JP Houle, Avery Nelson and Sam Hockaday are all at different stages in their lives but are working towards the same goal: to become full-time musicians.

“I don’t want to be a line cook. It sucks and everyone’s an a****** to you,” Houle said. 

Houle, a recent graduate of San Diego State University, started Slacker with Hockaday during his freshman year, hoping to find a way to pursue music as a student. 

“I was drawn to [Sam] because he seemed like a cool dude,” Houle said. “I [asked] him if he wanted to start a band because I was never going to go to another KCR meeting again.”

Before becoming the trio that it is today, Houle and Hockaday went through different members until they were able to find their sound.

“The thing that JP told me early on that made me want to keep drumming for him was that his ultimate goal was to make everyone in a room feel the exact same thing he’s feeling,” Hockaday shared. “We looked for the right people, but the shoe never fit, so it was just us two for a while.”

Houle and Hockaday eventually met Nelson, bassist for Slacker, at a house show.

“After [the show], JP and Sam were like, ‘Hey, will you record these songs with us?’” Nelson said. “I agreed to do it, then the recording session fell through, but I really loved the songs and wanted to stay in the band.”

Using what she has learned as a music business and entrepreneurship student, Nelson started @slackerlive, the band’s official Instagram page, to help book shows.

“That’s how our presence started, with SDSU house shows. We didn’t really have any venue shows for six months; we were just writing music and playing at SDSU,” Nelson said.

With a little over 3,000 followers on Instagram, Slacker is still trying to grow their audience. But they don’t see their following as a good measure for booking shows.

“It’s more important to respect and help other artists in order to help grow your band,” Houle said. “Bookers look at your followers, but followers don’t correlate with talent or crowd size. We’ve had shows where only three people show up. But, I always say yes, no matter what. We’ll make it happen – it has to happen.”

Slacker, according to Google, is a derogatory term for a “person who avoids work or effort.” But, that’s not how the band sees themselves – or any “slacker.”

“I wanted [our band name] to be a concept, not a person, like ‘The Slackers.’ I don’t think it would have embodied what JP and I were trying to accomplish,” Hockaday said.

“I believe most people aren’t actually slackers,” Houle added. “They’re just people who aren’t doing what they actually want to do. A lot of [our] songs are about the frustrations of the world and society at large. ‘Slackers’ are just people who don’t want to climb the ladder of a bunch of f****** losers who sit around making decisions for people who actually work. But if they were given the opportunity to do the things they want to do, I think they could be more productive than anybody who’s trying to make money.”

“I think we resonate with being slackers while putting in a lot of work to live out our dreams,” Nelson said. “We’re putting in the work of a full-time job while being able to sustain what we want to do, which isn’t considered real work.”

Going back to Google, slackers are characterized by “apathy and aimlessness.” However, throughout their time at SDSU, no member of Slacker ever felt that abandoning their degree to focus on their band was the solution. 

Houle graduated from SDSU in the fall of 2024 with a B.S. in Management. Nelson is pursuing her B.M. in Music Business and Entrepreneurship, and Hockaday graduated in the spring of 2024 with a B.A. in English Comparative Literature and his teaching credential for English in May 2025.

“I genuinely think that making music and contributing happiness and art to the world – at any level – is as valuable as teaching in the classroom,” Hockaday said. “I think teaching and making music are of equal value. I would be a teacher, if the opportunity arose.” 

“I don’t regret getting my degree at all,” Houle shared. “I couldn’t have possibly known that I wasn’t going to use it, I might use it someday. Business is just the way the world is run, so getting a degree in business is just getting a degree in understanding how everyone is trying to do everything.”

As for their music, most songs come from a Google Drive stored with all of Houle’s songs. 

The band’s first album is set to release towards the end of September/early October featuring twelve new songs and a rerecording of their single, “Velvet Worms.”

“Should we tell her?” Nelson asked. “Yeah!” Houle replied. “The album is called Act Natural.”

“Listen, this is what I’ve got for the album cover right now. It’s an MRI scan of somebody. I don’t know if it is legal, but if we need to work on it, then we will work on it to make it okay,” Houle added. 

“There’s no limits or filters to what our music is,” Nelson said. “If JP is talking about something so dark, you can’t even tell unless you think about it. It’s very clever and there’s no limit to what JP will say. It’s not for an audience, it’s for the sake of JP putting his feelings into music.”

“Givin it to You,” one of the three singles Slacker has released, is a brilliant disguise. Upon the first listen, you’d probably miss the message of self-hatred because of its upbeat sound and catchy chorus.

Aside from being one of their released songs, “Givin it to You” is the band’s first music video. 

“The funding was tough,” Houle said. “The money came from fundraising and playing a sh*t-ton of shows.”

For those who cannot get enough of Slacker, their next performance will be on Sept. 30 at Soda Bar on El Cajon Blvd.

For anyone starting out in their own band or hoping to start a band, Slacker says to just go with it and remember your reason for pursuing music.

“Don’t force yourself or anybody else to be one thing – people will like you because of that,” Hockaday said. 

“You just have to do it,” Houle said. “It’s gonna be terribly embarrassing and cringey, but just do what you want to do unless what you want to do is f****** evil.”

“Even if nothing comes out of this band, the fact that we’re gonna have this album means the world to me,” Nelson said.