In Defense of Ska Ep 66: Ara Babajian (The Slackers, Leftover Crack, Agent 99, Star Fucking Hipsters, The World/Inferno Friendship Society)

When drummer Ara Babajian joined The Slackers in 2003, Vic Ruggiero and David Hillyard had to teach him how to correctly play a traditional ska beat, which they did by handing him key records to listen to, and by singing ska beats at him. Ara wasn't new to ska. He'd played in several bands like Agent 99 and Leftover Crack. But The Slackers approached ska with a greater emphasis on hitting that Jamaican groove just right, so he had to up his game. He may have come to the band with little experience playing trad ska, but he's since proven himself to be a top-tier ska drummer.

On today's episode we talk with Ara about his history in The Slackers, Agent 99, and Leftover Crack--the first time he left the group, he did so three songs into a show in Toronto in 2001, upset that Scott Sturgeon was on-stage making 9-11 jokes. We learn all sorts of interesting facts about Ara's life, like who played drums in Agent 99 before he joined the group (Hint: He played Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars).

He also tells us stories about Leftover Crack's late bassist Alec Baillie, the time Bomb the Music Industry opened for The Slackers in Chicago and were booed by the audience (Jeff Rosenstock, apparently, was delighted by the reaction), what it's been like for The Slackers in recent years to get coverage in Rolling Stone Magazine and Washington Post (An article by IDOS guest Jessica Lipsky). And we learn about his 1980s group Das Booty, whose demo recordings were mistaken for Red Hot Chili Peppers demos for the Uplift Mofo Party Plan record. 

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If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.