The Slack Theory, a local band comprised of several Emporia State students and community members, will perform at 10 p.m. Friday night at Natasha’s Bar and Grill, located at 627 Commercial St.

The band includes P.J. Stephenson, junior music major, on saxophone and vocals; percussion performance graduate John Gilmore on drums; graduate music student Jason Brooks on keyboards and vocals; junior music major Colin Jones on bass guitar; senior music major Riley Day and local musician Wade Krump on guitar.

Local band Beans and Cornbread will also perform.

Who are some of Slack Theory’s influences?

Riley Day: Alphabeat, Roy Hargrove, Electric 6, Bad Rabbits, Nine Inch Nails…

Colin Jones: Cannonball Adderley, Parliament.

Day: Lots of funk and stuff you can dance to.

How would you describe your music to someone who has never been to Slack Theory show?

Jones: We play “party funk.”

Day: Lots of funky stuff, but there’s some stuff from other genres that we play where we add that funk feel. If it’s not funk, we make it funk.

Was this party vibe intentional from the band’s inception, or did it evolve into that over time?

Jones: That kind of sound came from us starting out playing house parties.

Day: The house party shows are always fun, but we have really liked playing all these (different) venues lately. We are excited to play this back to school show at Natasha’s.

Do you have any shows planned beyond the show on Friday?

Jones: We’re trying to play some more back to school shows at other venues in Emporia, but nothing is really set in stone yet.

Day: We are trying to set up an out of town show for Halloween.

Any ideas on where the Halloween show will be yet?

Day: Not sure yet, but we are thinking about doing the show in Lawrence or Kansas City.

Did Slack Theory play any shows over the summer?

Day: Yes, we played two shows at Wheat State (Pizza).

Jones: The first show was at the end of dead week. The second show was back in June.

Day: All of the members of Slack Theory – except for PJ – were involved in providing music for the last ESU Summer Theatre production, “You Bug Me.”

Have you been working on any new material lately?

Day: We mostly still play covers, but we have some more originals.

Jones: We have a new song called “Slack Off” that we wrote over the summer.

Day: That and we have another song we are working on that has no title yet.

Any plans for recording?

Day: There are no plans for recording right now, just trying to add new stuff to the set list at the moment.

Jones: I’m pretty sure there is a live recording of a recent show somewhere on the Internet.

Any last comments?

Day: We are really excited to play this show on Friday. We hope to see a lot of people there. It’s going to be a fun show.