Hanging with the Slow Drags: A Musical Tribute

Some people just brim with talent. In addition to being born as a culinary genius, our founder, Scott Moritz, was also blessed with the gift of making music that moved people greatly. 

As we continue to miss his physical presence here on planet Earth, we love to fondly look back on Scott’s accomplishments every year around his birthday in celebration of Aardvark Founder’s Day. No year has it been more meaningful to do so than now, as we celebrate 20 years in business. Scott would be brimming with pride.

Meet the Band

Some bands make an indelible mark on the fabric of a music scene. So, this year, we decided to take a musical trip down memory lane with a look back at Scott’s band, Scotland Barr & the Slow Drags. As the Portland Mercury put it, bandleader Scott “…was a wonderfully prolific musician whose Americana tunes were an essential piece of Portland music.” 

We caught up with a couple of the guys who helped bring Scott’s vision to life as band members. Read on as they share anecdotes about the awesomely creative and ever-quirky Scott.

Michael Yates: Guitar and vocals 

Guitarist Michael Yates had the good fortune of joining the band early on. And he quickly learned this wouldn’t be a typical musical assignment.

“Scott had so many fully developed musical ideas, but he kept them all in his head. He didn’t have anything written down,” Michael said. 

To help the band keep up without musical charts to follow, Scott hit the Dollar Store and got everyone an old-school black-and-white composition book so they could make notes of their own.  

As a substitute teacher, Michael had some extra time on his hands, so he spent far more time hanging around 8-Ball Studios in Portland while recording the band’s first album, Legionnaire’s Disease, than playing his parts required. And mostly, it was for the joy of watching Scott do his thing. 

“He had a clear objective of how he wanted the album to sound,” Michael said. “He’d say, ‘I want piano’ or ‘I want cello.’ That’s ambitious stuff for a first album. It was not bare bones.”

He recalls practicing for the album at Scott (and Aardvark’s current Fearless Leader Stacy’s) place in S.W. Portland during the birth of Secret Aardvark. “It always smelled so good. There was always something cooking or boiling on the stove.”

He also recalls an example of how Scott would famously get lost in thought about some idea or other—often to do with cooking—to the exclusion of all else. Once, when Michael arrived in the band room looking for Scott, he learned Scott was in the kitchen upstairs cleaning up a mess on the ceiling that had erupted after he’d run a food processor without putting the top on first.

The next time Michael came over, Stacy told him Scott was “on the ladder again.” And sure enough, he was upstairs cleaning up another forgetful food processing disaster. “Just don’t even say it,” Scott greeted him. 

And Michael had the good fortune of sampling some of the earliest versions of Aardvark sauce. “I hadn’t grasped what Aardvark could become,” Michael said. “I thought it might be a hobby business, but it became his thing. He did it because it was in his blood.”

Zach Hinkleman: Electric Guitar 

When Scott decided to form a steady band (versus playing with session players), guitarist Zach Hinkleman joined the team. Adventure-filled tours of the Western U.S. soon followed. 

“And in the van, there were always boxes of sauce,” Zach said. “It was like this dual-purpose mission. Scott would be out there like Johnny Appleseed, spreading the sauce.”

He shares that hawking Aardvark on the road was a good promotional tool for the band. “It pushed us and took us places we wouldn’t have gone without it.” 

It turned out great for Aardvark, too. Today, Zach refers to the company as a “monster. It’s gotten enormous.” 

He also gives a shoutout to Scott’s then-wife, Stacy Moritz, who took over the company after Scott’s passing. “It’s a tribute to Stacy. The success was a joint effort, but Stacy’s taken things to a whole new level.”  

But it’s the songs and the stage Zach thinks of most when he thinks of Scott. 

“He worked his ass off to craft the best songs,” Zach recalls. “It was such an inspiration to me as a fledgling songwriter. He would doggedly pursue his musical goals. He was the model of how to do it.” 

