J. D. Slater

This article is about the director and composer. For other people named Slater, see Slater.

J.D. Slater
Born	1954 or 1955 (age 69–70)
Nationality	American
Other names	John Duffy
Education	University of California, Los Angeles (bachelor's degree in psychology); NYC’s Fordham University (master's degree in clinical psychology (1976))
Occupation(s)	actor, director, composer
Years active	1981-present
Employer	Raging Stallion Studios
Known for	Gay pornography
Works	see #Filmography, and #Albums
Awards	GayVN Hall of Fame, Grabby Awards Wall of Fame

John Duffy (born 1954 or 1955 (age 69–70)), known by his stage name J. D. Slater, is an American gay pornography actor, director, and music composer from San Francisco who co-founded Raging Stallion Studios (RSS) with Chris Ward in 1999. Over the forty years Slater has spent in gay porn, he has been prolific both in front of, and behind the scenes, with music composition now his main focus.

He was raised in the New York City (NYC) area by Irish-Catholic parents, and has a lifelong interest in music, composing, and pornography. From the age of thirteen he snuck into rock clubs while also excelling academically at college preparatory schools attended on scholarships. He went to college starting at age fifteen, at University of California, Los Angeles earning his bachelor's degree in psychology, followed by a master's in clinical psychology at NYC’s Fordham University, graduating in 1976 at age twenty-one. Throughout school he fronted bands as a singer, and acted as sound technician, he would also sit in on sessions watching bands like The Grateful Dead perform live to tape.

In the early days of the New York punk rock scene, his band played with Blondie, and with the Talking Heads. He came out as gay in 1976, and at the same time became active in the gay BDSM leather subculture. At twenty-three, he was an editor at Blueboy—then the world’s largest gay magazine. A casual photo of him landed Slater on the cover of Numbers, another adult gay magazine, which led to him being in director Joe Gage’s gay porn film HandSome (1981). He was soon starring in many early gay porn producers’ work including Wakefield Poole, he "kept on doing it ... to learn how to make films". He soon was one of the most famous porn stars, and was popular because he mixed a “hyper-masculine sexuality” with acting talent. He starting directing films in the mid-1980s, and also scored all the soundtracks.

In the late 1980s he got a triple diagnosis of tuberculosis, cancer, and AIDS. His long recuperation included an introduction to personal computers, and other electronic devices for his music. By the early 1990s, with the advent of live loop machines, his music programming, and composing career evolved with the technology. He moved to San Francisco, and with Chris Ward in 1999, formed RSS. He composes in a variety of music styles and genres for RSS films including world music. In addition to writing all the RSS soundtracks, he has scored numerous movies for other top gay porn studios. As of 2003, seventeen of the top hundred gay movies at Mannet.com, an adult industry rating service, were scored by Slater. At the time of his induction to the GayVN Hall of Fame and Grabby Awards Wall of Fame in the early 2000s, he had acted in 165 movies, and directed nearly seventy; he is “also a skilled videographer, master lighting technician, and a soundtrack composer”. RSS merged with Falcon Studios in 2010 becoming the largest producer of all-male erotica in the world.

Early life and education

John Duffy, later under the stage name J.D. Slater, was born in Long Island, New York and raised by "strict" Irish Catholic parents. They were also Republicans, and he knew, even as a child, that he was against whatever they were for either as a Democrat, or Independent. He grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and has three sisters, that are thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years older than himself. His father, a small man at 4’11”, had worked as a horse jockey, was an estate manager with a dozen horses; his mother was only a bit taller, and overweight like his father, but John was tall and lean and found it hard to put on weight. He recalls, at age eleven, being a little strange for liking jazz like John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

He described himself as "a good little Catholic-school boy" but concedes "by the age of twelve I had the largest porn collection in Nassau County." Around the time he was thirteen he had a violent interaction with a nun teacher who hit his head with a alarm clock she threw at him, he fought back. Afterwards he attended private schools including Regis Jesuit High School, one of the toughest schools to get into; he set a school scoring record and finished the eight-hour exam in three. From Regis he transferred to Chaminade College Preparatory School, and from there to Loyola School, and then to St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School all attended on strait scholarships. From the age of thirteen he began sneaking into Max's Kansas City, an influential rock club in New York City, where he would “mingle with and listen to such acts as The Velvet Underground, Nico, and the New York Dolls”.

