Sammy Rae & The Friends Are Bringing Fun To The Forefront

“When’s the last time that you had 4,000 adults in the room, and somebody whipped out a bubble gun?”

Sammy Rae, frontwoman of the seven-person NYC-based musical ensemble Sammy Rae & The Friends, asks this with glee.

“Everybody loves bubbles, but unless you work with kids you don’t see bubbles very often, so suddenly when the entire space you’re in is full of bubbles, or when somebody is hula hooping on stage in front of you, it’s fun.”

This is Sammy Rae’s ideology for every Sammy Rae & The Friends show, and with the band about to head out on a 30 date tour that runs from October 1st through November 17th, the entire country should be prepared for healthy dose of good times.

“It all comes down to just embracing the child mind, and seeing how that informs your creativity.”

I caught up with Sammy Rae to find out more about her inner child that inspires her fun, as well as her old soul that influences her music, and what she loves to see when she looks out into the crowd.

Kick things off by telling everyone what the writing process is like with such a large band. Do you jump start things with lyrics, or is it a wholly collaborative effort? 

I always jump start things with the lyrics. I’m the only lyrical contributor in the project, so typically how stuff starts is I will write the lyrics, and the bulk of the chords, and the melody. From there it’s usually collaborative. Everybody’s offering – “Why don’t we do this chord instead of that chord,” “Why don’t we try this groove instead of that groove,” “Why don’t we add this hit there” – so it’s usually collaborative in the arrangement process.

How often are you legitimately surprised by something a band member comes up with, where you’re like, “I didn’t even think of that for this, but that is freakin’ awesome”? 

Oh my God, every single minute of my life.

I feel, personally, that I work with the most talented musicians in New York City, and I’m very grateful to have them all on board. We are an enormously talented group as a group, but everybody in this project also plays with other projects, and is just as incredible in those projects.

It’s just amazing, because we’ve kind of become this chicken before the egg thing, where when I’m writing, I’m not just writing, “Oh, this is the groove I was thinking,” I’m thinking, “What’s the groove that C-Bass Chiriboga (drums) plays better than anybody?” I’m not just saying, “Oh let’s write chord lines,” I’m writing chord lines for Max Zooi (tenor saxophone/synths), and Kellon Reese (alto saxophone). Having played with them for so long kind of informs everything from the very beginning, but I’m consistently surprised.

For almost every single song somebody’s shown up with something that’s dramatically changed the entire course of the song, and it’s exactly what it needed, so I’m consistently impressed by them.

It’s cool to watch us all, as we grow together as a group, and learn from each other, we’re teaching each other things all the time, because we’re all very different musicians. It’s also nice to be just growing, in general, next to each other. We played a bunch of folk festivals, and bluegrass festivals this summer, and that definitely informs my writing process a little bit, so as time goes on it’s nice to re-meet each other where we all are.

You have some old school elements in your music. Do you consider yourself an old soul in any way? 

Oh yeah, 100%.

I try to stay up on what’s going on in the music industry where I am, as I’m a part of it right now, in this era, but I hold the belief that the best music ever made was recorded between 1972 and 1979, and that’s a lot of what I listen to. It just feels right.

I fell in love with songwriting when I was young. I was listening to a lot of classic rock, disco, and soul stuff that came out in the late ‘70s. A lot of that music is a big band sound – there’s lots of horns, everybody’s playing as hard as they can. That’s what always inspired me. So I’m always thinking of myself as an old soul. I’m always like, “Guys, let’s do this thing, there’s this live record, the E Street Band did this performance in 1974 in London, let’s listen to this,” and they’re just like,”What do you want? What are the changes you want?” and I’m like, “No, you have to listen to this show!” So I very much think I’m an old soul, and I’m proud of that.

On the flip side of that, I read that you also like to let your inner child out, specifically while on stage. What have you found to be some of the best aspects of doing this? 

I’m a huge believer in embracing the child mind, and I think it just opens up pathways for creativity. I think it keeps you young at heart.

I’m a big proponent of adult play, which sounds really weird, but basically what that means to me is if kids can run around, and jump up and down because they got new shoes, and they want to see how the shoes work (so can adults).

