Six years after winning the rights to their name in a Supreme Court decision, dance-rock band The Slants will reunite one last time in Portland in support of their final album.
“Our approach for this album was to tell our story because there’s something universal to things that are deeply personal,” Simon Tam, the group’s founder and bassist, said about the new album, “The Band Played On.”
“Some stories end so that new ones can begin. For us, our decision to stop touring as a full band resulted in what we thought was our final show in 2019 – mostly, so we could focus on our nonprofit organization’s work in empowering a new generation of artists,” Tam said. “‘The Band Plays On’ was made in the spirit of that nonprofit – lifting up new voices so that our fans can learn about the immense diversity of talent in the Asian American community.”
Before they ended up fighting the federal government for the right to reappropriate an offensive term, The Slants, an up-and-coming Portland band, were attempting to trademark their band name. That trademark was denied in 2010, beginning the legal battle.
In a 2015 interview, Tam, told The Oregonian that the trademark office was silencing minorities instead of protecting them.
”Some guy who has no connection to my community is telling me what’s right and wrong for my community,” Tam said at the time. “If we win, marginalized communities will get a say in what’s right for themselves.”
When the band ultimately did win a unanimous victory, the story was national news and the ACLU called it a “major First Amendment victory.”
“When I started this band, it was about creating a bold portrayal of Asian American culture. The establishment of an Asian American band was a political act in of itself, even though we never considered ourselves as a political group,” Tam said in a statement after the win. “Music is the best way we know how to drive social change: it overcomes social barriers in a…
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