A small band from a small town finds a big name for themselves in the music world and is finally bringing it on home. Derby, Connecticut’s own grassroots-based indie/jazz group Sammy Rae and The Friends is playing their first-ever hometown show this Saturday, February 10th at College Street Music Hall in New Haven, Connecticut. With under 600k listeners on Spotify Sammy Rae and The Friends began their worldwide CAMP tour in September, and has had numerous sold-out shows with only more to come in the spring leg of the tour. Before watching her bring down the house Saturday, I got a chance to ask her some questions about what coming home really means and how Connecticut has helped her grow into herself and her music.
- How does it feel to be back playing in your hometown with a nearly sold-out show?
“It’s actually, literally a dream coming true. I’m from the valley. Kids from the valley don’t become international touring bandleaders. I just didn’t see that when I was a kid. I don’t even remember seeing people grow up and ever *leave* the valley. Small town life is a beautiful way of life, I felt so safe and seen as a kid. But you can’t do something like what I wanted to do in the valley. So I left and got a little famous. Still trying to get a mention in the Derby, CT Wikipedia page though”.
- What is your favorite memory of growing up in Connecticut?
“The woods. I grew up running around Osbornedale State Park. There’s something cool about knowing that that is state land. However old I get, whenever I visit home, it will always be the same. It will never get developed. I grew up fishing in the reservoirs around the valley, and walking my dog around Fountain Lake in Ansonia. As an adult I always retreat to the woods to do my creating. I miss getting lost in the woods, now that I spend my year either in Brooklyn or in an airport.
And the pizza. Duh”.
- How did the Connecticut music scene help you grow into the artist you are?
“Oh my god, can we hear it for The Space, please? When I was a teen The Space in Hamden was the only place you could play a show under 18. I played my first gig there, I was 15. I also went to college to studio audio engineering my freshman year at University of New Haven, and the folk-punk scene around there (like 2012-2014) was a lot of fun to be a part of. There was some basement venue some seniors kept passing down to underclassmen, I think it was in Milford. Can’t remember. What I can remember, is smoking weed for one of the first times in that basement listening to my dorm mates punk-scream about their CT hometowns over a banjo going DI into some garbage PA. Thank you, DIY UNH venues for the memories. And the permanent hearing damage”.
- Who are you most excited to see in the crowd in New Haven?
“Theres quite a few extended family members coming to see me for the first time. My grandparents have seen me in some east coast cities, in some big rooms, but there are some Zios and Zias and gumbas and gumadas who deserve an explanation as to why they only see me on Christmas. Or when somebody’s baby gets Christened or something. It’s because I’m running around the world doing this. I’m thrilled for them to see me live, at work, and not just ‘on The Facebook’”.
- What experience had the biggest impact on your music and who you are today?
“What a question. I went to high school in Hamden. I had a wonderful, dedicated, compassionate choir teacher who would let me keep my stuff in a locker in the band room so I always had an excuse to play the piano a little bit between classes. When I got my drivers license (and I didn’t have my grandpa picking me up every day) I would stay after school for hours sometimes playing the choir room piano. My teacher found someone getting rid of an upright piano and arranged for my dad to pick it up one day and bring it to my house. I got my first real piano. One day, that teacher said to me ‘you know, music is a career path. You can do this forever if you want.’ Nobody had ever really told me you can make a living in music if you worked hard and stuck with it and did whatever was necessary (example, dropping out of college to move from The Valley to Brooklyn) He opened my worldview. I think of him before all my big shows. Thanks, Chris”.
- What is the hardest part about being away from home on the road?
“Coming home, and going out. I spend about half of my year on the road and half of my year at home. Transitioning in and out of a suitcase to a whole apartment is tougher than you would expect. On the road, I have a schedule. Everyday is a work day. I have a time I need to be up and dressed and in the gym, or at soundcheck, or at a radio station or something. I have a little bunk I’m responsible for to keep clean. I have a duffle bag and a carry-on to get me through sometimes two months of travel and performing. The ‘packing for the road’ and down-scaling my life is always overwhelming. The ‘coming back to my whole house’ and suddenly being responsible for setting my own schedule, being a general adult, that’s tough too. It’s also overwhelming to be like ‘why do I own all this stuff, again?’ We really live two very different lives. Both are normal to us, but getting in and out of the groove of the road is always a delicate and difficult transition”.
- What message do you want to give to everyone supporting you at home?
“The rivalry between Pepe’s and Sally’s is a marketing ploy, they’re both family businesses in the same family by marriage. Look it up. The best pizza in CT is at Roseland’s in Ansonia anyway.
Also, please stop buying me clothing for Christmas, I live in a suitcase. I love you”.
- What is your favorite song to cover live?
“We’ve covered quite a few hard-hitters over the years. I personally really love our renditions of ‘25 or 6 to 4’ by Chicago and ‘Long Train Running’ by The Doobie Brothers”.
- What tour date are you most looking forward to?
“Other than College Street? Probably The Ryman in Nashville. When you’re ‘somebody’ in CT you play College Street. When you’re ‘somebody’ in the global touring community, you play The Ryman”.
- What was your influence on “Coming Home Song”?
“My own authority issues. My own inability to accept love from people the way I expect them to receive my love. And a beautiful conversation I had with the online fan community on Instagram about that difficulty, loving ourselves the way we love others”.
- When can we expect a full album?
“Sooner than you think”.
The nearly sold-out show is in just 2 days, and tonight comes the release everywhere of ‘Coming Home Song’ “LIVE around the world”. The show will be filled with the band’s biggest hits and fan favorites sprinkled with new releases and incredible covers. You don’t want to miss Saturday, February 10th when Sammy Rae and The Friends at long last, come home.
