Some musicians are born on stages. Langhorne Slim sounds like he was born on the side of a highway, halfway between a heartbreak and a revelation, guitar in one hand, ghost of a bad decision in the other. He’s the kind of songwriter who makes you believe in the holy trinity of grit, grace, and going completely to pieces before you find your way.
Slim—born Sean Scolnick—doesn’t just write songs. He exorcises them. His voice has the worn-in rasp of someone who’s lived through his own lyrics, and maybe yours too. There’s no safety net in his music. No glossy packaging. Just open chords and open wounds, stitched together with threads of wisdom he’s gathered along the way.
In recent years, he’s spoken openly about sobriety, relapse, and the strange clarity that came from standing still during the pandemic. That stillness, combined with the quiet steadiness of fatherhood and family life, gave him a new kind of expansiveness, one that shows up in the raw nerve of his music and the quiet in-between. He’s written some of the most honest American music you’ve ever heard.
We caught up with Langhorne Slim just long enough to ask him about ghosts, music as medicine, fatherhood, and the strange mystery of songwriting itself. He answered the way he does everything: like a man who’s still searching, still feeling, still wide open.
I write songs to make sense of the feelings of things. I forget most things but feelings stay with you. It feels good to work it out in a song and then when you play it live and it connects with people, it becomes a celebration of the feelings. Maybe that’s why it can feel so good to sing a sad song. It’s never to forget the sadness but to feel it collectively. At the end of the day, I don’t know why I write songs. I was never really given the choice but I’m forever in awe and infinitely grateful for the power of music.
Do you write songs to make sense of things or to forget them?
What’s the closest you’ve ever felt to something spiritual while performing?
When my mind is quiet and it feels like some other force is driving the ship. When the band and the audience become one. I think music is the human animal's most divine medicine. It’s ancient, pure and raw AF. Music is the language of the spirit and so it must be spiritual!
Has getting sober changed the feel of songwriting for you? Sharper? Softer? Stranger?
Yes, all of the above and what a relief! I had a lot of fear that I wouldn’t be able to connect to the source of my creativity without substances. A very common fear for folks like me. Booze and drugs helped at times but I was always trying to curate the right cocktail of shit to get me somewhere else. I feel much more plugged in now. I was operating in a tunnel for a long time. Sobriety and family have offered me an expansiveness that I feel I’m only just beginning to explore.
You’ve lived in a few cities, toured the country, been all over. What place still feels like home?
Was there a town no one talks about that gave you something big; a shift, a song, a person?
Is there a diner or bar or motel you still think about, like you left a piece of yourself there?
After 20 years of touring, the Holiday Inn Express feels like home. The theatres and clubs feel like home, and now that I have my kids and partner, Nashville truly feels like home. It’s a beautiful trifecta that makes each taste sweeter than ever before.
A town called New Hope in Pennsylvania and Solebury School were a pivotal shift for me. I’d been booted out of public school and completely disenchanted with school, authority figures, kids my own age, etc… I was given an opportunity to go to Solebury School in this beautiful town filled with artists, gays, bikers and Wiccans. An early taste of the spice of life. A few incredible teachers there saw something in me, believed in and encouraged me. I wish every kid could have that. To have someone believe in you is a gift and I got that there.
Well, there was this motel somewhere in California I think. We were on tour. I was young, broke and tired. I found a motel you could rent by the hour and figured what the hell. I got into my room, kicked off my boots and jumped into the bed. I laid there for an hour or so before I noticed a cylinder shaped towel sitting by the television. I went over and poked it. My brain wasn’t putting the pieces together so I unwrapped the towel to find a gigantic purple dildo. I didn’t know they made them that big.
How do you know when a song’s done? Or is it more like a Polaroid: snap it before the moment fades?
It’s different from song to song. Some pour out and it’s like a gift from the spirits. Others take work. Some started years ago and just got finished recently. There’s a lot of mystery in songs and song writing and I really appreciate that. I sometimes find it hard to trust songwriters who talk about it like they have total control over their process. Maybe they do but I don’t have it that way. It’s a dance between the perceived world and the invisible worlds. The known and the unknown. I’d like to write a song every day but I don’t. I write ‘em when I’m being called to. You can feel it and if that ain’t mysterious I don’t know what is. I mighta gotten off track a bit but yeah, I think they tell ya when they’re done.
Do you go looking for inspiration or does it just show up uninvited?
I search around for it at times. I go to concerts and movies on occasion. I eves drop a lot on people’s conversations on the street and try to remember when people say things in ways that sound interesting to me. I went into a gas station once and I started chatting with the woman behind the counter. She said, “it’s too damn hot.” Followed by “I was born on the first day of summer baby and I hate the heat.” I thought that was so beautiful. So poetic. Most of the time though a song starts to form and I really don’t know exactly how or why. I just try to get to my guitar or make a voice memo as quickly as I can before it passes me by.
Is there a lyric of yours that no one talks about but feels truer than the rest?
I’m not really sure which ones people talk about so it’s hard to say. I do have a newer song that I wrote for my son Silver. A woman came up to me after a show the other night and asked me to write it down so she could tell it to her son. That made me feel good. “Believe in yourself and yourself you shall be.” I like that one.
If you could sit with any ghost, who would you choose? What would you ask them?
My grandfathers Sid and Jack.
I’d ask them how the food is over there.
I believe that you have to know pain to make art. I don’t believe that you have to exist in perpetual suffering to make it though.
Do you think pain really makes better art or is that just a myth we hold onto?
“Break your heart until it opens.” I don’t think it’s weird advice but it’s damn good advice. Trying to remain open, vulnerable and expansive in this existence is a noble pursuit indeed.
What’s the weirdest piece of advice you’ve ever taken seriously?
Yes! I recently finished a new record. It’s called The Dreamin’ Kind. Singles start droppin’ this summer and the record comes out in the beginning of the new year!
Is there a new project you’re working on now that we should look out for?
You can catch Langhorne Slim on the road this summer across the US, and opening for Jordan Klepper’s live shows later this fall. Tour dates and more at langhorneslimmusic.com
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUNG KIM