He went to college starting at age fifteen, in order to get away from home, he went to University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied English, fine art, and theology, and earned his bachelor's degree in psychology, followed by a master's in clinical psychology at Fordham in New York City, graduating in 1976 at age twenty-one. He stated:"porno was the farthest thing from my mind. I was expecting to be a psychotherapist."

While in school he sang in bands, and started also acting as the sound technician, later he became Technical Director for the Ensemble Studio Theatre in NY. One of his older sisters’ husband owned a recording studio and J.D. would regularly sit in on sessions watching bands like Grateful Dead perform live to tape.

Career

Slater was preparing to open his psychotherapy office, but was also busy as a composer of traditional musicals, cabaret songs, and punk for his band, Frenzy—one of the earliest punk bands—he fronted as lead singer. It was the early days of the New York punk scene, his band played with Blondie, and with the Talking Heads when they first played at CBGB's. His first musical, Zoundz, was produced off-Broadway and later at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He came out as gay in 1976, and at the same time became active in the gay BDSM leather subculture. He worked for a time as a doorman and bouncer at the-then world’s largest drag bar; he broke his hand three times in fights. The owner would have him serve as social events escort for his wife and daughter as he was a safe clean-cut gay guy.

When he was twenty-three, he was an editor at Blueboy—then the world’s largest gay magazine—until a new boyfriend flew him around the world so he became an assistant editor writing travel columns. He also ran a promotional company producing parties at gay clubs. In 1981, a photographer friend's casual photo of him landed Slater on the cover of Numbers; director Joe Gage (also known as Tim Kincaid) saw it and demanded that Slater appear in his movie, HandSome (1981). Slater appeared in films by Wakefield Poole, and other early producers of gay erotica. Slater was also friends with Robert Mapplethorpe but refused to pose for black and white photography. He said of the film work, "I didn't see this as a career, but I kept on doing it because I wanted to learn how to make films. Jack Deveau taught me how to organize it, Chris Rage taught me how to actually get the sex and the atmosphere up and going, and Arch Brown taught me the art of linear filmmaking...". He earned a "bad boy" of gay porn reputation portraying edgy sexuality. He soon was one of the most famous porn stars, and was popular because he mixed a “hyper-masculine sexuality” with acting talent. In the mid-1980s, Poole, cash-strapped from earlier projects, attempted a new partnership on what would be his final film, One, Two, Three (1985). The film was “conceived on the basis of nothing more than a strong marketing premise”, the film’s six stars would tour the country on personal appearances at each city, with each night’s opening as a benefit for AIDS research. One, Two, Three has three loops, each with a successive number of actors, Slater starred in the first scene talking directly to camera, and bringing himself to orgasm. Filmmaker Chris Rage introduced himself outside New York's famed leather bar, The Spike, and took him home to watch Raunch, "It wasn't pretty. It wasn't some Hollywood type movie. It was raw." Slater subsequently appeared in a number of Rage's films, and cites him as a big inspiration for being innovative and a risk-taker. Of mainstream directors he is inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino.

