Eric Slick on his latest album, 'New Age Rage'

On his new album, Eric Slick wanted to break his own self-imposed rules about what his music should or shouldn't sound like.

The longtime drummer of Dr. Dog, who's also played on records from The War on Drugs, Bethany Cosentino, Robyn Hitchcock and Ruston Kelly, had been asked by more than a few people why his music didn't reflect his playful and irreverent personality. So he stopped worrying about pleasing everyone and made a record that screams Eric Slick.

The resulting album, called New Age Rage, is 10 tracks of pure, unadulterated fun. Its production is dizzying and whimsical, while its lyrics tap into our collective anxiety and unease. Oh, and it also has a song based on the cult movie Ratboy. Like we said, it's very Eric. In this sesion, Slick unpacks it all, plus how he found out he was playing on a Taylor Swift song.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.