Jazzy, folky, funky, soulful, classic rock-infused NYC indie pop outfit Sammy Rae & The Friends have been phriends of PHILTHY MAG for some time now. I first met Sammy Rae in summer/fall of 2021, prior to a sold-out date at World Café Live; checked in with The Friends’ band leader just months later, ahead of a sold-out show at TLA; and last spoke to Sammy about six months later, before they headlined The Fillmore for the very first time. Since then, they played a rainy, festival-stealing set at the 2023 edition of WXPN’s XPoNential Music Fest, a packed Valentine’s Day return to The Fillmore, and a WXPN Free At Noon mini-concert just after the release of their long-awaited debut full-length, Something For Everybody, last September. And this Saturday, 4/12, Sammy Rae & The Friends kick off the final leg of their Something For Everybody tour with their third stop at The Fillmore. Last week, just prior to the band dropping their Audiotree Live Session, I got a chance to catch up with Sammy Rae via Zoom and chat about the band’s history, what it’s like to finally have a full-length, and what she thinks about the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.
*Interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Izzy Cihak: We chatted a lot between 2021 and 2022, but this is the first time since you dropped your debut full-length, Something For Everybody, last fall. What have been some of the highlights of touring and promoting the album since then?
Sammy Rae: It’s always been a career goal to drop a full-length album and create a whole world around it. It was so involved and wonderful, from recording, to cover art, to five fully conceptualized music videos, to the themed shoots, and the release. It was so much art all at the same time and it was so beautiful. We’re so proud of what we have. I think it’s a very cohesive — lovely to listen to, lovely to look at — thing. And the response has been wonderful. We’ve been able to take it all over Europe and the US. Our longest tour to date was seven weeks of US, and then three weeks of Europe, and now two more weeks of US are coming up.
It’s been amazing. In the US specifically, a highlight has been being able to tour the album. Our audience has been waiting for an album forever. They love The Good Life stuff, they love the Let’s Throw a Party Stuff, they love the singles (It’s a good problem to have.), but they kept us on the road for so long that it took us six years to sit down and finally make an album. So, it was just lovely to go out and see how the audience has grown over time and know that a lot of the audience was getting ahold of something that they’d been waiting for and rooting for for so long.
Izzy: On that note, I know that you’re super close with your fans, so I’m curious if you’ve either heard or witnessed any fan reactions to the new material that you found especially touching or memorable?
Sammy: What a beautiful thought… This album has attracted some fans on the fringes of the age demographic we’re used to seeing. Our audience has been primarily college-age and our age, thirty and so. But, over the course of the years, we have done things to try to include folks on the outer realms of both sides of that age demographic. For instance, we started to notice more and more people that were like 13, 14, 15 coming to the shows, and that’s really nice; it feels like they’re looking up to us. It’s been wonderful to be able to create an environment that also makes them feel welcome. It’s been a challenge, but it’s what we stand for, to make everyone feel like they’re invited.
And, because 15-year-olds don’t often go to concerts alone, they bring their parents, who are older than us. So, to bridge that gap, we don’t cover any music that was released after 1978… We did an ABBA song but, other than that, we cover songs that are all pre-1980. And it creates this cool bridge where the 50-year-olds, 55-year-olds, and 60-year-olds are like, “This was my prom song!” and their kids are like, “I love this song! My favorite band covers it!” So, that’s a bridge for them and a thank you to the older generation.
We even get more and more kids with every tour, like kids-kids. Our music video for “Thieves” stars seven little versions of The Friends. That was a beautiful casting and filming process. We’ve even gone to a couple of shows where there were teeny, tiny’s – seven and eight-year-olds – dressed like their favorite Little Friend. It’s been amazing to watch the older generation and also the much younger generation latch on to this album the way the college demographic has been latching on for so long.
Izzy: Last November you released an official music video for “Call-Ya-Back,” which I guess makes it your most recent single, so I’m curious how that particular track came about?