He left New York for Los Angeles where his skills in front of, and behind the camera brought him lots of work. In the early-1980s, the AIDS pandemic started in the U.S., around the same time, home video equipment was popularized; and the gay porn industry evolved to have options to address safe sex, and productions that felt more home-made. Gay BDSM magazine Drummer editor Jack Fritscher and a partner started Palm Drive Video north of San Francisco and recruited Slater and other men into fetish and kink to star in films that provided fantasy without exchanging bodily fluids. Slater later said, "In 1986, I'd established my image, and learned how to make a film. So I started directing and producing." He was a popular porn star because he mixed a “hyper-masculine sexuality” with acting talent. In April 1989’s Drummer (volume 127), editor Jack Fritscher ran “J. D. Slater Is ‘Dirt,’” with his poem of the same name and photographs of Slater shot by Fritscher from his Palm Drive Video feature, Mud and Oil (October 27, 1988). They were friends, Fritscher called Slater “the most consistently witty man I have ever met”. Fritscher also lists Slater as an “essential contributor” for Drummer, and "he attracted a great deal of public notoriety." In the mid-1980s once HIV/AIDS transmission was tied to the exchange of bodily fluids between people, mainly semen and blood, the money shot of a man ejaculating outside of, or on his partner, was “an erotic disclaimer that lives were not jeopardized on the set of the film.” Slater as an actor, and as a director, faced the pressures of gay pornography producers whether to portray sex by pre-condom standards, or succumb to politically-correct safer sex codes which were commercially much less popular; gay porn consumers wanted their sex portrayers to look authentic including ejaculating inside each other. Through the 1980s more studios incorporated safer sex messaging into their films including stars who would open a feature with a safer sex talk. As a director Slater left safer sex practices up to each actor as he was documenting their sexuality in action and did not want to dictate how they should act. As an actor, in 1989’s Motorsexual, Slater deliberately used poppers—long associated with the party-and-play sex subculture eroticizing illegal drug abuse, unprotected and risky sex practices—to be politically incorrect. In 1990 he said, “As far as safe sex in my work is concerned, I will not preach, or morally judge. I am simply a documentarian of sexual incidents. What an actor does is completely his own decision. I let an actor do exactly what he wants any way he wants to do it. Some directors think it’s their job to instruct the public on safe sex, and for them, that’s great. But that’s not my responsibility.” Meanwhile Slater’s music took a backseat for over fifteen years although he still played and wrote music, and was a “sought-after writer of torch songs” for chanteuses as Karen Akers, Mercedes Hall and Jane Olivor. He also scored all the soundtracks to the films that he directed.

Consciously abandoning the mainstream industry he felt had gotten sterile, Slater produced what he calls his "big guerilla filmmaking things"; titles like Smut, Motorsexual, and Confessions. For Guilty (1990), he started his own production company, and nearly landed in jail when copies shipped to England were seized and declared obscene. At the same time in 1989, he was diagnosed with cancer, HIV and tuberculosis. He faced a trial that could have resulted in 25-years to life. His long recuperation included a lengthy time where, due to “a severe seizure disorder”, he could not walk or talk. He said, "since they thought I wouldn't live until the trial, and they wouldn't get the headline out of it they wanted, they finally just let it go." Helping him deal with his health issues was his lover at the time, Dan Anderson, who first got him into computers for composing; building all the systems he used over the years.

By the early 1990s, when dedicated live loop machines first went on sale, the term "live looping" had not yet been coined, the first dedicated loop device was the Paradis LOOP Delay. Slater’s composing went to a new level, “With the advent of loop-based music programs my entire musical palette exploded. Suddenly I could have access to every instrument in the world. My whole concept of sound and structure evolved with the technology.”

He moved to San Francisco, living in a small two-bedroom rent-controlled apartment in the Castro gay neighborhood. He survived the diseases, and returned to composing during his convalescence, until a chat room friend connected him with Chris Ward. In 1999, the new friends formed Raging Stallion and collaborated on a number of films, the company quickly became a leader in the gay porn industry, then Slater decided to concentrate on making the soundtracks more meaningful. "So Gorge has that Aaron Copland meets Peter Gabriel thing going on, and Exhibition has some really great John Coltrane jazz. There's a samba for Zoot Suit, and romantic Spanish guitar for Sins of the Father." His music inspirations include Chris Isaak, Ry Cooder, Neil Young, Herbie Hancock, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Keith Jarrett, David Byrne and Led Zeppelin, and U2. He adds, “My influences are only partially grounded in Western culture, however, with a significant portion having roots in a variety of world music including Middle Eastern, African and tribal beat genres.” For any musical piece he composes he learns how to play whatever instruments are needed, even foreign ones; enough that he can envision how the musician will play it, and what sounds it can make. In addition to writing all the Raging Stallion soundtracks, he has also scored movies for Titan Media, All Worlds, Falcon Entertainment, Studio 2000, Zeus and Channel 1 Releasing. As of 2003, seventeen of the top hundred gay movies at Mannet.com, an adult industry rating service, were scored by Slater.

