Samantha Crain is a Choctaw singer, songwriter, producer, director, and poet. She is an internationally acclaimed musician who has released 6 LPs and 3 EPs and we are lucky to call her one of our Creative Partners. Jim sat down with Sam recently to discuss her origin story, thoughts on creativity, and inspirations. Here are some excerpts from their conversation.
Jim:
You are of course known as a singer songwriter, but there are many facets to your creative work. How do you answer the question “what do you do?”
Sam:
If I meet someone new at a dinner party, I usually just say that I’m a musician because that’s the easiest way for them to get a flash of what I spend most of my time doing. But for interviews or when I am explaining my work to people in some sort of creative industry, I usually just say that I’m an artist because I do so much stuff in between. There’s so much of my process of writing music that doesn’t have to do with music at all. For example, I make a lot of visual art stuff at home, I make videos, and I write poetry. Even though some of that stuff, most of that stuff, doesn’t ever see the light of day, it’s still part of my process. I usually just say that I’m an artist because that’s what I feel like when I wake up in the morning, even if I don’t make something, that’s just my own self-identity.
Jim:
Tell me a little bit about growing up in Oklahoma and anything from your childhood that put you on this path to becoming an artist and that maybe still informs some of what you do.
Sam:
I grew up in a town called Shawnee, but went to school in an even smaller town called Dale, which was a pretty simple existence. Kids either did sports or were involved in FFA farming or agricultural programs. If kids didn’t fit into those two boxes, many ended up just getting in trouble. I just sort of shrinked away from everything and ended up being kind of a loner, like the Allison Reynolds character in the movie The Breakfast Club. I was sort of the creepy weirdo girl that just showed up for classes when she needed to.
I think that during most of my time there, I didn’t really have people to look up to, people who I thought were doing something that made sense for me, something that I might want to do. I think that when you’re a kid it helps to see something that reflects in yourself that might move you a certain way. Of course this was before the internet was everywhere, so I didn’t really even have the ability to find someone cool on Instagram and model myself after them.
I think that was the first time I saw that there were people, not too much older than me, who would pull up to a dusty parking lot in a van, roll out, play songs for 30 people, and then get back in the van and go onto the next city and just keep doing that city after city.
Sam:
As soon as I was old enough to drive I started heading up to Oklahoma City, which is the big city. There was an all ages DIY rock venue there called The Conservatory and I started going to shows there all the time. It didn’t really matter what bands were playing. I got introduced to a lot of music through that venue from emo to ska to some singer songwriters. I think that was the first time I saw that there were people, not too much older than me, who would pull up to a dusty parking lot in a van, roll out, play songs for 30 people, and then get back in the van and go onto the next city and just keep doing that city after city. It really blew my mind that people did that as their job. That was the first time I saw that someone could be a touring musician without having many resources.
There was also a record store right next to it called Size Records that I would poke into and look around before and after shows. I used to buy CDs there, many just based on their covers back then. I’d just see a CD that looked cool and I’d grab it. I bought a CD called The Lioness, by a band called Songs: Ohia. I had never heard of them, but I listened to it on the way home and I was really struck by how beautiful it was. I was obviously moved by the music, but I think it also felt doable. Writing songs became a reachable goal for me. I mean that whole record is just an acoustic guitar and some weird cheap drum machine that sounds like you found it in an attic somewhere. I realized that is was something that I could work toward. It was speaking to me in some way, this guy Jason Molina, was just singing songs about his own life.
Jim:
I was not aware of his work, but thank you for giving me some new music to dig into this week. This is the second time you have done that in a few weeks because you did interviews on your recent podcasts with Murder by Death and Bartees Strange. I didn’t know either of their work and I really got into both of them. Tell me more about those trips to Oklahoma City.
Sam:
Before I started going to The Conservatory I didn’t have anyone to talk with about new music. I would meet up with other kids there and we would introduce each other to different bands, talk about movies and go to thrift stores together. It was cool to do that and not be made fun of by other kids. They became my community. This was in the late 90s and early 2000s and there were lots of other kids coming from the more rural areas to the city for this scene, where they belonged.
