{"id":997,"date":"2014-03-03T10:34:21","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T15:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=997"},"modified":"2014-03-03T12:09:46","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T17:09:46","slug":"death-of-samantha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/death-of-samantha\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of Samantha"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Death<\/a><\/p>\n

In a sense, Death of Samantha is the quintessential Cleveland band. After self-releasing its first single in 1985, the band, which originally consisted of lead vocalist\/guitarist John Petkovic, lead guitarist Doug Gillard, bassist David James, and drummer Steve-O, began generating significant buzz in underground rock circles. In 1986, the group released its debut LP, Strungout on Jargon<\/i>, on Homestead Records, the label that also put out early efforts by bands like Sonic Youth, Swans, Big Black, and Dinosaur Jr. Much like the quartet\u2019s Cleveland forefathers (Electric Eels, Pere Ubu, Dead Boys, et. al) Death of Samantha had quickly developed a unique, almost unclassifiable sound by combining elements of punk, classic rock, and glam with an infectious, nervous energy and a keen sense for the dramatic.<\/p>\n

Two more albums and an EP followed, but just as the band seemed poised to take another step forward amid the alternative rock explosion of the early \u201990s, the members decided to pull the plug and break up. Petkovic and Gillard soon regrouped as Cobra Verde and also spent some time as members of Guided By Voices, but the legend of Death of Samantha continued to grow amongst those in the know over the subsequent decades.<\/p>\n

In December 2011, the band reunited almost as abruptly as they had broken up. They\u2019ve performed occasional shows since then, and this week they will release a new album, If Memory Serves Us Well<\/i>, on St. Valentine Records, a banner under which many important Cleveland records of the \u201980s were released. While the band\u2019s recent live performances have proven that Death of Samantha maintains its strong sense of showmanship\u2014for instance, Steve-O was brought to the stage in a casket on the occasion of their first reunion show\u2014If Memory Serves Us Well<\/i>, which was recorded live in-studio in 2011 and features the band performing material from its first incarnation, proves that it still delivers the goods sonically. Rather than simply going through the motions of playing through old favorites, the record finds the band breathing new life into its material and serves as an important reminder of just how good these guys sound together.<\/p>\n

To mark the occasion of the album\u2019s release, I recently caught up with Petkovic on the phone to discuss the reunion, the record, and Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Ever since I first started listening to Death of Samantha, way back when I was in high school in Northeastern Ohio in the \u201990s, I was always under the impression that it was one band that would never reunite. What were the circumstances behind you guys getting back together?<\/b><\/p>\n

John Petkovic:<\/b> What would give you that impression?<\/p>\n

I guess people always just said, \u201cThey\u2019ll never get together. They\u2019re all busy doing other stuff.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> That\u2019s the thing. Everyone was doing other things. I never even thought about getting back together, ever. Not once. It never crossed my mind.<\/p>\n

The funny thing is, it\u2019s kind of like a pack of cigarettes brought everyone back together. I went down for a pack of cigarettes, and I happened to find that the bass player was working on the same street. I was walking toward the gas station, and this guy turned around, and it\u2019s David James. I hadn\u2019t seen the guy in years, and he\u2019s kind of like the glue that kept the whole thing together the first time around. He really helped to get the band going, and the same thing this time around. It\u2019s almost like, I might have run into him later that afternoon or the next day, you never can tell, but if I wouldn\u2019t have run into him then we never would\u2019ve even got back together. No way.<\/p>\n

How has playing with the band now differed from when you were originally together?<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> I think before I always wanted to make sure that things were right. If someone was having a problem, it was like, \u201cOh here, I\u2019ll step in.\u201d I think in my mind I saw it as maybe being diplomatic. I think it might have been overbearing in some ways, and so this time, if something happens, I\u2019m like, \u201cFuck it, I don\u2019t really need to be involved.\u201d And then someone else will step up. Doug will step up and do something, or Dave James, who is fucking amazing. He\u2019s a great musician, and he\u2019s hard working. So I\u2019ve pulled back a lot now. Obviously, I\u2019m involved, but I\u2019ve kind of pulled back.<\/p>\n

I was just telling this to a friend of mine. It\u2019s kind of like I\u2019ve got this one cat, who just likes to come to me. He won\u2019t come to anyone else. People always try to chase the cat and try to play with it, and I go, \u201cYou have to understand, you\u2019ll never catch that cat. You must let the cat come to you.\u201d And that\u2019s kind of the same attitude I have now with this band. Whereas in the past, I would try to catch the cat, now I just let it happen. And if it doesn\u2019t happen, fine. The fact that I\u2019d be willing to walk away from it, maybe will mean someone else says, \u201cHey, we don\u2019t want to stop doing this.\u201d I don\u2019t mean to say that in a negative way or anything. I just think if it doesn\u2019t happen, no big deal. So in that regard, it\u2019s a lot easier now. It\u2019s not even \u201cwith time, with age\u201d\u2014it has nothing to do with that. I think it\u2019s more of a different, maybe, mental attitude more than anything else.<\/p>\n

