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Sam's Interview

Updated: May 14, 2023


Photo by Ashinique Kelly Spivey

I was always nervous about the idea of interviewing Sam. He’s one of my oldest friends and, throughout the years, we’ve had so many conversations about ourselves, and what we want to do with ourselves, that it felt a little disingenuous to have him sit down for an interview filled with questions I already knew the answers to.


Unless. Unless I could somehow find a way to talk about something we've never spoken about. I had some idea of what that could be, but it was something that, if I were to bring up in conversation, I wanted to bring up as delicately as possible. I wanted to be considerate in how I approached him about it, and make sure that we were both comfortable enough to talk about what it was that I had in mind. Of course, though, just thinking about it wasn't going to get me anywhere, and there was only one way to find out. So, I met up with Sam, sat down for lunch with him, left my phone recording on the table, and tried my best to just let everything flow between us as naturally as possible. Just like it always has.


Our conversation started off normally enough. I asked a ridiculous question, he had a vague answer; the usual. In a lot of these interviews, I have to remind myself that I'm still new to this, and that I can't ask heavy-handed questions right off the bat. I have to work my way up to them, and earn the right to ask them. So, that's what I did.


Dialing it back a bit, I asked Sam some of my go-tos. Where are you from, what’s your background? The typical stuff. And, like I said, it felt weird asking questions I already knew the answers to, but I realized that, in order to set a foundation on which to build the conversation from, I needed to ask them. And besides, I enjoyed hearing these sorts of details from Sam’s life again, anyway. In a weird way, it felt like I was meeting him for the first time all over again.


We kept it going and, eventually, we got to the part of the interview where I ask people to describe the time between being in their first band to their present-day band. In Sam’s case, there wasn’t a present-day band to speak of at the moment, but the question still stood as a way for him to reflect upon everything that has happened since that first band, and to look back upon it all with a clearer state of mind. And, to my surprise, in the midst of all his reminiscing of that time, Sam and I began to do exactly what I had hoped we would do: we began to speak about something we've never spoken about.


The conversation led to us talking about this idea of feeling like we're never doing enough. About how, no matter how much we've accomplished in the past, there's never this sense of lasting achievement from it. There's a momentary one, sure, but there's never one that feels satisfying, one that feels complete in its sense of gratification.


Of course, that sense of dissatisfaction only comes about as a result of the pressure we put on ourselves to do more than we've already done, but, in our defense, it's a pressure that feels very warranted, and, quite frankly, very appropriate, because we genuinely don't feel like we've done enough. To us, there are always more songs to write, and always more ideas to record, and not doing what you want to do with them in the moments that they hit you feels like a weight that you just can't ever seem to get off your shoulders.


Now, again, that feeling of impatience is, of course, something that we also put on ourselves because, at the end of the day, the only thing that's stopping us from doing the things we want to do is us. And also time, money and resources, but we'll get into that later. Point is, though, that, even then, even then, those self-imposed pressures are still valid because, at the end of the day, there’s no denying that life does get in the way and that, at some point, you have to face the reality of it all, and start dedicating time towards building a life for yourself and not just towards pursuing your passions in life. So, in that truth, lied the question I really wanted to ask Sam: do you ever feel like you're running out of time?


Sam's been at this for a while. He's spent the better part of a decade playing in bands, writing music, recording music, and playing that music to other people. At this point, being a musician is something that comes as second nature to him, and it's something that he obviously finds purpose in doing. Still, though, that doesn't mean it's easy to actually be one. Let me explain.


Of course, what makes any musician a musician is the process of creating music itself. Like I said in my last two interviews with Sean and Jill, the process of creating art is what makes you an artist, but the thing that isn’t easy about all that is trying to pursue a career out of being an artist. In doing so, you have to constantly put yourself out there. Day after day, week after week, year after year—you have to be out there bearing your soul to the world, all in the hopes that one day you'll build enough of a fanbase on which you can reliably sustain yourself off of. But, over time, understand that that gets exhausting. Playing shows, putting your music out there, and being an active member of your community—it’s all a very tiring process that you truly feel the weight of when you don’t see anything come out of the work you’ve put into it. And yet, the sad reality of it is that some of us will never see anything become of our work. Some of us will never be able to make a living off of it because, honestly, that's just the way things work sometimes, and, that's okay, because, at the very least, we can say that we at least tried to follow our passions in life and make a living doing the things we love doing. But eventually, there will inevitably come a time in which you'll have to settle down, make a living doing something that does pay the bills, and put your music on the back-burner as you search for something more stable in life. As depressing as it is to admit, pursuing a career in music is something you just kind of have to do in your youth because, as you get older, it just isn’t something you'll have the time for anymore.


That's kind of where Sam is right now. He's at a point in his life where he has to dedicate less time towards his passions, and more time towards creating some sort of financial stability for himself in order to make ends meet. But, to my surprise, I discovered that he didn't actually feel bitter about, well, any of it, and his explanation as to why completely opened my eyes because, in his response, there was an undeniable truth to everything he said.


“Do you ever feel like you’re running out of time?”


“Yeah, yeah. I’m not gonna lie. But then, when you get to a certain age, you realize that there’s nobody rushing you. There’s just no rush. It’s the rush you put on yourself. That’s why even with Wildsleep and Softer, this obsession of playing a show every week, [you begin to ask yourself] why? [It becomes] annoying.


It’s unnecessary, it’s annoying and you oversaturate yourself and you kind of have to just take a step back and say, ‘Hey, what’s the best possible art I can put out?’ And it doesn’t matter if it takes time because art takes time. I mean, that’s absolutely the truth. You have to live life.”


I don’t think there’s an age limit on...well, there’s an age limit on being extremely successful and young, but then you have to ask yourself the question: what do I want to be? Extremely successful and young or a really good musician? And the two don’t necessarily coincide. [At the end of the day, though] it’s all subjective, so who cares?


I think…you know what’s cool? (laughs) To me, right now, you know what’s cool? Being sure of myself and [having a sense of] security. Then I’ll worry about the rest.”


You know, I've always liked to think of myself as someone who's very grounded; someone who can roll with the punches, take in the experiences I've had in life, and form some semblance of what I could only hope would be interpreted as a sense of wisdom. But then, someone like Sam comes around and hits me with something that is just so undeniably wise that I can't help but feel small in comparison. And honestly, it's only because he's so right.


The pressure you feel to “make” something of yourself as you get older, just like the pressure you feel to do more than what you've already done, really is just a pressure that you put on yourself. You, and you alone. No one is asking you to be anything other than what you are and, at the end of the day, you're allowed to move at your own pace. I guess, for me personally, it's just so easy to forget that, and to be intimidated by the scale of all the things that I want to achieve in life. It's easy to think that I've set my goals too high, and that I should just give up while I'm ahead. But, when I hear someone like Sam speak their mind on what someone's outlook on life ought to be, I'm brought right back down to earth, and reminded that it’s okay to feel like you haven't made something of yourself. That, as long as you have a foundation on which to support yourself, it's okay to take time making your art, and that, at the end of the day, there really is no better way to do it, anyway.


 


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