggets of intricacy sprinkled throughout the song thanks to our new guitar player Greg, who has written a lot of our new stuff.
Our singer Nevin has great melodic abilities. He is constantly writing unique and catchy melodies, and his delivery meshes well with the fast paced distorted sound. Leroy is a very creative and lyrically impressive rapper. His strength is definitely his stage presence and boisterous delivery of his intricate lyrics. His rapping definitely gives our band a unique identity that you don’t usually find in our genre(s). Josie is easily the best singer in Albuquerque. Incredibly powerful and always pitch perfect. She absolutely steals the show when she sings the female rock covers that we’ve done. We’re so excited she’s now an official member of our band.
What are your favorite venues to play and why?
We love InsideOut and Marble Downtown because the outdoor summer vibes are always perfect, and people really have fun at these venues. Sister is great because the dark/alternative vibes of the venue are pretty unique, and it always feels special when we get to play there.
The crowd is definitely the perfect indicator of a good show. If the crowd is locked in on the show, interacting with us, and roaring loudly after each song, then we know things are going well no matter how many times we mess up while playing. We are our biggest critics, and we want to nail every song perfectly. But 99% of the time, the crowd doesn’t even notice when we mess up. They just care about the vibes of the room and the performance.
What are your lyrics about?
Our lyrics are usually about being young and dumb, relationship trials and tribulations, and a bit of fight-the-system vibes. Our first song on the Deadbeat EP is called “Stay Down”, and it’s all about how the average worker is constantly being taken advantage of by the companies they work for, which is something that all seven of us have definitely experienced in our own personal careers outside of music. We wrote this song to shine a light on the injustices most of us face on a day-to-day basis.
What bands or genres inspire your music?
We play a lot of 2000s pop punk/alternative covers like Fall Out Boy, The Killers and Paramore, and those songs inspire a lot of the sounds in our music. The pop punk style is so fun and fast-paced, which is definitely what you can expect from our music and live performances. We like to use the phrase “all gas, no brakes” when we’re putting together a set. We don’t write very many slow songs, because we just love to be loud, in your face and high energy at all times.
What is the best show you have ever played and why?
We got to open up for Bad Suns at a sold-out Sunshine Theater in February, which was so amazing! We’ve also played great shows for the college kids at UNM and NMSU. Those are always fun and high energy. College students are young, full of life, and they still have good knees for jumping up and down. They’re also easily excitable. They don’t need a lot to be impressed and have fun. If you win them over early, then you can have a ton of fun interacting with them throughout the show.
Our next shows are August 18 opening for Alien Ant Farm at Launchpad, August 25 opening for Sunfish and Black Pontiac at Launchpad and September 7 at Tingley Coliseum for NM State Fair.
We released a 5 song EP back in December called Deadbeat, and we have a new single “Shallow” that we released in July.
Watch their latest video for “Deadbeat” from the Deadbeat EP here and you’ll see why Slums of Harvard are such a blast.
Those college kids really do show up to party! Check out a recap of their biggest NMSU show (so far) here.
These dudes play a lot, so you can catch them live all around Burque, but to keep tabs on the band including where to jam and purchase their music, bios, photos, upcoming shows and more, visit slumsofharvard.com.
Watch Slums of Harvard on a season 3 episode of Bands of Enchantment here.