Jason Beebout: vocals
Sergie Loobkoff: guitar
James Brogan: guitar
Sean Kennerly: bass
M.P.: drums

Samiam is band from the Bay Area which formed in 1988. They were in that whole Bay Area scene but were always known as the sellouts. They released an EP with Lookout Records and then had several releases on New Red Archives. Their music started out as a punk thing but then evolved into sort of an emo thing with their Soar and Billy albums. Atlantic Records then signed them and they released Clumsy in 1995. Now their sound is more of a mainstream sounding power pop band. After being dropped by Atlantic and they signed to Ignition Records where they just released their latest release, You Are Freaking Me Out. Now they're touring the country opening for the bigger acts to promote that album. The interview is with guitarist, James Brogan after they had just finished their set opening for the mainstream act, Creed. It was done outside of the Music Farm in Charleston, South Carolina on April 4, 1998.

SS: HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC? NOWADAYS IT SEEMS LIKE YOU'RE LABELED AS AN EMO BAND...IS THAT AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF YOUR MUSIC?

JAMES: We've never really labeled ourselves as that and I don't really know what to say. We try to set ourselves apart from other things. People say we sound like this and sound like that, we've heard a thousand different names. I've even heard Rambo-pop or charm-core, silly stuff like that. We just play. It started off as a punk rock kind of thing and it developed into more of a rock/pop/alternative, whatever.

SS: WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN PEOPLE SAY THAT "BILLY" IS YOUR BEST ALBUM?

JAMES: I don't know. I haven't heard too many people say that. A lot of people like "Soar" and a lot of people liked "Clumsy," and now we're getting a better response than we ever have for the new record. It's hard to tell. Our first record, for me, was just so raw because we just went into the studio and played and we just had a lot of fun doing it.

SS: HOW COME YOU GUYS DON'T SING A LOT OF YOUR OLD STUFF AT SHOWS ANYMORE?

JAMES: We just started weeding out songs. We've got like a hundred songs and after a while we kind of figured which ones were better and which ones weren't. We're on tour in support of this new record so we play about six songs off of this one. "Clumsy" was the next successful record, so it's mostly all from those two.

JEFF: DOES EVERYBODY YELL "DON'T BREAK ME" AT EVERY CLUB YOU GO TO?

JAMES: It depends. We've heard "Sky Flying By," or "Simca." We get calls for all kinds of stuff. You know we played like 600 shows from our first record. We figured playing something 600 times can get kind of boring.

SS: HOW DID YOU GUYS GET SETUP OPENING FOR CREED AND COOL FOR AUGUST?

JAMES: Our management company broke Creed at radio and they just said it would be good for radio if we went out with them.

SS: HOW IS IT GOING WITH IGNITION RECORDS SO FAR?

JAMES: It's good so far. They're pretty receptive to all of our ideas. They bought us a bus. They're pretty accommodating so far. It seems like they're working hard on this record. This is like their top priority right now for their label so we're pretty happy so far.

SS: SO WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED WITH ATLANTIC RECORDS?

JAMES: You know, they have like a thousand people working for them. We were just one of the millions of bands and we were doing ok for awhile on radio, but then the radio guy there was just too busy with other stuff like Hootie and the Blowfish or whatever else. We just fell through the cracks. We wanted to get off the label and there was a change of personnel in bands there. They dropped any band that didn't sell 200,000 records and we were one of them. Then they sat on our tapes for a long time and we finally got them back from them.

SS: SO THEY LET YOU GO, BUT HELD ONTO YOUR TAPES?

JAMES: Yeah, that was horrible for us. About a year of doing nothing.

SS: HOW DID YOU END UP ON BURNING HEART RECORDS IN SWEDEN?

JAMES: They finally sold the rights to Burning Heart. We never had a domestically released record there and we wanted to tour there since we hadn't been there in a while, so they were kind enough to do it out there. It was good, they're like the Epitaph of Europe. It's working really well for us there.

SS: DID YOU GUYS GET REALLY BIG THERE IN SWEDEN?

JAMES: The country is a lot smaller and the music scene is a lot smaller, so in relative size, probably. We do pretty well there. Germany is probably our best place and London is a good place for us too.


SS: SINCE YOUR MUSIC STYLE HAS CHANGED SO MUCH, HAVE YOUR MUSICAL PREFERENCES OR INFLUENCES CHANGED FROM THE FIRST ALBUM TO THIS NEW ONE?

JAMES: Well each time you always start listening to new things. We started off listening to The Replacements and Husker Du and that kind of stuff. We've always added new bands to our repetoir but we've always tried to keep our influences to ourselves and not try to get outside influences. We listen to a lot of different stuff. Swervedriver, a lot of different stuff.

SS: WHAT WAS SERGIE'S RELATIONSHIP WITH KNAPSACK?

JAMES: With that year downtime, he liked the band and just started playing with them. They recorded a record. He's not doing it now since we're going to be busy for the next six months.