At the time of his induction to the GayVN Hall of Fame, he had acted in 165 movies, and directed nearly 70; he is “also a skilled videographer, master lighting technician, and a soundtrack composer”. Out Personals wrote, “Slater is the evil genius whose music forms the underbelly of most Raging Stallion porn productions, not to mention Chi Chi LaRue and who knows how many others. Productions for both companies got him 2 nominations for Best Soundtrack by AVN in 2001...”. The nominations were for Raging Stallion's Raiders of the Lost Arse and Chi Chi La Rue's Missing Link.

On composing movie soundtracks Slater said he likes the challenge of writing in different genres, and more complex projects. He describes his work style as obsessive—writing for fifteen hours a day—with almost no interruptions or company.

Awards and nominations

• 2000 Grabby Awards nomination for Best Video: All Sex - SexPack 2: A Kinky Twist, Directors, Chris Ward & J.D. Slater - Raging Stallion Studios.
• 2003 GayVN Awards Hall of Fame.
• 2003 Grabby Awards Wall of Fame.
• 2004 HX Magazine, winner, Best Soundtrack, Gorge.
• 2004 GayVN Awards, nomination, Best Soundtrack, A Porn Star is Born.
• 2004 GayVN Awards, nomination, Best Soundtrack, Gorge.
• 2004 GayVN Awards, nomination, Best Leather Video, Your Masters.
• 2006 GayVN Awards, Best Music nomination, JD Slater for Arabesque, Raging Stallion Studios.
• 2008 GayVN Awards, Best Music nomination, Nekked Grunts, Raging Stallion, JD Slater.
• 2008, 14th Annual Hard Choice Awards, nomination JD Slater, Erotikus, Centurion Pictures XXX.
• 2009 GayVN Awards, Centurion Muscle 5: Maximus was nominated in the Best Bear category, JD Slater, director.
• 2009 GayVN Awards, Nekked, nomination for Best Music: JD Slater.
• 2009 GayVN Awards, To The Last Man, nomination for Best Music: JD Slater.

Filmography

As a director and producer

• S.M.U.T. (1994)
• Motorsexual (1989)
• Confessions (1989)
• Guilty (1988)
• Raiders of the Lost Arse (2003)
• Fistpack 4: Nutts for Butts (2005)
• Sexpack Four (2001)
• Centurion Muscle (2005)
• Hard (1985)
• Bound, Beaten, and Banged (2000)
• Centurion Muscle 2: Alpha (2006)
• Centurion Muscle 3: Omega (2006)
• Centurion Muscle 4: EROTIKUS (2007)
• Centurion Muscle 5: MAXIMUS (2008)
• Centurion Muscle 6: MONUMENT (2008)
• Hard Sex (2004)
• Hunter/Hunted (2008)
• Knight After Night (2005)
• Punishment Chamber (2000)
• Red and the Black (2005)
• Roid Rage (2007)
• Your Masters (2003)

As an actor

• Manholes and More Manholes (2003)
• Confessions (1989)
• Ranch Hand (1988)
• In Heat (1986)
• Bring Your Own Man (1985)
• Daddies Plaything (1985)
• One, Two, Three (1985)
• What the Big Boys Eat (1985)
• Outrage (1984)
• Handsome (1981)
• New York Men (1981)
• Stud Busters (1985)
• My Masters (1981)

Albums

• Deeper (2005)
• Raiders
• Arabesque
• Naked (Songs for Sexual Subversives)
• Stations of the Cross
• Master
• The Red and the Black
• Submission
• Passport to Paradise
• Obey
• Unrepentant
• Western Skies and Eyes of Blue (2009)
• Harder (2005)
• Filling Your Silence (2000)

See also

• List of Grabby recipients
• List of male performers in gay porn films
• List of pornographic movie studios

External links

• J.D. Slater at IMDb, including a partial list of his works.
• "J.D. Slater's Website". Archived from the original on 2003-08-12.