Had you practiced much together before recording If Memory Serves Us Well<\/i>?<\/b><\/p>\n

We practiced a handful of times, maybe three times, before that. The thing is, what I liked about it was we just happened to be in a studio. It was like, \u201cOkay, well why don\u2019t we just record this thing?\u201d There\u2019s a live recording that Rocket from the Tombs did in their practice spot that became kind of their legendary first album\u2014it never really was an album, it later came out\u2014it essentially was a live recording. I kind of like that it\u2019s a live recording. I don\u2019t really like the way live records sound, but I like live bands, you know what I mean? The problem that people oftentimes have is they record a show live, and they think, \u201cWe\u2019re going to capture this band live.\u201d It never sounds that good to me. Live records kind of suck. But I was thinking, here you\u2019ve got a live band, but it\u2019s in the studio. It was the third practice within a week. Fuck, in the past, it\u2019d take us like 12 months to do two or three practices. Death of Samantha was a band that never practiced. We might as well record this one on the third practice, since we\u2019re probably never going to practice again.<\/p>\n

I feel like there\u2019s a kind of freshness to the record where it doesn\u2019t sound like it\u2019s a road-tested live band, but at the same time people aren\u2019t messing up left and right. It\u2019s kind of that right moment, early on, where it\u2019s fresh and not slick yet.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s the thing. A lot of times, bands record these live records, but they don\u2019t even sound like a live band. It\u2019s like, what did you guys do? Did you guys run it through some effects to fix everything? With us, the band was always kind of a loose band. In the past, I\u2019d find it frustrating, now I kind of embrace it. At times, I think we\u2019re kind of free jazz\u2013sounding. We\u2019ve got this jammy thing going. There was this private show we did about three months ago. We had a song go on for about 12 minutes, but it sounded fucking killer. I like the Velvet Underground, and that\u2019s kind of how they did it a lot of times. This band doesn\u2019t sound like the Velvet Underground, but on some of these recordings, the one time you hear a song, it\u2019s like 12 minutes, and the next time you hear it, it\u2019s like five minutes, and the next time it\u2019s like 16 minutes. We try to have dynamics and try to have some sort of improvisational quality about it like that. Live, I think I see that more now than we ever did. I think we were just like a band of weirdos back then.<\/p>\n

What was the impetus for putting this out at this point?<\/b><\/p>\n

We wanted to put this record out because we liked how it sounded. We were like, \u201cYou know what? We wish people could hear these songs this way instead of just the other way.\u201d I\u2019m not saying we\u2019re looking for expertise or trying to be real professional. Obviously, you can tell it\u2019s still kind of a ragged band. I enjoy how this stuff sounds more than I like how the other stuff sounds, the old stuff. Not because I\u2019m trying to hide that. There\u2019s kind of a vibe where I play off Doug instead of competing with him. I don\u2019t think there are really any competitive aspects to this, whereas in the past I think there might have been.<\/p>\n

We were thinking, \u201cWe really enjoy how this sounds.\u201d And we\u2019re also like, \u201cFuck it. Why don\u2019t we play with one another?\u201d Doug had talked to me and was like, \u201cWe need to do a project. We\u2019ll call it something else. We don\u2019t even have to call it Death of Samantha or anything.\u201d And then Dave James goes, \u201cHey, we should do a project together.\u201d It was like fuck it. We\u2019ll do a band and call it Death of Samantha. Do those songs, and maybe we\u2019ll start recording a new record. That\u2019s how we\u2019re thinking, so this summer we\u2019re going to start recording a new album. It\u2019s not a long-term strategy. The band never had a long-term strategy. It\u2019s just a kind just like, \u201cHey, let\u2019s do this. This is fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

As someone who could probably be classified as a Cleveland rock nerd, I found it pretty cool to see the St. Valentine\u2019s logo on If Memory Serves Us Well<\/i>. Do you have any idea what the last record released on the label was?<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> Dude, no. You know what the thing is that\u2019s funny, though? There actually was a St. Valentine record number 30. I think the catalog number went up to 38. I didn\u2019t know 38 records came out on that label so we picked number 30, but someone else had number 30 way back. Still, no one\u2019s going to tell the difference. It was so funny because I had no idea there had been that many records. It\u2019s kind of hard to keep track.<\/p>\n

