other 10 Neurotics interviews Ritual #42 Italy | February 2010 | The Agony & the Ecstasy interview conducted Sunday Nov 8th 2009 | ritual-magazine.com Q: Black Tape For A Blue Girl show a new line up, which includes artists such as Brian Viglione, Athan Maroulis, Laurie Reade and Nicki Jaine: what's the story behind this new 'incarnation' of the band? Sam: When I was working on 10 Neurotics, I presented the songs to my vocalists, and they told me that they weren't comfortable singing them. Q: You mean that you had a mutiny!? Sam: (laughs) In a sense, yes. But I am the captain, so I kept the ship! 10 Neurotics is like a fresh beginning for me, stylistically, so it seems natural to have a new band to bring it into existence. Let me step back a moment: You see, after Halo Star, I got divorced. I went through a lot of thinking and analyzing. I decided I did not want to write the tradition "break-up album." A song like "For you will burn your wings upon the sun" (off Remnants of a Deeper Purity) captured that experience, and I did not want to dwell on the past and glorify the past. I wanted to move on. Working on this album was a process of opening up, growing comfortable with myself, and growing as a songwriter; writing personal lyrics that felt authentic and honest. I enlisted a new band to bring my words to life, and capture what I desired. Q: And talking about the the new singers, they bring a new way of interpreting lyrics, a new powerful, dramatic intensity. What do you think they reveal, by their interpretation? Has they shown some unsuspected shades of meaning? Sam: I think that the new songs are much more theatrical than what I have written in the past, you can feel they are born from real people. That is what Laurie & Athan & Nicki bring to my songs. They embody the passion of the characters I created in a realistic manner. The singers become the characters and bring out all of their dimensions. I love heraing what they have done!  Q: In particular, the presence of Brian has not only brought the first drum kit in 20 years of activity: I've read that he has taken an active role in creating songs? what more can you tell us about his role? Brian:  It was great to work with Sam and have his vision for the mood of the songs be so strong.  I mainly tried to be an encouraging influence with Sam and get him to do things he said he would normally feel too cautious to try. I'd try to find the points in the mix or the instrumentation where it moved Sam out of his comfort zone and pushed it just a notch further, because I believed in the songs and that they needed to be cut loose. And Sam in turn acted as a good balance on me so that the songs didn't get away from feeling sincere to him. It was sometimes a pretty amusing scene while mixing. I'd be saying "More distortion! Louder drums! Creepier vocals!" and Sam's eyes would widen and he'd say "I don't know, are you sure?!"  "The Pleasure and The Pain" and "Sailor Boy" are two fine of examples of our interplay as a creative team, in particular, I think.  10 Neurotics: you started from the sound of an acoustic guitar, rather than electronic sounds. What?s the basis of this more traditional approach to composing? How did it happen? Sam: This is my 10th album, I wanted to do things differently from the past. I decided to challenge myself to write on the guitar rather than the electronics. It is interesting that the result of "doing something different" was to approach songwriting in a more traditional way. But why not? For somebody who usually works outside the normal methods, following the traditional way is the challenge. Brian mentioned "Sailor Boy," which is a great example. I wrote all the bits, and Brian heard it and made suggestions on how to organize the chord changes, and repeat the "Bah Bah" part to make it a chorus. In the past, I did nott have the songwriting skills to re-arrange a song, nor would I have gravitated toward a more traditional structure. But this made the song stronger and I love the way it flows. "Sailor Boy" is one of the most powerful songs in the live set! Q: What do you think has this approach put in evidence that wasn't present in your previous albums? Sam: For me, I think it brings THE SONG to the forefront. In the past, the songs were often hidden in a cloud of synth textures. On 10 Neurotics the songs stand out and are not lost in the soundscape. I like that.  Q: I've read that in the title of your new album there's a pun about the words erotic/neurotic? Sam: In a sense, Yes. There is a line that runs from the erotic to the neurotic; an action can fall anywhere on that line. From something sexy and fun, to something unhealthy and detrimental. Q: So, the topics you explore by these brand new songs are passion, obsession, sex, fetish?why are those topics so fascinating? Why are they so important to you? Sam: All of our lives have some sort of fetishism involved; that is part of what we humans do. We take things and fetishize them and bring them into our sexual lives. I documented people and experiences, but they are really reflections on the power dynamics of all our relationships. Q: Then, in the end the message seems to be (at least, that's my opinion): sex, fetish, obsession, are simply words we may better identify or traduce with 'love?'.  Sam: Yes, certainly. We all are in pursuit of love. We all want to be loved. And even in the world I am exploring, it is a search for love that is at the basis of their experience. Q:  'Purity' is the recurring word at the end of "The Perfect Pervert"? What's the meaning of this song? Sam: For me, the couple who exchange the lyrics in "The Perfect Pervert" are the true lovers on the album. They are talking about what gets them off in their sex-play. What they are doing is called consentual non-consent, she asks him to push her beyond her limits. It's really edge-play, as they are talking about physical and emotional pain, as well as restrictive bondage. They are sharing a high level of trust and connection, to play this way.  When he says "You need to be broken down, you need to be rebuilt, you need to be purified," he is talking about the idea that through her submission, she is reaching a transient state that gets her outside of her body and outside of her head, to go beyond this world through the bliss she reaches in sub-space. From that bliss she can return with clarity and a truer understanding of herself. This is the breaking down which he speaks of; the purity that the lovers are striving for, that they are exchanging with each other. The title "The Perfect Pervert" was a little word-play my friend made, about a woman I was seeing. I loved the phrase, because we are all looking for perfection, for the perfect lover that satisfies our desires and our needs. A person who helps us break through our barriers and brings us where we strive to go. For some of us, it might be a perfect pervert that personifies that perfect person.  