Sam.Sts is an open book. A stream of emotion, ideas and energy which translates to the insistent rhythms and hooky melodies in his music. He likes graphic design, Stevie Wonder and sports and began writing and producing after being given FL Studio in high school by a friend. The newly 19-year-old from Indiana joined us in LA this August for his birthday week and the Future Classic x Dropbox residency.
[Photo: John Liwag]
[Photo: John Liwag]
When did you start Sam.Sts?
Sam:“Technically it probably was November of 2015 when I started making music. I initially started going by SMAL. I took Sam and my last initial‘L’ and then cause I’m big like 6’4 I did opposite which was“SMAL”. I ended up changing it to Sam.Sts in Jan of 2016. I wasn’t even making music yet more so learning what it took to make music during that time.”
Ha. I sort of like SMAL. How did you get into officially making your own music?
Sam:“There was a kid that went to my high school. When I was a freshman, he was a senior. I forget how I met him. I think he was a friend of a friend that I met through Instagram and we all went to the same school and we would hang out on the weekends. His cousin had put FL Studio on a flash drive and gave it to me and that’s all I knew and that’s what I started on. Before that, I used this program LMMS which is free. It’s really terrible, actually, it’s not terrible, you can totally do stuff on it but it’s free and not the best…yeah[laughs]”.
Sam:“Anyway, he already knew the program so he’d teach me things and that’s how I got the foundational part of the production side of my music.”
Cover Art for single‘Boy Who Cries’[Designed by: Sam.Sts]
You’re also into graphic design right? Did you design the cover art for Tokyo?
Sam:“That was my friend Malcolm but I did the‘Boy Who Cries’ one and I’ve just been randomly designing different graphics and ideas…you know the stay the same stuff I was doing?
Not really. What’s that?
Sam:“That’s what the STS is[in Sam.STS]…that was my idea cause I didn’t want to have Sam.Sts merch because that felt kind of weird to me so that’s what‘Stay The Same’ is—it’s own brand with it’s own identity.
So STS stands for Stay The Same…
Sam:“Yes[laughs]. Graphic design is so important, I’ve skipped over like so many songs because of it. For real, if you don’t take the time to have a well thought out cover art idea I feel like I don’t engage with it.”
Design aside how long did you work on music before you realized it was something you wanted to pursue?
Sam:“I would say honestly last year 2018 is when I came to the realization that it was becoming more serious. So it took about 3.5 years…when I initially started I was playing baseball and doing a lot of other stuff but throughout my 4 years of high school my life slowly started to become strictly music as far as hobbies and stuff.”
Naz & Sam.Sts
Sam.Sts & Haunted
Did that happen because you got pickup on Soundcloud and people began to take notice or was it more of an internal shift?
Sam:“I think my music took off in like June or July of 2018 and I had like 500-600 followers on Soundcloud and 900 Instagram followers and it just literally happened out of nowhere. It initially started as kids getting around it and of course once‘Applesauce’ came out and all that stuff picked up…it’s kind of a different world now.”
How many followers do you have now?
Sam:“Followers? Uh like 1,000 on Soundcloud? It’s funny to see the stats go from 600 plays on a song and I’m like“Oh my goodness this is crazy!” and then now 1.5 million or something on Spotify but it’s the same feeling as before. I don’t know it’s really cool.”
In your musical orbit you mentioned quite a few people to me that you really look up to, who are those people that inspire you?
Sam:“Definitely top two easily for me are Frank Ocean and Stevie Wonder. And also I like Omar Apollo a lot. I like his consistency—like everything he releases has amazing replay value, production’s really good, the mixing is awesome. I like dijon. Who I’ve been listening to a lot more recently, it’s a bit more singer songwriter kind of stuff, I’d say. Basically good songwriting has been really inspiring me recently.”
Sam.Sts, Lecx Stacy and Future Classic team listening in Studio B
[Photo: John Liwag]
Yeah that’s awesome. What did you anticipate when you found out you were coming out to LA for 2 weeks? Did you have expectations of what you thought this program would be like?
Sam.Sts is an open book. A stream of emotion, ideas and energy which translates to the insistent rhythms and hooky melodies in his music. He likes graphic design, Stevie Wonder and sports and began writing and producing after being given FL Studio in high school by a friend. The newly 19-year-old from Indiana joined us in LA this August for his birthday week and the Future Classic x Dropbox residency.