other 10 Neurotics interviews Third interview: Sonic Seducer Germany | October 2009 This is the full August 24th interview in English. Q: Do the changes in your music reflect changes in your personal life? Sam: In a sense, yes. After 2004's Halo Star, I got divorced, I started spending half the week with my son, and in 2005 I worked with Nicki in Revue Noir. Definitely a big part of the five year gap between albums was because of the feelings after the divorce. It was good to take a break, to focus, and get a better idea of who I am. The last two albums were primarily fictional, while this album is very direct and personal. Rather than create a character, I went to real experience as the source of the album. Q: It does seem that you have re-invented the sound, as well. What led to the tremendous change in the musical direction of the band? Sam: I think that playing in Revue Noir made me a better musician and pushed me out of the security of the way I work in Black Tape For A Blue Girl. So coming back to my own writing, I found I was better able to get my ideas into songs; and that is what they are this time: songs, instead of soundscapes. It is like I found the song within the clouds of my past work. Q: Why have you chosen to re-invite drums und bass into your music? Sam: These are rock songs. Drums are what give rock songs power and energy. The songs existed before the drums, but once Brian came in he really brought the dynamics to a new level. Q: Have you been able to record everything on this album just like you wanted it to sound? Sam: Yes, 10 Neurotics comes very close to sounding the way I imagined it in my head. Q: What was the most difficult step to make the new album happen? Sam: Honestly, it was not physical so much as psychological. I had to rediscover my feeling of being an artist. I felt very stuck and it took removing the personal layers, to come back to who I was. I had a lot of reasons to NOT make art. A few years ago, a friend asked, "What are the things you want to do, and why aren't you doing them?" Making music was the biggest thing I was not doing, even though creativity is what I most define myself by. Now, I again feel that making art is "fun." Q: Can you still relate to the stuff you created at the beginning of your musical career with Blacktape? Sam: A friend and I listened to "Remnants of a deeper purity" a few nights ago and I quite liked it. It is a part of me, almost like the way one remembers things from childhood, but not in specific detail, more like a hazy experience you know YOU had. That is the way it felt. It was nice, it was comfortable, but it did not feel like who I am today. I guess I can relate to it as the creator, and as it being part of me, but I am a different person now. Q: The stories you tell in the new songs are quite explicit. How did you come up with the ideas for these lyrics? Sam: I started writing about my experiences. People who I met or dated. The songs come from real life, from real experiences. The songs are first person expressions of people's erotic and neurotic desires. Q: So, these neurotics are all real! Sam: Indeed, this is reality. Q: And which one of these Neurotics is you? Maybe one of them? Sam: Maybe many of them (laughs). I am definitely in the album at many points. Q: While writing the lyrics did you do some kind of self censorship? Like: "No, that's too strong, I can't actually have this in my music?" Sam: I think the way to make art is to try ideas out and then decide if they work, rather than censor the idea before it is expressed. There were definitely things I tried out that were too strong, but that was not what I wanted, anyway. I did not want to be extreme or sensational. To me, that would be too easy. I was looking for ways to tell the stories and yet be a bit subtle about it. Some songs went through many revisions, before I really found the story I wanted to tell. These lyrics are more honest and raw than what I have written in the past. I like that, because it is an album for people mature enough to hear songs about these experiences. Q: Did your band really quit during this album? Sam: Maybe it was not as dramatic as that sounds, but yes, that is basically what happened. My previous singers did not feel comfortable singing the songs I had written; that gave me an opportunity to make 10 Neurotics a new beginning. So it all worked out nicely. Q: You know a lot of other musicians. How did you choose the participants for 10 Neurotics? Sam: The new singers are Athan Maroulis (ex-Spahn Ranch), Laurie Reade (ex-Attrition) and Nicki Jaine. There are so many different thoughts that go into finding a new band. Part of it is how you get along with the people, because you might be spending a lot of time together. Another part is how talented they are. And another part is their stage presence. As I wrote these songs, I visualized how I could see them on stage, and I found singers that dramatically give my characters life. You can hear it on the recording, how theatrical they sound. The other band member is Brian Viglione. I met him through a friend and when I asked him if he would play drums on 10 Neurotics, he was very excited by the demos and joined. Brian brought so many great idea to the album; he played guitar in places, and bass, and even the piano on "Sailor Boy." His enthusiasm is very entwined in how I hear this album. I discovered somebody with just as much passion for these songs as me! I really enjoy that. Q: The new songs all tell stories, do you care, if the listeners are interested in the background or just love the music? Sam: Well, it is fine if they enjoy the music and the melodies and the singing, and are not paying