Maybe we\u2019ll put out the next record on the same label, too. We actually started putting out records ourselves. We put out our first two singles on our own. Then it was like, labels were really into it. People thought the band was really cool and everything. I kind of always enjoyed just doing it ourselves, you know? That\u2019s kind of what we did, and I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to do it any other way.<\/p>\n

What was the process for picking out which songs you\u2019ve played at the reunion shows?<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> We thought those that we remembered first are probably the ones we enjoyed playing the most. That\u2019s kind of our attitude. We\u2019re trying to keep things in a very simple, pure way, and we just rattled off a bunch of songs. Like this one song, \u201cTurquoise Hand,\u201d is on that record. We played it live maybe two, three times. Dave James was like, \u201cHey, you know, I always thought that was a good song. We should do that one. We should play it live. We never played it the first time.\u201d So then we just ended up doing it.<\/p>\n

To me, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any money to be made out of a Death of Samantha reunion. But with all of these reunions, it seems like everyone\u2019s got to have a story, like \u201cOh, we get along now,\u201d or \u201cOh, we had some trauma.\u201d It just seems too packaged for me. It\u2019s just a bunch of bullshit, you know? Most of them, it\u2019s for money, which is fine. I don\u2019t have a problem with that, but they\u2019re making it out like it\u2019s all this other stuff. It\u2019s disingenuous. With us, I happened to run into a guy walking down the street. I was just having a cigarette. And Doug Gillard was in town like three days before that. I happened to see him when he was playing. And I saw the drummer about a week before I saw Doug. So in 10 days I saw all three of these guys. I\u2019m not one of these fate types, but I was like, well fuck it, if you run into everyone from Death of Samantha, you might as well do Death of Samantha.<\/p>\n

The first practice, I was like, \u201cDo I really want to do this? This is going to be such a fucking hassle. Who wants to do this? I have a bunch of other new stuff to do.\u201d But the fact is that I\u2019m doing it is because I actually enjoy it and it\u2019s fun. I really just like playing with these people, you know?<\/p>\n

You mentioned that you don\u2019t like to go back to listen to the old stuff. We\u2019re kind of in an age where everything gets reissued, and then gets reissued again every five or ten years. Is there any chance that you might reissue any of the old Death of Samantha stuff?<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> People think I\u2019m fucking crazy. You know what I did? When the band broke up, I bought the back catalog back and took it out of print, so it\u2019d never be reissued.<\/p>\n

Really?<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> Yeah, fuckin\u2019 nuts. But I was like, \u201cYou know what? Fucking Franz Kafka didn\u2019t want his shit coming out. Why should I want mine?\u201d I\u2019m serious. I have delusions of Franz Kafka every once in a while. I was like, \u201cFuck that, it\u2019s better to not have it out.\u201d It\u2019d be cool to eliminate any trace of its existence, for whatever reason. It\u2019s nuts, I know. But we all really enjoy this version, so like, let\u2019s get this out, and then we can go back and get the other stuff out. But I never had any plans of that ever coming out, to tell you the truth.<\/p>\n

It was fun getting into you guys and trying to find all your records. It was only a couple of years ago that I was able to track down everything.<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> It\u2019s like people have constantly been asking where they can get our records. I have to tell them, \u201cNowhere. I\u2019m sorry. I don\u2019t want you to have those records, alright? Do you understand?\u201d It\u2019s a weird quirk. I never listen to any record that has ever been out. I don\u2019t want to hear that, I just want to work on the next one. Steve-O always thought that I didn\u2019t care or I didn\u2019t enjoy it. And I\u2019d go, \u201cOh, I totally enjoy it, but I just don\u2019t want to look at yesterday\u2019s newspapers.\u201d You know what I mean? It\u2019s not my thing. I don\u2019t know why. I always want to focus on the project that I\u2019m working on. So the fact that I am doing this, someone who took the back catalog out of commission and never listened to those fucking records ever and never thought about reissuing, the fact that I ended up wanting to do something, that just shows you that I really do think that it\u2019s a fun band. I never would have done it otherwise. It\u2019s fun and really musically enjoyable.<\/p>\n

In some way, if you look at this period of the \u201980s and \u201990\u2019s music, I would take this record right now and I\u2019d put it up against any of those fucking records that came out then. I think that some of the Death of Samantha stuff aged better than a lot of those bands that were cool, all these people who had all the taste. Unfortunately, we\u2019ve created this kind of culture where there\u2019s this \u201cindie rock\u201d and \u201calternative rock.\u201d It\u2019s like, you have a fucking idiot who, when he\u2019s not live tweeting the Super Bowl, is jumping on this bandwagon and jumping on that bandwagon. Well, guess what? That band was not that good. But that person that was so excited about that band has just moved on to the next band because it\u2019s all about self-identity. It\u2019s not about music.<\/p>\n

