Sam Payne: The Interview

Sam Payne, a singer/songwriter, from Alpine, UT has a knack for words and music not to mention a ton of talent. When put together it becomes a musical journey worth taking. He has traveled across the U.S. performing his music that focuses in on his love for jazz and folk music. He has released "Railroad Blessing" and with the Sam Payne Project, "Coming Just to Go." In the next couple of weeks, we'll be checking out his CD's, but for now I had the chance to ask him a few questions about all sorts of random. As you are reading, check out his MySpace page where you can get to know his music a little bit better.

Interview:

Full given name:
Samuel Leland Payne. The "Leland" is the name of my late grandfather, who came up to central Utah from the Mexican colonies when Pancho Villa rode through. In the thirties, he found his way to California, and photographed cartoons for Walt Disney.

Hometown:
Alpine, Utah. My Dad escaped LA and came there in the early 1970s. People thought he was nuts, since there was no way on Earth a person could make a living in Utah as a folk singer. It cost him the relationship with his in-laws. But he sort of felt like the town musician was the community medicine man. LA was no community, and it was too bonkers to make good medicine. Also, he wanted to raise a family.

MAC or PC?
Mac mackity mac-mac. This is anecdotal for sure, but I broke down and bought a PC once (primarily for my kids). Junk-ola. Maybe I just got a lemon.

Favorite post-show meal:
I've put down a lot of cereal and milk in the wee hours. There's also a 7-eleven between the city and my house that makes a mean hot dog. Tragically, where I live the places for good eats are usually closed by the time the show's wrapped, and Denny's doesn't draw me like it used to.

Pre-show rituals:
I find a minute in a place by myself, and I pray. Also, if it's a multi-band show or a festival or something like that, I like to spend the time before our set out in the audience. I'm partly interested in seeing the other bands, but I'm much more interested in being out among the people who are going to hear us. I check them out, looking for a good sense of what brand of energy we're up against. If it were a play or something, I'd be dedicated to maintaining the illusion of character by staying backstage before curtain, but as a musician I'm just me. No illusion to maintain. I like to hang with the audience as much as I can.

Worst onstage mishap:
A couple of knocked-over mic stands. No big. My fiddle player occasionally reminds me that my fly is down, but it's usually before we go onstage. A couple of gigs ago, a pair of teenage girls asked if they could come up on stage and scat. I waved them up, but when I handed the mic over to one of them, she made a noise like Daryl Hannah makes in "Splash." I used to have a good relationship with that sound guy. I've now got a strict no-handing-the-mic-to-pubescent-would-be-scatters rule. At least when I'm playing through Joe Anderson's stuff.

Special skills:
I can suck a soda bottle onto my lips, and then slide it onto my cheek and up around my temple and into the center of my forehead without losing the suction, and then hang it there. Also, I worked at a Childrens Museum for a few years, and can make animal hats out of poster-board like no other.

Last book you read:
I'm always halfway through a dozen books. Thought Life of Pi was a kick. I keep coming back to My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Chick Corea is quick to credit Dianetics, in his liner notes. To each his own, I guess. My own is "Asher Lev." Any artist in any idiom oughtta own that book.

Favorite magazine:
I don't make much time to read magazines, but National Geographic keeps coming to my house, and my mom always has the latest "Utne Reader" in the bathroom.

Must-see TV show:
I watch a lot of DVD's but I haven't had TV reception in my house for about a decade. Happiest decade of my life. iTunes is killin' me though. A guy at work got me hooked on "LOST." Wrong show to get hooked on--it's been pretty inane for a long time. But I'm hooked. What can you do? I'm also a closet "Office" downloader. And, of course, I've got a soft spot for "The Simpsons"--hands-down the most literate show on TV (says the guy who hasn't had TV in the last decade).

