SASAMI
June 18, 2025

SASAMI
By Caroline D’Arcy

Caroline D’Arcy: How’s tour going?

SASAMI: It’s good. It’s fun. It’s a very physical show so I have to wake up on days off, work out, stretch, and get mentally and physically centered. It’s a very physical practice but it’s good. I like it.

C: Oh wow. Is that different from your last tour?

S: The shows being very physical definitely started on the last album cycle, because I was touring with a metal band. We were touring with stack Marshall amps and I was headbutting my bandmates, being chaotic, using insanely heavy guitars and being very extra, physically. But that’s actually kind of why this album became a lot more song focused, because I feel like for the last album I was screaming a lot and being very feral and fucking my body up.

C: I’ve been on tour. It’s crazy. What do you do to stay sane on the road?

S: Definitely working out is really helpful. I do these workout videos that are on my phone where I’m just being told what to do for an hour and I can’t think about anything else. I’m a very active thinker and constantly thinking about ten million things and very sensitive. So, having an hour a day where I’m literally not thinking about myself or work or anything — it’s just like, Carry this heavy thing, jump up, jump down! Sprint really fast! It helps. It gets into my animalistic monkey brain and out of my overdeveloped human brain.

C: Totally. That’s a great tool. Can you talk about the transition from your last album Squeeze to Blood on the Silver Screen, which I love by the way. It’s so fucking good.

S: Thank you. It’s crazy because the way that album cycles work, you work on the songs, and then you record them, and then you make all the assets, and then you tour them. By the time you’re touring them it’s two or three years after you first started writing them. Thinking about where my headspace was when I wrote Squeeze — again, I was touring my first record which was much more introspective and quieter. I think you learn so much over the years, like experience from touring and playing shows. I was in a band called Cherry Glazerr, which was a much more rock, punk band, and so the energy that the crowd was giving was always really hyper and really punk and very active. My first album was much more art rock, kind of introspective, and so the crowds would be much more mellow. But I’m really sensitive and I always projected like, They don’t like it, they’re not acting crazy! I was just insecure. It was my first time ever putting music out, my first time ever being a front person, so my reaction to that was to be as loud and crazy as possible. I think that pushed me to make a much more aggressive record with the second one, because I had this urge to be so loud that no one could ever talk over me playing and it always conjured an energy from the crowd that was giving me a lot back on stage. After doing that, the mature part of my brain is like, If people aren’t raging while you’re performing, it’s probably because they’re processing something. A lot of the time, with the songs that are slower and more mellow, people are thinking about their exes, or thinking about their friends — they’re just processing. I realized that there’s something to slowing down and making music. A lot of the songs on the record are still really upbeat and dancey, and that was definitely intentional. I wanted to bring a little bit more positively to the tour. I feel like the last album cycle made me feel really dark, because I was playing so much aggressive, dark music. It got very embodied into my soul, because it’s such a somatic practice to tour. So, I wanted to make music that I personally would feel a bit more uplifted by. But then, also accepting that even if I’m not putting all this feral crazy dark energy in a song and it’s not always being sent back to me on stage, being okay with that and just focusing on the craft of songwriting.

C: How do you balance between what you think your audience is going to want and what you actually want?

S: Some people really think about an album as this grand masterpiece product, but for me, the whole thing is a practice — the songwriting part is a practice, putting the songs out and touring them and playing them live is physical. I’m a very physical person, I think because my brain is very sensitive and overactive. I feel really empowered when I can physically do something, so I try to focus on those parts of it. So when I’m writing, I’m thinking about what I want to be doing on stage for the next two years. I’m thinking about what I want my physical performance practice to be. That kind of dictates a bit of the production. Then, the songwriting is really craftsmanship. You’re thinking about chord progressions and you’re thinking about melodies and lyrics. But in terms of the production, if it was electronic, if it was upbeat, if it was more country, if it was like an ethereal poppy kind of vibe, that’s me thinking about how I want to perform [the music] on stage.

C: So what was the process of creating this album and being in the studio? How long did it take?

S: In the scheme of things, it didn’t take that long to make. I think I started writing [the album] and recording all my vocals within one year and I wrote all the songs up north of San Francisco, right when I moved away from LA for the first time in my life. I went to college in upstate New York, but other than that I have lived in LA my whole life. I had just moved to Northern California and it’s kind of ironic because it feels like a very “city” record. When I’m picturing the scene of a lot of the songs, it’s like, wet streets of New York City in the 80s, or in a club. There are some songs that are very like desert-y and kind of highway outdoor vibes, but for the most part it feels very “city” to me. But it took me leaving the city and going to a rural place to have the space to conjure up those scenes.