Sammy: It’s a fun story, and we actually tell it onstage. For this album, there’s a story behind every one of these songs, and some of them we’ve had for a while and some of them came about just as the album was getting ready to come out… We do a lot of, “Alright, Sam’s got an idea, let’s load up the Sprinter and go rent an Airbnb in the middle of the woods and camp out for five days, and give birth to this song.” It’s very focused, we’re in the zone.
For “Call-Ya-Back,” we were all in the car in the middle of nowhere, going to a festival. C-Bass, our drummer, got a phone call that he couldn’t really be bothered with, and he was like “You already know I’ll call you back, you already know!” And he started to sing this little melody, and we’re in the backseat and our instruments were in the trunk, so we started using our bodies and our voices and our water bottles, and harmonizing and stuff. We hit record as a voice memo on the iPhone and what we ended up with was the basis for “Call-Ya-Back.”
When it came time to do it in the studio, we wanted to pay homage to the way it was written, very on-the-fly, super casual. So, it was one or two takes, it wasn’t a lot of going back and hitting stuff. It was our hands, our voices, and very few instruments. There’s a teeny touch of guitar for like ten seconds. Otherwise, there’s never many chordal instruments. It came about in a car going to the middle of nowhere and we tried to honor that in the way that we put it on the record.
Izzy: As you were saying, the first full-length was a long time in the works, and you’d developed quite a fanbase for a band that doesn’t even have an LP out yet. So, how do you feel like the album compares to the previous EPs and all the singles that came out along the way?
Sammy: I think it’s a perfect picture of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we wanna go. We’ve always done a little bit of everything and a little something for everybody. We’ve put out the folk song, the hard rock song, the sad song, the hope ballads… which are abounding in our discography. When we had the body of work for the album — the songs that had been written, the songs that were almost finished — it just made sense, as a turning point moment, to go like, “This is the album.” We’re not gonna spend energy on, “It’s not pop enough, it’s not rock enough, what is it, how do we define it?” For I while I was sort of, as a self-consciousness thing, like, “I’m not quite sure what sort of band this is.” There’s a lot of stuff going on, but that’s great. There was a turning point, when we looked at what was in front of us for the album, and were like, “This is a superpower.” Because, to the testament you just gave, we’ve never been able to put a name to it. We’ve never gone into a genre, we’ve never kept ourselves in a box, we’ve never limited ourselves to one or two styles of music, but we have built this unbelievable grassroots community from the ground up, even without a full-length LP.
If somebody loves “Thieves” and they go to the record looking for more “Thieves,” but all they get is “I Get It Now” and “Call-Ya-Back,” it’s like, if they don’t wanna listen to every song ten times, and they wanna listen to one song ten times, and the rest of it they listen to once, they’re fine. There’s something on that record for everybody. I’m not trying to be kitschy here [laughs]. The whole thing may not be your cup of tea, but there is something on that record for everybody, and chances are one of those tunes in gonna be your cup of tea. And all we can hope is that that tune, if you dig it enough, encourages you to stick around and maybe go deeper and see more of what we’re about. That’s kind of the whole idea of this thing, all different sorts of people who like all different sorts of stuff can find something for them in our live space and in our discography.
Izzy: I was promoting the upcoming show on the most recent edition of my new radio show, Philthy Radio on Y-Not Radio, and played “Good Life” as part of a block of classics from artists I love that are coming through town. So, I’m curious how you feel about The Good Life EP now, almost 8 years later?
Sammy: Right? Here’s the thing, The Good Life EP is to what we owe everything we have. I don’t have any qualms with it, with the exception that it was session players. And they were wonderful, talented, gifted session players who contributed so much and were so involved. I’m eternally grateful. But I always, always wanted to be a band leader. I always wanted to form a band. And there came a point where the songs were ready, and I just wanted to get in the studio and make them, and I was calling the people that I knew. I was just getting started, so I didn’t have this wealth of community to say, “We really vibe! Be in my band long term! Let’s do this longevity thing! I want you to be part of The Friends!”