Last good movie you saw:
I liked the Will Ferrell film "Stranger than Fiction" a lot. I saw it in the middle of seeing a lot of Albert Brooks films on DVD ("Defending Your Life," "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," etc.), and it seemed somehow of a piece with those movies. Actually, the last good movie I saw was on DVD--an old one: "Lawrence of Arabia." The girl at the video rental place handed me a coupon. Truth is, I'm not very often in the mood to see the greatest movies ever made (usually I wind up watching "Waking Ned Devine" again), but since it was free, I rented "Lawrence" (which I had never seen) and also "Casablanca" (which I still haven't seen). I had already seen "Citizen Kane."

Favorite place you have lived:
That old Alpine house I grew up in. You never get your childhood house back. Ours was a little pioneer-era (1870s) stucco affair on a big yard, butted up against fields (and beyond that, mountains). My three brothers and I shared an attic bedroom. My mom sold that house a decade ago, and it was like losing a relative. We've since been back (my sis got married in the front yard), to find that the home's current owner has restored it with such care that it's like a resurrection. We only met that guy once before he bought the place, but a decade later he still refers to the bedrooms by our names.

First concert ever saw:
As a kid, seeing shows would have been an extravagance. I saw my first concert in college. Ellis Marsalis at Berkley. I went with my grandparents, and they wanted to leave halfway through. I was riveted, though. Jazz was still a novelty for me then.

If you could go back in time and catch any concert, what would it be?
Keith Jarret's Koln concert (I can't remember how to type an oumlat, or for that matter how to spell oumlat). I've gone back and forth on that album, and I'd like to see the performance in its cultural context. That's another album that seeped into my childhood on LP, played mostly by my folks in the living room when we were going to sleep upstairs.

Current band/musician (besides yourself) you have been recommending to your friends:
I've been telling people about Brandi Carlile lately. She's got this cracking-her-voice-by-out-singing her range trick that I think she plays once too often, and as a songwriter she's sort of a poor-man's Patty Griffin, but her voice at its best (which is almost all the time) is this grand, huge thing that I'm positively crazy for, and the way she puts songs together has deep roots--she seems to know where she's from in a way that I wish I did. Also she plays a guitar that sounds a lot like the Taylor 710 I just bought from a guy who had loved it through and through. I've listened to her self-titled disc over and over.

Most played song on your iPod:
Maybe "Long Ride Home" by Patty Griffin. That album ("1,000 Kisses") just kills me. Or maybe "Wartime Prayers" by Paul Simon, from "Surprise" (an album I read described as "achingly rational"). There's a local artist, a friend of mine, named Drew Williams, who wrote a tune called "Coming Home" about the passing of his grandfather, and recorded it with "The Tilby-Williams band." Gentle little thing. I listen to that a lot too.

Favorite song:
"Grapefruit Moon" by Tom Waits. It's on the "Closing Time" album, which was from that early, early period that Waits has distanced himself from. But it's a terrific song. Maybe it's the baggage--I used to catch my dad listening to that tune late at night on LP in our little place in Utah.

Best vacation spot:
My wife and I spent a couple of days on a 40-acre horse ranch outside of Portland with a terrific couple that had us out there for some house concerts. Spring was just coming on. Lovely beyond description. May they have us back a thousand times.

Worst job you ever had:
I made sandwiches at Subway for a couple of months in high school. There were all sorts of reasons to fire me (I was disorganized, I sometimes screwed up orders, I asked for a lot of days off), but when they did fire me they told me that it was because I whistled while I worked.

Favorite venue to play in:
There's a lovely little Amphitheater in American Fork, Utah. Shabby sound system, no backstage to speak of, big flat concrete stage, not kept up worth anything. It was, I think, the result of a depression-era work project. It's within shooting distance of a dozen or so nice new high schools with slick gear and engineered spaces. But the amphitheater is where the local communities have been gathering for years around town plays, founders-day celebrations and so forth. It was the place I first stepped on stage (as third-Von-Trapp-kid-from-the

-left in the town production of "The Sound of Music") I'll play there any time I'm asked.