SS: YOUR NEW DRUMMER, M.P. -- WHAT DO THE INITIALS STAND FOR?

JAMES: Michael Petrach. Someone started calling him that a while back and he just sort of stuck with it I guess. He's a great guy, he's a great drummer. He's really worked out well. He really helped us out on the new record. He's got a lot of input.

SS: HOW'S SEAN WORKING OUT? HE'S ONLY BEEN WITH YOU FOR A MONTH OR SO? DID HE KNOW ALL THE SONGS?

JAMES: His first gig was in front of 7,000 people in Japan opening for Green Day. He's been a friend of ours for a long time and he was working at Rolling Stone Magazine and he just decided to travel the world with us. He's worked out fine though, he's a good musician.

TRAVIS: HOW DID THE GREEN DAY TOUR IN JAPAN GO?

JAMES: It was beyond belief. Every show was sold out and the first two were like 7,000 people and then 3,000 the next night, then 2,000 the night after that, and then back to 3,500 a night. People go insane there, especially for them. We were taking a train with them everywhere and just going to hotels and hordes of women just rushing you when you walk through the lobby. It's bizarre. Just totally bizarre. Just following you to the train station and the aiport. It's crazy. They get mobbed wherever they go! But it was fun. We got to do an MTV interview in Japan too, so that was fun.

TRAVIS: DO YOU GUYS HAVE A NEW VIDEO?

JAMES: We did one for "She Found You" in Europe and Japan and we're going to do another one out here. MTV out here said that they wouldn't play it because they got some woman basically just wearing a bondage outfit. She has us tied up and beating us the whole time and chasing us around. Spanking us and all kinds of shit.

TRAVIS: DON'T YOU GUYS HAVE ANOTHER VIDEO FOR "CAPSIZED" TOO?

JAMES: Yeah we had a video for "Capsized" and "Stepson" too. "Capsized" got a few 120 minutes but it's all radio. If you're not on radio, MTV won't play you. At the height of our radio was when we submitted "Capsized" to MTV and they started playing it.

TRAVIS: IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO RIGHT NOW, JUST PULLING UP THE RADIO AIRPLAY?

JAMES: Yeah. Our management company is really like the biggest rock radio promotions company in America and they're really going to town. We've got like five times as many ads to radio stations than we ever had with our old management company, so I don't know. We'll see. We're still travelling around having fun and that's the main thing. Everything else falls behind that.

TRAVIS: ARE YOU GUYS PLANNING A NEW ALBUM ANYTIME SOON?

JAMES: We're working on new songs. We have probably eight new songs, we just need to sit down and fine tune them and we have other ones we need to work in. I don't know when we're going to have time for it. We're going to New York and we're probably going to do another video for "She Found You" there.


SS: WHAT DO YOU GUYS DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT DOING SAMIAM?

JAMES: Usually if we're not recording, we're rehearsing or doing other band oriented stuff. Sergie was a graphic designer and I was a small business owner.

JEFF: DID SERGIE DO THE DESIGN FOR SOME OF THE OLD THRASHER MAGAZINES?

JAMES: Yeah. He did some cartoon in there too. Yeah, he had a little cartoon guy, Slackjaw or whatever his name is. He's a talented graphic designer.

SS: WHAT DIRECTION DO YOU SEE YOURSELVES GOING IN A FEW YEARS DOWN THE ROAD?

JAMES: As long as it stays fun for us, that's the main thing for us. We're all friends first. Friends becomes like four band members, but once it stops becoming fun I don't think we'll do anything but right now we're having a good time.

MIKE: HAVE ANY OF YOUR MEMBERS BEEN DUMPED FOR A STRAIGHT-EDGE/VEGAN/HARDCORE/CHRISTIAN KID? BECAUSE A LOT OF YOUR SONGS ARE ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS AND GETTING OVER THEM AND ALSO GETTING DUMPED. SO DO YOU HAVE ANY OF YOUR OWN PERSONAL HORRIBLE DUMP STORIES?

JAMES: We all go through that...actually I just went through a divorce. That was a horrible thing. But the best thing is we're still real good friends, but she just couldn't take me going out on the road and stuff. So that's a tear jerker, it just happened a month ago. Thanks for bringing it up (laughs)! No, I'm just kidding.

SS: SO WHAT'S THE FUTURE OF SAMIAM?

JAMES: This [You are Freaking Me Out] just came out here. So we're going to do three weeks of this Creed tour, we're going to do three weeks of the Green Day US Tour, we go to Europe for two and a half weeks for a festival tour. Fly back here and we might do some of the Warped Tour or do some stuff by ourselves. So we're going to be busy for a while.

SS: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SPINAL TAP?

JAMES: I love it! I saw it like five times. Actually you know that scene where they're all backstage and getting psyched up for the gig. You know, "Hello Cleveland!" and then they get lost? We did that one time at some gig. Total Spinal Tap maneuver, couldn't find our way out to the stage (laughs).

THE END