So, while that music is fantastic, post-The Good Life the band that you know and love started to solidify, and our signature sound started to emerge… The two saxophones, James Quinlan, who is just an undeniable bassist; C-Bass Chiriboga, who is one of the most versatile percussionists I’ve ever met in my life; Will Leet on guitar, who is just rippin’ the face off that thing and bringing the rock element; and Debbie Tjong, who is just a Jacqueline of all Trades. Post-Good Life is when that lineup, the lineup that you’ve seen touring, solidified.
So, The Good Life songs are me, and the arrangements are some in thanks to the session players and some in thanks to me, but me having never been in a studio before. It was my first attempt at it. I’ve always been a great songwriter. It was my first attempt at getting the music out there and I was throwing things at the wall to see what would stick. Sometimes people are, “I can’t listen to the early stuff… Why did I do this? Why did I do that?” I don’t go to that place, because I know why I did those things. I recorded the way I did, I sang the way I did, we arranged what we did, the form was what it was, because we didn’t know any better.
But as our bassist, James Quinlan, says, “The recording is kind of like a snapshot of where the band was and where the song was at that time.” So, if you fall in love with the “Talk It Up” record version and it’s your favorite song, you listen to it enough, you don’t wanna hear the record version when you come to see us live anyway… We play “Talk It Up” live and it’s as informed by having six, seven years of having it on a stage, and seeing how the audience reacts, and seeing how we play off of one and other with it. So, those songs will always be close to our heart, and they evolve as time goes on.
Do I wanna sing “The Feeling” every night? Well, not really, because I was 22 and there’s no reason for the melody [sings the melody]. I didn’t know that was gonna be difficult to sing jumping up and down in place in front of 5,000 people [laughs], because I didn’t have that experience. But does Bruce Springsteen wanna play “Born To Run” at every show? Maybe not, but he’s going to, and it’s meant different things to him at every chapter in his career. That’s how I feel about these songs. They mean something so different to us now, but I hold them in this regard of gratitude, because everything that we have and everything that we’ve been able to build, and all the dreams we have in the future, they all come from what those songs did for us.
Izzy: That’s the perfect segue to my next question… The very first time we talked, in August of 2021, the day Charlie Watts died… which I still actually feel bad about outing that to you…
Sammy: Yes! Oh my god! That’s right!
Izzy: Whenever someone mentions you, I’m like, “I actually have kind of a funny, cute, morbid story…” But it was great, because you had the whole story about using “Miss You” for your makeup and stuff…
Sammy: I forgot about that!
Izzy: Yeah! It’s all on the website and now on the radio show! But, at the time, you talked about how you didn’t wanna be a solo artist and how you liked the idea of being a part of a band so much, and you talked about how much you learned from bands like The Beatles and The E Street Band, and also The Stones and Fleetwood Mac. So, not to detract from your own music, but I’m curious if there are any recent bands that you’ve found to be especially impressive or inspiring in a similar manner?
Sammy: I am inspired by bands consisting of killing musicians who play well together and just ooze family dynamic. That’s what’s amazing to me. There are so many bands that are so fantastically talented and so successful and are able to tour and their music does so well, but the touring community is much smaller than you would expect and you’re kind of in everybody’s business in a loving kind of way, and you’d be amazed how many of these really successful bands just can’t get down with each other; it doesn’t have that kind of family dynamic.
Offstage, that element is a huge part of what’s so inspiring to me when looking at a band, because that’s what leads to longevity. That’s what builds that legacy act, that understanding: “We care about this enough and we want to do it for the next forty years, which means we need to care about each other enough to live together for the next forty years.” I see that in Lake Street Dive, who are wonderful people who care deeply about each other. I see that in a huge way in Vulfpeck, who have become some of our best friends in the industry. I see that in Melt and Couch. I see that in Lawrence, who is a family band. I see that in Ripe.