Q: "Militarhymne" and "Love song" are two very interesting compositions, the shortest of the album, but also two songs among the most intense and strong: what do they talk about? How were they conceived? Sam: "Love Song" began with me strumming the guitar, I liked the 'live' feeling of the part, the way it could be at home on a 70's Fleetwood Mac or Pink Floyd album. But I wanted to take that light feeling and contrast it with really dark lyrics, yet give them a breezy delivery. I wrote a really pretty melody for Laurie to sing, though the song is about the character's self-loathing; she is one of those people who never get anywhere, because all of their own issues hold them back.  "Militarhymne" was written as a transition between the two Nicki Jaine-sung songs; I imagined it as the 'national anthem' for the fascist state described in "In Dystopia." Q: "In Dystopia" shows a quite menacing, obscure and claustrophobic atmosphere? what is this song about? Which particular dystopic universe is it talking about? Sam: At one point in the process of writing the lyrics, the specific dystopian culture was clear, but as the song evolved, that was removed to make it more open-ended. I have a friend who has an obsession with police states, where nothing is left to chance. It is all controlled. I would dare say that it is a fetish for her, something that evolved out of her childhood when things were out-of-control. She longs for the Dear Leader watching her every move, making sure she stays in line, and he is approving of her and her actions. I took this idea and worked on the fetishization of that situation, where the woman imagines herself a prisoner, desiring the control of her interrogator, her life literally in his hand, giving him the power to end it at his whim. It has one of my favorite lines in the album, "I no longer can deny my desire." Q: It does seem to be a truth for many of the characters, yes? Sam: I think that so many people surpress their true desire, because it is contradictory to what society says is "acceptable." So these people are uncovering and revealing their desires. Q: I know that the front cover of the US edition of the album is different from the European one, which is more 'outrageous': it made me think about the early years of glam, when, while in the Uk Bowie was re-discussing sex roles in rock and roll, acting as Marlene Dietrich and giving head to a guitar, in the Usa, was more accepted seeing Alice Cooper stabbing dolls or sending them to the electric chair? So, still in 2009 America has got problems in seeing a naked girl on a CD cover? Sam: The American cover actually has MORE nudity than the European cover, the difference is the context of the nudity. The American cover is still and pained, while the European cover could be considered "in action" -- the woman is in a submissive position, and we have to assume that the viewer is in the dominant position. I will agree with you that America is much more comfortable with violence than with sex. And there has been some negative consequences to the nude cover, as far as stores not featuring the album, etc. But that's the price of making interesting art, I suppose. Q: Talking again about your new line up (and, of course, about Brian, who has been very into the idea of rock as performing art and as exchange between the artist and the audience)?how has your way of performing evolved through this new line up? What can we expect from your new tour? Sam: We just got back from a weekend of shows in New England. A friend who saw us in Providence Rhode Island said that the live show brings the songs to life in a very dramatic way. The characters become more real, when you see a singer delivering the lines. We draw songs from 10 Neurotics and Halo Star, with only one older song, "Remnants of a Deeper Purity."  Q: Decadence and elegance: what can you tell us about "The Pleasure in The Pain" video? And about the song? Sam: I got my college degree in TV/Film yet "The Pleasure in the Pain" is the first video I have made in 20 years. It stars Athan and Narcissa, she is involved in the New York fetish scene. I appear in it, as well. The song is about a guy who enjoyed being humiliated in the D/s relationship he lost; and he knows that if the woman returns, he would immediately go back into it. What people have commented about is that the guy is the submissive, the vulnerable one. He is the one who gives up the power, and yet wants it to return. Like we were saying earlier, relationships are about power dynamics, and control. And people who are involved in the D/s scene are still seeking love, and trust, and connection. This was a chance to create a visual representation of that sort of dynamic, and I really had a great time creating this video and expressing my ideas in a visual form. Search it out on Youtube. Q: 'Sailor Boy' seems to have a lot of wonderful imagery in it, too. Sam: Yeah, thanks. That could be a nice video to do next. In a way it's the exact opposite of 'Pleasure' because the male character is the one who appears to be in charge. But in all of these situations, it's fluid. Contrary to logic, the submissive is usually the one who is in charge, it is their boundaries that define the situation.  Q: So, how has the press been. I saw that Mick Mercer had some terrible things to say. Sam: (laughs) Oh, Mick. He's a wonderful old puppy dog. He grabs the bone, and he shakes it all around, but it's not because he is angry, it's because he LOVES the bone. His comments were kind of "Oh, S&M, we've seen that all before!" And it's true that this isn't the first album to deal with these sorts of things. Where I think 10 Neurotics os different from a lot of what has come before is that it is looking at the relationship-dynamic side of it, rather from the "Oh, look at the freaky things these people do!" angle. I am not writing for titillation. It is about the people and their actions. It uses the dynamic of the scene to talk about what transpires between people. Q: Ok, so you don't care about the negative review. Sam: Ah, Mick wasn't being negative. But actually, no, I do not really care if I get a negative review. You gotta laugh about that sort of stuff. Many years ago, I took it personally. But I am pleased with my art, and I know what it is worth. So I cannot ruin my day because somebody else did not get it. Q: That's a positive thing to say. Sam: Strangely, yes. I am a very positive guy. I am so happy with my album, and the people I get to work with to express my art. And that the album is out in Europe on Trisol, and I get to do an interview with you in Italy, and hopefully we will be over there soon for some shows. Life is beautiful. Thanks. See you soon.