Jim:
I can see how that exposure to different kinds of culture or experiences can change your perspective on what is possible. I heard an interview recently with the musician Parker Millsap, another Oklahoman who’s work I just love. He recalled a day when his guitar teacher told him that he had to cancel his lessons for a while because he was going on the road with a band. And Millsap was so surprised that someone could just do that for a career. In some ways, music became your ticket out of the reality you knew, a reality that maybe you didn’t fit into that well. Music became a possibility to see a world that was larger than the world you were connected with.
Sam:
I definitely have always felt a general curiosity for seeing as much of the world as possible. Weirdly, I was kind of a globetrotting kid. I was a competitive powerlifter and toured around to competitions. I traveled to Toronto, London, and Austria by the time I was 11 or 12 and I remember thinking that there was just so much out there that I wanted to see and do. After that, Oklahoma just wasn’t enough for me. I think most artists are searching for some kind of home that doesn’t exist and this is part of the work, finding places and people that you connect with.
Jim:
I’m always envious of people who have had the opportunity to travel like that when they’re younger. I was a very local kid, my family wasn’t very adventurous. I think I was 28 when I went to Europe for the first time, despite having a masters degree in art history and having studied art from all over the world. Of course, as soon as I made that first trip it became incredibly addictive to see new and interesting places. You mentioned earlier that you write poetry. I am curious what came first, the poetry or the song writing?
Sam:
For me, writing poetry came first. I was writing before I even started playing instruments. I probably didn’t know it was poetry at the time, but I was constantly writing in my journal and rhyming some things and putting things that sounded good together. I also wrote a lot of stories. I really wanted to be a Brontë sister or like Jane Austen. I romanticized the idea of just being alone in a cabin, on an English moor and writing all day. I would buy blank notebooks at the local bookstore in Shawnee that had a portrait depicted on the front. I would pick the characters that I was most drawn to and write a novel about them. Of course, they were not really novel length and didn’t really have a narrative arc. They were mostly boring, but they were expansive and intense character studies. I would profile their name, favorite color, the names of their friends, etc. I have always been obsessed with biographical information about interesting people.
Jim:
How old were you when you were writing these?
Sam:
I think I probably started writing them between the ages of seven or eight and continued to do it until I started writing songs. I still have this weird impulse to ask people their mom’s name, where they were born, or what their parents do for a living. I think I am just really interested in how people end up the way that they are.
Jim :
I don’t want to over prescribe it, but this really reminds me of your wonderful song Bloomsday from your latest EP. The song takes some inspiration from James Joyce’s Ulysses where you explore the mundane events of a normal day and the possibilities that present themselves to us. I just love the line “And everybody’s wondering where their little light is.” So how old were you when you found your little light, when did you start playing music in front of other people? What was that like?
Sam:
I think I started when I was 18, so the summer after I got out of high school. I started going to open mic nights. I searched out the ones that I liked the best and had the right vibe and I started becoming a regular at some of those. There is a place in Oklahoma City called Picasso’s, it was called Galileo’s back then, and they had an open mic that was really healthy at the time. They had a good system and a group of good people that came to listen. If you attended it every week and you were good enough, the guy that ran it would give you a four song set. I got to know a lot of people in the local music scene there.
Jim:
It’s amazing to think how much things have changed from a guy named Gus making the decision of whether you’re going to get more time at an open mic to a series of algorithms that decide how many ears your music gets, in some ways it’s kind of frightening. Speaking of that, I can’t remember who said this, but a musician described a triangle of things necessary to make it in the music business. They said, you have to be really good at what you do, work hard, and get lucky. I already know this story, but could you please tell the story of Ramseur Records discovering your music. It is such a great story.
Sam:
I do want to expand on that a little though, because it’s not just that you have to be lucky once, you have to continue being lucky for the entirety of your career. Early on in my career I started doing some regional touring and booking my own shows at random places. I also recorded an EP and did a really homemade pressing of the record. I found some art by a woman at an art school in Rhode Island who I never met, but I just liked her art. I had her create a cover for me and I made about 500 CDs and sent them to record labels and booking agents. I probably wasn’t going about it in the most efficient way. Most folks in the industry would tell you not to send out CDs cold to record labels because they always end up in a giant pile of music that no one would listen to.