He also recounted how, despite the grind of a week’s-long tour with a bunch of guys crammed into a van, Scott always made touring fun (“Let’s swing by the Grand Canyon today!”). And he always smoothed things over when the occasional, inevitable rough patch came up between bandmates. 

“He just had a pulse on where people were at…how to approach people to open up or to get you focused. He was a people person. He could always find his way inside.”  

Scott acknowledged early on that he didn’t like how he sang and could be uncomfortable as a frontman. But he soon embraced his voice and who he was—in part by having a great band as a support system. 

“A good band makes the job much easier,” Zach said. “And he understood where everyone was as a musician. He let me jump around and roll on the ground. He let me have that energy. It was a cohesive unit, and everyone had their space.”

“Scott operated at a different level,” Zach continued. “But as observant as he was, he’d still leave the [car] blinker on. You don’t meet many people like that, but it always puts a smile on your face.”

Lastly, Zach shared his ongoing dedication to Aardvark’s Drunken Garlic Black Bean Sauce. “Scott gave me that stuff, and I was hooked. I eat it on eggs, on rice, on a sandwich…all the time!” 

Bryan Daste: Pedal Steel, acoustic guitar, sax, percussion, vocals, and various other instruments.  

Bryan Daste responded to a Craigslist ad for a sound guy and got a call back from Scott Moritz. But things took a quick leap in another direction.

“We were at a bar,” Bryan said. “I was talking to my girlfriend, something about pedal steel and it was like a record scratch. Things went silent, then Scott was like, ‘You play pedal steel??!’” 

The next thing he knew, Bryan was invited to jam with the band. The only problem? He was a beginner pedal steel player. I thought, ‘Great, I’ll get to jam, even though I’m no good yet.’ Then, the next thing I knew, I was in the band. From there, it was all a big blur, trying to keep up.”

Now a professional recording engineer and session musician, Bryan assumed another role for the band back then: “de facto engineer” for the Slow Drags’ second album, All the Great Aviators Agree. 

“And then there would be Scott, stemming habaneros on the couch at the studio. It smelled amazing. 

Digging deeply into the production side of things brought Bryan even closer to Scott’s vision for songwriting. 

As Bryan tells it, “When I asked Scott about his approach lyrics, he responded, ‘It’s about imagery. You’ve gotta make me feel the rain.’ I’ve never forgotten that.”

He goes on to describe the live shows while on tour. “Scott stacked the band with energy and musicality. It was a six-piece band, with everyone having high energy. And it dovetailed with the singer-songwriter elements. It was the best of both worlds.”  

He also added, “One of the great parts about touring with Scott, he was such a foodie. We’d pull up to some inconsequential-looking food truck in L.A. somewhere, and he’d say, ‘These are the best tacos you’ll ever eat.’ And they would be!” 

Recalling the band’s last days, Bryan said, “There was a concept for where the band was headed. It was a shock when Scott passed. “But,” he continued, “those songs are still out there, and all the band members are still playing music.”

Bryan, currently playing out with Portland act Silver Lake 66 (catch them playing our 20^th Year Party on Nov. 9^th in Portland), counts himself as a big Secret Aardvark fan. “[The brand is] omnipresent these days. You see it everywhere. I can still get that sauce! It makes me feel good to see it in every store. The legacy lives on.”

An Enduring Tribute with We Will Be Forgotten

Thanks to the efforts of the band, Stacy, and others who loved Scott and his music, the final Scotland Barr & the Slow Drags double-album—We Will Be Forgotten—was posthumously released in 2011.  

Side one focused on rough recordings of Scott singing and performing parts of songs still in development at the time of his passing. Side two featured unfinished tunes completed and performed by some of the Portland music scene’s most prominent players. As Willamette Week put it, “As with the use of negative space in art, the second disc is a work defined by absence.”

We Will Be Forgotten earned critical acclaim and accolades, including being named the Portland Music Awards Album of the Year.

Reminisce with Your Headphones 

Want a good strong dose of this and other material by Scotland Barr & the Slow Drags? Tune in to this literally awesome 44-track playlist of the band’s music on YouTube!

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