Samoans [Interview]
As a lifelong Deftones fanatic, any band willing to incorporate even the tiniest hint of said legends’ sound into their own noise is more than welcome in my earholes. Samoans do what all the best bands do with their influences: chuck them all into a metaphorical blender along with some extra-special spice, shred the lot to hell, and see what comes out when it’s tipped upside-down. TMMP talked to Samoans guitarist Oli about his band’s upcoming set at 2000 Trees Festival, and much more…
You’re due to play 2000 Trees this year. How’re you feeling about it?
Pretty excited really. We did ArcTanGent festival last year which was great, so hoping for a similar vibe. Loads of bands we absolutely love are playing. I missed the Mclusky shows last year, so I’m looking forward to that.
What can the curious expect from your set?
Loud bits, quiet bits, and occasionally bits that are somewhere between loud and quiet. We’ll be playing songs from our debut album Rescue, which we released a year ago. We might drop in a couple of new ones for good measure.
What’s your band’s origin story?
Dan and Calvin met at a birthday party. I don’t know the details but it probably involved a dispute over pass the parcel. They played overly complicated tap-happy music for a few years with a number of different drummers until Chris joined in 2012. Then Dan broke his back and decided to stop playing so many notes.
I joined on second guitar at the tail end of 2013.
What happened at the first gig you ever played?
I have no idea about the first ever Samoans gig. The first gig I did in the band was Swn Festival 2013. The night’s headliner had cancelled last-minute, so about 200 people crammed into the function room above a pub where we played the album in full before we’d actually got round to releasing it. It wasn’t too bad.
If money and good taste were not an issue, what would your stage show look like?
In order to answer this I’ve spent about half an hour Googling pictures of Rammstein’s live show. Something like that, I guess, with pretty much everything on fire. Chris would have to do an upside down drum solo à la Tommy Lee – but on fire.
What’s the most mental thing that’s ever happened at a Samoans show?
The one that springs to mind is A Carefully Planned Festival last year in Manchester. There had been a drunken marriage proposal before we got on stage and the couple in question spent our set expressing their fondness for each other in a less than subtle way. Calvin decided to address this and the couple came up to the stage and got pretty aggressive, called us “…indie wankers,” and declared “We’re in love so we can do what we fucking want”. They were found together in the toilets later on and kicked out.
Beyond Trees, what’s in store for the rest of 2015?
The day after Trees we’re off to play at NASS Festival. After that, we’re going to spend a bit of time working on songs for our difficult second album. We’ll be going into the studio to knock that one out towards the end of the year.
Before then, we’re doing a joint venture with another band that we’re total best friends with. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to announce about that but it’ll involve some shows in October.
What’s on your bucket list?
As a band I guess it would probably involve playing shows in as many different countries as possible. America and Japan being pretty high up the list.
Links / Video
Samoans on Facebook and Twitter.
2000 Trees Festival official website.
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Image © Stephen McLeod Blythe.