attention to what is being said. But I hope they are interested in the stories I am telling, because that is a very important part of the album, for me. It is not so necessary that they want to know MORE about the background, about the real people. I can keep that part private. Q: With all your experience in the music business aren't you yet fed up with all the crap going on? Sam: Crap in the music business? Really!?! (laughs) No, I don't really care about it. It is your choice how to deal with things. There are going to be people who love drama and making things shitty. I try to get those people out of my life. But when they do their stuff, I chose to be entertained by it, laugh at it, rather than get sucked into it. I have the things I need to get done "at work" and then I go home and I am a daddy. I can chose to be sucked into the bullshit or I can avoid it and leave it at the door when I walk home. It is much better to ignore drama whenever possible. Q: Sexuality and fetishes are very common themes in songs of the dark underground scene, why are these topics featured in the new songs? If I would like to do easy criticism I have just to point out: "Sex sells!" Sam: After 23 years of this band, which is worse: to be obscure, or to sell records? I would think being obscure! So if selling is a byproduct of writing these lyrics, than I certainly am fine with that (laughs). Honestly, I think that sexuality and fetishes are the undercurrent of our lives; everybody has their own particular fetish. I did not put it into my art to sell, I actually thought the opposite: that people would be afraid of lyrics that deals with these topics. I put it in there because it is a part of my life. Why deny it? Q: What is your favorite lyric on the album? Sam: Oh, that's hard. I like the line "I no longer can deny my desire." I like "Was I blocking the universe's intention, fearing what happens if I entered that dimension?" I like "At least I won't be a fatass when I meet you in Hell." (laughs). Q: What is this song "Love of the Father" all about. Sam: That song was born in something a friend of my son said. They were six at the time and the boy said, "I hate god because they tell me he loves me." And that really struck me. Wow! Why would he think that? I started from there and wrote a song about a boy who is abused, yet still searches for love from the abuser, his father. And he mixes that up with the love of God the father. I have been getting great responses from people on this one, because it speaks to their own unresolved / disturbed relationships with their parents. I love how Athan sang this one, because he really gets to the vulnerability and hurt of the boy. Q: Yeah, the song has an element, like Bowie in the early 70s. Sam: Thanks for noticing, that is definitely something I was happy to discover in the song. It is the album closer and the chords are powerful and the drums crash in and it all comes together and pushes to an emotional conclusion. "How could I please him anyway?" This is something we all have to come to terms with in our lives. Are we pleasing ourselves, or trying to please other people? Are we searching for a dynamic in our life that is a replication of things that happened to us as children? Or are we living our lives authentically and doing the things that we want to do? Such as finding the lovers that are right for us, rather than comfortable, or a repeat of the past. Q: But is it possible to live authentically, as you say? Doesn't reality get in the way? Sam: I think you can live any life you want. You have to uncover what it is that you want, what you are capable of achieving, and then do it. "Curious, yet ashamed" is a song about that. About coming to terms with what you desire, and then doing it. Q: In that song you say you are searching for "the perfect pervert, inquiries taken within." Sam: Oh, yeah! If we stop and be honest, we are looking for somebody who tweaks our own personal eroticism and desire. Who is that perfect someone? And what are the criteria for you? Q: And you, Sam? Sam: Do I dance around this, or do I answer truthfully? Q: So, you dance? Sam: No, I would rather be truthful. The album covers a wide range of erotic fetishes that I am attracted to. As a friend says, "That's hot, why not?" Q: Ok. So why is the cafe in Zurich so rotten in "Rotten Zurich Cafe?" Sam: It is funny, because everyone in the band has a different interpretation of why it is rotten. I thought it was rotten, because it is the cafe in which the character's mother used to have drunken alcoholic rages. Nicki sings the song with an appropriate distant destructiveness. I wanted her to not even be aware of how angry and crazed she comes across. That is something I worked on in the lyrics, to not have any self-awareness. In the stories, the characters are just being themselves. Doing their thing, and it is us as the observer who sees them for what they are. I wrote that song last Christmas Eve, I had read that the name of the Spiritual Front album was going to be Rotten Roman Casino. It was twirling in my head, so I changed it to my own rotten location, Zurich where my mom was born. I am surprised that my song is coming out first; it was intended to be in homage to Simone, my hero. Q: What is coming up next for Black Tape?? What are your plans for this year? Sam: We are playing shows for 10 Neurotics, that is fun. I hope to start writing new songs towards the end of the year. I am really excited to go to Romania in December to see Spiritual Front and Rome and Ordo Equilibrio perform. That will be amazing! 2009 is a great year. Thanks for the interview. Fans can visit us at myspace.com/blacktapeforabluegirl