Having grown up in Pittsburgh,[1] Slawson worked in the mail order department of the record label Fat Wreck Chords (which is the subject of a song by The Aquabats titled "Dear Spike").[2]
Musical career
He later was in Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (a cover band/'supergroup' consisting mainly of members of Fat Wreck bands) formed in 1995. Slawson is the lead singer for the group. From 1997 to 2012, he was the bassist for Swingin' Utters. He also plays bass in Filthy Thieving Bastards, sings and plays bass for the Re-Volts, sings and plays ukulele for Uke-Hunt, and sings for Los Nuevos Bajos, a Latin Post-Punk outfit that cover mostly classic Boleros, started by Slawson and a group of Panamanian musicians in 2018.