As pretentious as this sounds, I\u2019m an aesthete. I listen to music for the internal aspects, the essence of the thing, not because a bunch of people listen to some shit or they don\u2019t listen to some shit. I don\u2019t give a fuck. You have a lot of people that seem to jump on these bandwagons, and I look back, and a lot of bandwagons ended up in the ditch. I think Death of Samantha is a band that was timeless. The music is timeless. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s traditional. I think it\u2019s just timeless. It has hooks. It\u2019s a weird take on rock music. A lot of these bands that were trying to do all these things and trying to be so ambitious, they were exposed as being frauds. A lot of these bands that came up in that era, in the \u201980s and \u201990s, they were as much of a cash grab as anything else, but they created the term \u201calternative rock\u201d to make it seem like somehow they were better than just \u201crock.\u201d We never fucking used any of that shit.<\/p>\n

You know when grunge came around, you know what we called that? Tarzan rock. Because there were all these shirtless dudes strutting around up there being reluctant rock stars. Well, if you\u2019re a reluctant rock star, why don\u2019t you put a fucking shirt on? It\u2019s funny, right? It\u2019s just so funny, all these fucking Tarzan rockers. They had the \u201closer\u201d t-shirts and all this shit, but those guys were just angling for a check. That\u2019s careerist. If you ask me, a lot of these bands are just fucking careerists, as much as anybody else. We never had any of that thing. We never had any fucking baggage about being \u201calternative\u201d or being this or being that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like, \u201cKeep Austin weird.\u201d What the fuck does that mean? If you keep something weird, then it\u2019s not weird, right? Smokey the Bear says prevent forest fires. Okay, I understand that: prevent forest fires. You don\u2019t want forests to catch on fire. But \u201ckeep it weird?\u201d What the fuck does that mean? Cleveland is just fucking weird. You could actually say, \u201cCleveland: If only it was weird. Instead, it\u2019s psychotic.\u201d But that\u2019s just how it is. A lot of that indie music started at that time when people were trying to be different. I never had any of those tendencies. I never could give a fuck. Death of Samantha, I can tell you, had a pure love for music, without any agenda, without anything else. We weren\u2019t going to be the latest band of the month. We didn\u2019t fucking have any clich\u00e9s. We just were. We actually were DIY. We came up with it without any outside forces. It wasn\u2019t just some marketing strategy or some attitude. We just wanted to play music.<\/p>\n

You did mention it, and there\u2019s been some talk about you guys recording new material in the future. Is that something imminent or farther down the road?<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> We have some demos and stuff. I\u2019d say in the summertime we\u2019re going to start. Some of the demos, people might think sound like a different band, but we don\u2019t want to be trying to write to spec, like here\u2019s what we can do, and here\u2019s what we can\u2019t do. I know a lot of these reunions are kind of like that. I know firsthand. Some of these reunions, it\u2019s like they really don\u2019t deviate that far because you don\u2019t want to \u201cdeviate from the brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to put the product out there.<\/b><\/p>\n

JP:<\/b> Actually, without sounding like I\u2019m communist, if there\u2019s money to be made, count me out. I don\u2019t give a fuck. I don\u2019t care. I just don\u2019t fucking care about money. I never have any, but you know what? Fuck that. Give me a purring cat and a guitar. I could hang out under a bridge. Of course, you\u2019ve got to feed the damn cat or it\u2019s gnawing on your leg.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d go anywhere to chase an idea. I\u2019d go down to fucking hell and snatch it from the jaws of the devil and then stab him in the heart, just so I could take it back to earth. It sounds like bravado, but it\u2019s kind of true. I\u2019m obsessed with music, you know? You think I\u2019m crazy, but it\u2019s true. I just really love music. Me, Dave, Doug, and Steve-O all love music. All of these other fucking people are going to fall like flies. They\u2019re going to fall like flies when the reunion tours are done and they move on to whatever the fuck they\u2019re going to be doing. We\u2019re just doing this thing and not even thinking about it, you know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a sense, Death of Samantha is the quintessential Cleveland band. After self-releasing its first single in 1985, the band, which originally consisted of lead vocalist\/guitarist John Petkovic, lead guitarist Doug Gillard, bassist David James, and drummer Steve-O, began generating significant buzz in underground rock circles. In 1986, the group released its debut LP, Strungout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[421,422],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-death-of-samantha","tag-john-petkovic"],"yoast_head":"\nDeath of Samantha - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/death-of-samantha\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Death of Samantha - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a sense, Death of Samantha is the quintessential Cleveland band. 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