I love looking at a band and you can tell that they are doing it because they love it, they love each other, and they admire one and other. Even at the bare minimum, when I’m exhausted to my core and I can’t imagine having to go onstage, when I’m totally out of body, there’s this little flicker of excitement that’s like, “I’m gonna go be onstage with Will Leet and James Quinlan and Debbie Tjong! Debbie’s gonna do something at the end of whatever song, she does it differently every time, and I can’t wait to hear it!” I’m enamored with my band. I’m astounded by their talent. When you can see that in a band – they love each other, they love the music, and they are each other’s biggest fans – that’s half of what makes a great band, to me.
Izzy: You’re kicking off the upcoming run in Philadelphia, and you’ve played the city a lot in recent years…
Sammy: Love Philly! Love Philly!
Izzy: Do you have any favorite memories of the city or thoughts about the city or its fans in general?
Sammy: Philly, Man [laughs]. First of all, it’s always wonderful to play The Fillmore, because as soon as you walk into the backstage area, you’re greeted with a larger-than-life cardboard cutout of Gritty, which is great, and it’s always great to see him! There’s laundry at The Fillmore! That’s great as well! It’s a wonderful venue, it’s such a great artist experience, it’s a wonderful place to be an audience member, it’s a wonderful place to be onstage.
I’m gonna say this with so much love, and I hope that nobody from Philly gets upset… Actually, I hope that nobody from New Jersey gets upset… I think New York, New Jersey, and Philly are kinda like three sisters. New York is very Older Sister, sure of who she is and she takes a lot of risks, kind of gritty, and she’s out there. New Jersey maybe Middle-Child, maybe a little upset that they’re not New York. Maybe New Jersey tries to be New York a little bit. Philly doesn’t try to be anybody but Philly. Philly doesn’t wanna be New York, Philly doesn’t wanna be New Jersey, Philly doesn’t wanna be Boston! Philly is Philly. It’s in Pennsylvania and Philly’s just so sure of itself. I’ve never met anybody from Philly who wouldn’t die for Philly. There’s such a sense of, “We are who we are, we love who we are, us against the world,” but in a Brotherly Love sort of way that is so unique. And I love it. I love Philadelphia. It’s crazy, though! You gotta go to the right bar after the show, because Philly goes nuts after midnight, especially if there’s sports going on. So, Philly just loves itself, and as somebody whose mission in life is like, “Be your truest self,” I love Philly. The way that Philly loves Philly, I love. I’m inspired!
Izzy: What can be expected of your live show this time around? Whenever we’ve talked, you’ve mentioned wanting to give each tour its own unique vibe and aesthetic.
Sammy: Totally! This is the third of three legs of the Something For Everybody tour. We’re gonna play every song on the album, and we’re gonna fit in the hits and the things we wanna play in-between. The thing that’s cool about this tour is that we were coming up with the theme — because we try to turn every show into like a full, rounded experience: dress this way, this is what’s gonna be onstage… as Philly saw with CAMP and “Follow Me Like the Moon.” — and thinking about that, Something For Everybody, in and of itself, was everything; it didn’t have a theme.
So, we ended up going with different textures from the cover of the record. We’re having Satin night, Pearls night, Flashes of Light (which is like disco ball and sequin), Tulle night (We’re not bringin’ back tulle. We had a great time for seven weeks, but it was too hot [laughs].), and I’m forgetting one… But each city has a different theme, and you’ll see things onstage like larger-than-life pearls, we’re all in pearls, the audience is in pearls… It’s cool to give a little bit of a prompt, but not something as specific as CAMP, where we’re doing the same thing every night. It does keep it a little fresh night-to-night for us. If you’ve seen any of the rollout of the album, you know it’s blue. It’s very blue. I’m in a blue era here, Izzy. Everything is blue…
Izzy: You know, I appreciate you saying that, though, because I am colorblind!
