Interview: Sergie Loobkoff Of Samiam
Posted on October 6th, 2010 by Matthew
After endlessly touring through the 90s, releasing seven records, and going through the major label ringer, Samiam have become elder statesmen of the punk scene. The band’s story is similar to many bands from their era (see: Jawbox, Seaweed), but with less bands signing to majors these days, they have influenced a younger generation of musicians and may have helped paved the way for the current indie label dominance.
The band kinda-sorta broke up in 2000 but returned a few years later, playing shows, when they felt like it, in the States and abroad. They released Whatever’s Got You Down, in 2006 on Hopeless Records. Most recently, they released Orphan Works, a compilation of b-sides and outtakes from 1994-1998, on No Idea Records.
The band will be playing their first NYC show in a decade on October 13 at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The show is a gathering of old friends (with openers The Casting Out, i hate our freedom, and Vs. Antelope – all new bands with impressive resumes).
I had a chance to talk with guitarist Sergie Loobkoff about the glory days, having fun again on the road and the joy of working at your own pace.
How did Orphan Works come together?
It wasn’t our idea. We played at The Fest in Gainesville. We had a really cool show [but] it was a total disaster because our bass player didn’t come so we had to teach Derron Nuhfer (Less Than Jake) and Chad Darby (Chris Wollard & The Ship Thieves) how to play Samiam songs five hours before we went and played in front of a couple thousand people. It turned out well but I didn’t really have that much fun because it was so crazy. They both did a fantastic job. I could never learn that many songs in a few hours. Regardless, after the show, I reconnected with Var [Thelin], who owns No Idea Records, who I met on our first tour back in the 1800s. We sort of kept in touch a little bit. We put out a 7-inch when No Idea was actually a fanzine and not a label. They put out 7-inches every once in a while and we did a split with Jawbreaker. For the last fourteen years or so, every once in a while, I’d be in Europe and see some graffiti on the wall. He’d be on tour with some band like Small Brown Bike and he’d notice that we were playing three weeks later and he’d write like,” Hey Sergie, what’s happening?” When we played the Fest and I saw him, it was like, “we totally know each other but we haven’t been face to face in fifteen years.” But we talked that night and the next couple days about maybe recording a record. Which is kind of a big, hard ordeal with Samiam because we’re such a ragtag group of assholes. The more realistic thing was to put out our two 90s records that were on major labels, that were out of print for the last decade or so. We hired a lawyer to deal with that. We were talking and since [the idea of] making a new album fizzled a little bit and it’s obviously going to take a long time to deal with a major label to try and weasel your records back, [No Idea thought] “why don’t we put something out in the interim.” It was actually just my idea just to do outtakes and live things. There’s two songs from Clumsy that we recorded then but they never came out. I thought it would be kind of cool to limit the songs to songs from that era of Clumsy and You Are Freaking Me Out. When those [reissues] eventually came out, it would be a trio of records that documents that little time in history. It’s not going to sell a million copies. It’s not like “let’s try to squeeze some cash out of some dorks that buy everything.”
Read more after the jump.