Kids want to jump rope, kids want to blow bubbles. I bring bubble guns on stage, and we’re doing a lot of funny dance moves. The biggest thing is just trying to be as unafraid of ourselves as possible, being as unabashedly authentic as we can. The hope is that gives people watching us permission to do the same thing.

I’m not going on stage trying to nail the tightest, dopest choreography. I want to move how the music moves me, and I might look silly doing it, but that’s me being authentically me, and that’s what kids do, they just try stuff until something works.

Do we lose the true ability to have fun as we get older? 

I think that depends on what you do for a living, because I’ve never had so much fun in my life. It’s been the best summer of my life, it’s been the best year of my life, and it seems to always be getting better.

I have a lot of fun, because I do the thing that I love for a living, and I’m very much blessed to say that, and be able to sustain this career. I know that’s not the situation with everybody.

I guess that’s my fear, my fear is – as we get older do we take ourselves so seriously that we forget to leave space for fun? I hope not. I’m not trying to do that, but on the whole, maybe that’s what it is.

You’re going to be hitting the road for a 30 date fall tour. What are some of the quirks of touring with such a big band? 

Well, there’s plenty of quirks.

We’re fortunate enough to be in a tour bus for this run, so it’s not in and out of hotels, but everybody lives differently, everybody has different morning routines, but we’ve learned each other over the years.

An example is I cannot be spoken to until I’ve had coffee, so when I wake up in the morning if somebody wants to talk to me about anything before my coffee, at this point they just know not to do it, and if they do talk to me, and they get some sort of snippy answer, we’ve lived together for so long they know that’s not me, they give me the benefit of the doubt, and then they wait until coffee happens, and then they ask me again.

Some of us are night owls, some of us like to get to bed early, so it’s definitely been quirky just figuring out how to live together in the same space, and over the course of time, but I think we’ve done a wonderful job. I’m very proud of us.

The word quirk is interesting, something that held us up in the beginning … not necessarily held us up, but it costs a lot less money, and it’s a lot more logistically simple to travel with a quartet than it is with an eight piece band. So it was a huge undertaking with this many people from the very beginning.

I use the phrase “held us back” kind of tentatively, (but) I think a lot of bands that were doing the sort of numbers that we were in our first year might have had an easier time putting everybody in a car, and going to play out of their city. That’s something that we couldn’t do right away. We were getting all this, “Come to Philly,” “Come to Boston,” and we just couldn’t afford it yet. I’m not renting a Corolla, I have to rent a 12 passenger van.

So it certainly has its logistical complications being so large, but again we’re very blessed where we are now to be able to afford to travel, and do it comfortably. It took a while, but we’re here now, and we’re very grateful for that.

Have you ever accidentally left a band member in a city, and had to go back for them? 

Oh my God, no! That’s funny, though.

I have this thing thing, I learned it from my aunt, I don’t think I’ve ever told her this, but she’s got three kids, and when they were all very young I would watch her at a family function kind of look over the crowd and go, “One, two, three. OK, great,” and make sure they were all there. So I’m like mama duck going, One, two, three, four, five, six, and me makes seven. OK, great, we’re all here.”

Finally, when you’re on stage, and look out into the crowd, what’s your absolute favorite thing to see? 

People singing the lyrics.

If you’re coming to a show, and you’re singing every word to the chorus, I know that you’re playing that song in your house, and you’re jammin’ to it, and those words carried you through something, so I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for you taking that time to spend time with me even when I wasn’t there. So that’s nice.

Additionally, we do a lot to make our audience feel welcomed in the space, and they can be whoever they want. Again, this goes back to the adult play, and the child mind thing, it’s like show up as you are, this is a safe space for you, make some friends, but be yourself. So it’s nice to look out and see how people dress, because some people (have) some wacky outfits, and then that’s pushed my boundaries. I’m like oh, I thought I was authentically myself, (but) look at this person living their best damned life. It’s nice to see that, as well.

For more Sammy Rae & The Friends, and to pick up tickets to see them when they’re in your area, check out sammyrae.com.