Sammy: Are you really? This is all blue [holding up water bottle, phone, and keychain]! It’s all the same blue [laughs].
Izzy: When I was a little kid, I couldn’t tell the difference in blue and purple crayons other than that purple was a longer word.
Sammy: [Laughing hysterically] That’s really cute! That’s very, very, very sweet!
Izzy: Despite just releasing your full-length, you do have a big catalogue. How is it that you come upon what older tracks you’re gonna bring into any given setlist, especially when you are touring an album and you wanna get most, if not all, of that out there?
Sammy: Totally! It was a requirement for us that we played every song on the record. We’re never gonna be on this album tour again and there are a couple tunes on the album that are sort of B-side-y. “Call-Ya-Back” is sort of B-Side-y. There’s “State Song,” which — in the hugely ornate, produced manner of this record – was me playing guitar and singing into a single area mic on a porch outside on an August night, with all the crickets and everything. There are sort of B-sides and deep cuts that we didn’t expect would get another moment in the sun. So, it was given for us that we had to play everything on the record.
And then you sort of fit in what else there is around that. For instance, we haven’t been doing “Denim Jacket,” even though everybody loves that song. But “Cool-Doug, At Night,” which is on the album, is a flat-out disco, and we’ve only got so many slots. If we’ve got 13 album songs, and there’s only so many other songs we can fit in, we don’t need two flat-out discos. If we’re playing “I Get It Now,” which is the ballad and love song of the album, we don’t also need “Living Room Floor,” even though that’s one of our best songs, another piano-driven ballad. So, it’s kind of a challenge to figure out #1 what does the audience wanna hear, #2 what do we wanna play, and #3 what exists well in the tracklist that we do have and need to prioritize?
Izzy: The last time we talked was in September/October of 2022, and you told me that you and the band were never really “home” for more than like four days at a time, so I’m curious if it still feels like that these days? I see you have some non-playing time coming up, although that doesn’t mean that you’re not jet-setting around the country doing other things. Do you still feel like that?
Sammy: I feel like the road is in our bones, in our blood, in our lifestyle now. This sounds so HomeGoods, so cheesy, but home is not always where all your stuff is. I’m at home when I’m with the band. I can go to play a show in any random town, and I know that the people that show up that night are gonna be friends-fans, people that I’m used to.
Of course, I love my apartment in Brooklyn, but that sort of, “I am so desperate to have all of my things around me and be stationary,” you lose over the years. It doesn’t mean you lose a sense of home, and I love my apartment, but as the years go by, every tour, you pack lighter, but it’s still too much. Like, you pack a big suitcase, and you go through the whole tour for six weeks, and you’re like, “I had four shirts, three pairs of pants, two sweatshirts, a jacket, and three pairs of shoes, and that got me through two months of my life; I didn’t even think about anything else.” And then you come home, and you’re like, “Remind me of why I own all this stuff. I don’t need any of this stuff.” I had everything I needed in a suitcase for two months for three different climates across the country.
So, as time goes on, we all come home to our apartments and empty them out a little bit. I think our claws are sunk less deeply into this idea of, “I need to be here.” You get better at coming home, grounding, turning around, going back out, flights don’t take as much out of you, stuff like that. It’s our job, and I never take for granted a day in my life that I’m either doing the thing that I love more than anything somewhere totally random and exciting, or I’m in my place, at my house, and nobody’s my boss. I love that. That’s great.
A year like this, kind of strategically, is slow. We’ve been at it for so long, as you said. You have to build some demand, you have to sit still a little bit, or else people go, “Oh, The Friends come around every three months! I’m not gonna go get a ticket, they’ll be back.” So, by design, we’re slowing down a little bit this year, but it doesn’t mean we’re not working. And, I will say nothing, but we are cookin’, and the latter half of 2025 is going to be full of a lot of surprises and a lot of stuff you haven’t seen from us before.
*Get your tickets here.
