[Photo provided by Sluice]

By Julia Weber, Editorial Director

North Carolina-based band Sluice is slated to perform an intimate backstage show at the historic Stuart’s Opera House with local musician Cailtin Kraus playing an opening set. This follows up Sluice and Kraus’ performances at the 2024 Nelsonville Music Festival. Ahead of their upcoming show, I spoke with Sluice frontman Justin Morris about his sonic inspirations and creative process.

[Editor’s Note: As of Feb. 3, this show has been cancelled due to illness.]

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Julia Weber (JW): You played at Nelsonville Music Fest over the summer, which is the annual benefit fest for Stuart’s Opera House. Tell me about that experience and how it was for you.

Justin Morris (JM): I had an amazing time playing Nelsonville. I think that was the first show of a big tour that we did, which was our first time going out West. It was such a nice way to start a tour. The staff was super nice, all the bills were awesome and it was really nice to be in a field camping. It was great. A lot of tour can be very parking lot-oriented and that was the opposite of that, so we had an awesome time playing Nelsonville.

JW: There’s so much music happening during the span of those three and a half days. Did you discover anyone new through the festival?

JM: There was a little tent area the first night that we were there. We saw a band play, [PAL] — a punk band twist, and they all had jumpsuits on. They have a song about a safety corridor, I don’t know if that rings any bells, but we have continuously quoted that on tour. They were awesome.

JW: Tell me about the name Sluice and how you settled on it for this project.

JM: I had been looking for a name to put some solo music out under and didn’t really like the idea of just using my name, so I was looking for something. I had used the name Sluice as a title for a song on an older project I was in. I was first exposed to it as a concept as a kid. My family would rent a little lake house for a week during the summer in southern Virginia. Driving from my hometown up there, we would pass this little historical marker for a place called the Slink Shoal Sluice. We would always drive past it and I would be like ‘What in the hell is that? That is a crazy combination of sounds.’ I ended up reading about it later on and was like ‘Okay, cool. First of all: what’s a sluice?’ I looked it up and it’s a way of directing water in a dam through a lock system, but it also means to wash or to purify. It’s also used in gold mining. It felt like a cool symbol of nature and industry together and looking for a purification or a release of pressure, which is how I view music’s role in my life. It felt like a nice nod to something that I knew as a kid, but it also felt like an appropriate image to use.

JW: It feels like it’s a really fitting word for your music. How would you describe your music for listeners who aren’t familiar with it?

JM: Hard question. I would describe it as singer-songwriter music that has found friends and collaborators, to be super simple with it. As far as some influences throughout the band, we’re all big fans of people like Bonnie Prince Billy and Bill Callahan and bands like Wilco. It’s songwriter music with some rock orientation and a little bit of folk experimental bends to it. Nothing too crazy.

JW: Could you tell me a little bit about the writing process for your music? Are you typically finding that lyrics or instrumentation are coming first, or are they being created simultaneously? 

JM: For me, at least historically—and I’d be curious if it changes—they are along separate paths in parallel. Throughout a year, I’ll be working on little guitar melodies or little riffs or things like that that can get strung together and start approximating song form. Separate from that, when I feel like it’s time to write, I usually have some massive, crazy iPhone note things that I look through. I just keep a notebook or a note open of things that pop up every now and again and I can get back into that mindset and say ‘Okay, I’ve got this little almost song that’s coming together. Maybe that would fit with this idea that I was trying to talk about.’ I flesh it out from there so those things can get paired together.

JW: That’s a really unique process. How long does a song take for you?

JM: It really varies. We have a song called “Fourth of July” on our record Radial Gate. It occurred when I was 25 — that’s referenced in the song —and I think we recorded it when I was 28. I was fully working on it, changing verses around and changing little pieces, right up until we went into the studio. It took more than a few years on that one. We’ve got a new record that’s finished and going into the studio. I think we added on a song maybe a week before the recording and I wrote it in about an hour.

JW: So anywhere from an hour to three years?

JM: Yes, but I skew slow.

JW: Tell me about the new record that’s in the works.

JM: We have new music and we have recorded it. I can definitely tell you that, and we’re excited about it. It definitely benefits from the fact that we’ve just been playing a lot, which is really fun. When we made the last record, none of us had much expectation of anyone listening, or the ability to get to tour and play around. It was just a creative experiment that we did, and we’ve learned a lot from being on the road a good bit and meeting a ton of people and collaborating a ton. It’s maybe a little bit more of a rock album, but it’s still in the same vein as the last one.

JW: What should people expect from your upcoming set at Stuart’s?

JM: I’m really looking forward to that show and I think it’ll be nice to be in a setting like that. I’ve never been in that location, but from what I’ve heard about it, it sounds really beautiful. We’ll try to do what we do as we’re playing music on the rest of this tour, but I’m hoping it will work great in that space. I feel like what we strive for in a show is really prioritizing dynamics, and it’s great to play in a space like what it seems Stuart’s is. You can let those lows and those quiets get really, really quiet and people can lean in a little bit. And when we explode a little bit, it can feel impactful without having to blast peoples’ ears off. The last year and a half or so, we’ve been playing with our friend Libby Rodenbough, who joined the band on fiddle, guitar and backup vocals. I think that will sound really nice in that room. A little bit of acoustic elements in a rock band orientation with some harmony singing, that kind of thing.

JW: We’ve talked about influences in terms of sound, but who are you most excited about in music right now?

JM: That’s a good question. I hope it doesn’t come off as self-promoting, but one of my favorite songwriters is our friend Aaron Dowdy. His project is called Fust, and all of the band Sluice also happens to play in the band Fust. I’m really, really excited about the new songs that we’ve worked on with him, and his writing in general is some of my favorite, so I’m really excited about people getting to hear that. Being in these two bands can become your whole world, a little bit. He’s somebody I’m really excited that more people will get to hear.

JW: I know that your music focuses a lot on this connection and relationship of nature and industry. Where are you finding inspiration?

JM: When I’m not playing music, I am, like all my musician friends, trying to figure out ways to pay the bills. The work that I’ve been doing primarily for the last few years has been being a carpenter: working on construction crews and building houses or fixing things up, that kind of thing. Some of that influence is definitely on the new record, being around and working with natural materials, and also working with very unnatural materials, and thinking about time and how things will withstand the trials of time and weathering and all that stuff. That has definitely been a big piece for me. In general, a big thing for a long time has been camping or being out in the woods in North Carolina. Or getting to do the traveling that we’ve done with music and being out in the Redwoods. Just saying the classic ‘ooh, ahh’ at nature is supportive for me.

JW: Is there anything else that you want to bring up? Parting words of wisdom?

JM: We’re really excited about getting to come back. We’re really excited about coming to Nelsonville. We had a great time there this summer, and it’s going to be a great show.