There was this record label out of North Carolina called Ramseur Records, they worked with the Avett Brothers and I liked them a lot so I sent them my EP. Of course it ended up in their pile of albums that no one had time to listen to because there were just too many of them. One day, Dolph Ramseur the founder of the label, was walking by his five or six year old son’s room and he heard some music. Dolph stuck his head in and asked what are you listening to? His kid then explained that he found this CD in the box in his dad’s office. I think he just picked it up because he liked the front cover, which is exactly how I used to find new music. It just appealed to him and he decided to put it in his CD player and that is how Dolph first heard my music. He then emailed me and we started working together and we released several records together.
Jim:
It’s a remarkable story, you couldn’t even make something like that up! I am curious, what inspires you?
Sam:
I used to answer that question by saying everything, which is actually quite true, but nature walking is something that really inspires me. It isn’t that I am seeking nature, but walking in nature gives my head the space and time to allow interesting ideas to pop into it. Also, one of my favorite things to do when I’m on tour is to go to art museums. I try to make the time to do that before hitting the road the morning after a show. I am really interested in how other people see the world around us and are able to express that through painting . Movies are also really inspiring to me. Often when I have a demo and I am trying to create arrangements and think about the production work for the song, I will go for a walk while listening to it and wait for a movie scene to pop into my head. Sometimes it’s a scene that already exists and sometimes it’s one that I’ve just made up. This can help inform the instruments I might use or the vibe of the song. I tend to think of music as a soundtrack.
Jim:
I think it is really interesting that you mentioned movies, because as a kid you wrote those long and detailed character studies. Now you are directing music videos and producing other artists’ work. Tell me more about your live performances and going on the road. I am curious, do you have a favorite venue, performance, people you like to be on the road with, or just a vibe from your career that you can reflect back on and use as inspiration, as maybe a reminder of why you do what you do?
Sam:
Murder by Death is one of my favorite bands to be on the road with just because I always have such good conversations with them. Often on tours you can be on the road with a band that you don’t know that well and it takes a while to become friendly with each other and hang out. I also really liked being on the road with William Elliott Whitmore. He’s a friend of mine and so fun and we have great conversations. His setup is similar to mine, we both generally play solo and we have a little more time to hang out together on tour.
Jim:
I love William Elliott Whitmore. His voice and his banjo playing are so wonderful and unique. In some ways it feels like he is from another century and it is so satisfying to listen to his music because you feel like he is transporting you through the tone of his voice.
Sam:
It’s not like he is playing a character either. That’s who he is. It is exactly who he is.
Jim:
That’s awesome, sorry I interrupted, I was so curious about him.
Sam:
I’ve played a lot of shows, I mean a lot of shows, so it’s kind of hard to answer the question about a favorite show. I played a show in Copenhagen at a place called Vega. It has two different venues, the big, thousand cap theater, which I played once when I opened for Neutral Milk Hotel. But then in the front part of the venue there is a smaller 200 cap space. It is such a beautiful architectural space, with hard wood features, but it is very warm and cozy at the same time.
I had never played Copenhagen before this show and I didn’t really know what to expect. Honestly I didn’t really know if people in Copenhagen knew who I was. I just showed up and it was sold out and people were sitting on the floor and really close to the stage. It had the intimacy of a house show, but there were 150 people there and they all seemed so ready to really listen, to be present and to have this moment together. It was a really intimate experience. It was just really special to me, it was one of those crazy nights where I thought to myself I can’t believe that I am getting to do this right now.
There are also some really impressive venues that just bowl you over. When I was on tour with First Aid Kit we played this place in Los Angeles called the Wiltern, an art theater with emerald green glass and beautiful designs, it is just gorgeous. I don’t remember any interactions with the crowd, but I do remember looking around and thinking how amazing it was that I got to project my voice into that beautiful space.
Jim:
What idea has been stuck in your head lately?
Sam:
I don’t know if this is an idea, but there is something that I’ve been doing every day. I don’t quite know where it’s going or what purpose it serves, but I feel like it is important for some reason. I have been making lists of 10 adjectives and then 10 nouns or I’ll do a list of 10 verbs and 10 nouns next to one another. I will then start to randomly match them up and try to write like a little poem based on the pairings. Most of the time I get nothing at all, but every once in a while I will get a weird word pairing that is just really cool together. I will then stick that idea in a pile that I can come back to later. I think the idea is that you always have the capacity to make something. It doesn’t have to be a big thing or a finished thing, but there are little sparks to create something that are always around us. You just have to put yourself out there. Rather than waiting for a lightning bolt idea to come to your head, you always have the tools to make something.