C: What was it like going to college in upstate New York and being in LA and California for the rest of your life?

S: I grew up in LA, I went to LACHSA, the high school, with the HAIM girls and Empress Of; all my friends are like Madonna’s nephew and PT Anderson’s daughter. Everyone grew up in the industry. I would go to Teen Vogue parties and stuff. I was so jaded about LA already by the time I was 18 that I was like, I’m going to Rochester, New York to study classical French horn! I went in the opposite direction, as far away as I could, to do the least cool, least LA thing that I could. But then after two years, I was like, No I’m a hipster, I’m going back, I’m too weird to actually live a normal life, so I moved back to LA, but I did go really deep into classical music. I went to a classical conservatory for French horn and then when I came back, I was a music teacher for a couple years before I started touring with bands. I grew up in the indie sleaze era, going to like The Smell and Troubadour and house shows and stuff; then, kind of took a hard right and went to Rochester, New York to play the French horn six hours a day in a practice room. I had a very split musical experience. Some of it is very grungy, house show, rock vibes and some of it is very pretentious, intense, classical, competitive vibes. When I finished at the conservatory, I was really burnt out from how competitive music was. I remembered how fun music could be going to shows and that’s when I started playing guitar. I wanted to play an instrument that I was bad at and could just have fun playing instead of being so nit-picky and perfectionistic playing classical music. You’re literally competing against your classmates to get into the symphony and get into the ensemble — it’s a very toxic environment.

C: I have so many questions but I guess I’ll start with this: With social media, it feels like there is still an element of competition when it comes even to indie music, and other music that’s not classical. Do you find that and if so, how do you navigate social media with that competitive aspect?

S: Yeah! I became friends with Michelle [Zauner] from Japanese Breakfast and Mitski and Melina [Duterte] from Jay Som, and they were so supportive of me. Michelle would be like, Don’t sign any contracts until I read them, and Mitski would give me advice and lend me money for merch. My community was so supportive, and so I’ve never really felt a competitive spirit within my musical community. I think that if there is a competitive social media element, it’s actually just completely coming from a capitalistic place of the attention economy in general. I don’t think it’s from within the music community. I think it just comes from trying to feel what the algorithm wants, to make sure that people who are already fucking following you even see your post about your show in their town. I think it’s more of a competition with these evil tech companies, because I’ll have thousands and thousands of followers, but they don’t even see what I’m posting. The competition is really just trying to feed a machine that’s so out of hand and that we’re all kind of a slave to at this point, which is really dark. I think that social media was marketed as this way of connecting people and has really been taken so far away from that. People bought into it so much and now we’re beholden to it. It’s kind of a dark time to be an artist in that way. There used to be record stores and blogs and that was how people found music, and now your music has to be viral for your fans to even see it. It’s a new way of trying to navigate connecting with people for sure. But again, when I say that I try to focus on my physical practice, it’s because that kind of shit can make you insane — the stuff that’s outside of your body that you can’t control — it can be so crushing and I think it does crush a lot of people. There are a lot of really sensitive, incredible artists that can’t hang. They can’t make a living doing this job because they don’t have that dog in them that can not take it personally when they can’t connect with people online, even though their art technically would connect with those people. It’s very mindfucking for sure. It definitely makes me sad thinking about people who are really amazing artists and really have so much to give society, but can’t get past that barrier of marketing their art in a way that is packageable for social media.

C: How do you handle that?

S: Moving to Northern California, to a very rural place, has been really helpful for me. When I was in LA, when I went out, everyone was switched onto industry vibes, which is totally fine, like I get it. People move to cities like New York and LA to network and to start their careers and make all these connections, and I totally respect that. But, I think I was at a place where I knew people I wanted to collaborate with; I knew what I was doing, I didn’t really need to be looking over my friend’s shoulder to see who’s gonna walk in, every time I go out. It’s not where I was at, personally. So I think, in moving to a place where — when I’m not on tour, when I’m not in the studio, I’m not on shoots — I’m truly off the grid, I think that’s really a healthy balance for me. And then, also, just not taking things as personally. I think being very realistic about these tech companies holding the cards so aggressively… I’m also 34 [laughs], so I think it helps that I’m a lot older. I really feel for people who are younger and maybe aren’t as grounded in themselves, trying to navigate it, because I was so insecure when I was in my twenties and when I was younger and I can see how it would be really crushing to feel so disempowered. But now, you know, the art is my practice and the social media and marketing is a job. I’m just doing my best to connect the dots to bring people to the actual show, to listen to the actual music. [Social media] is just a conduit.

C: That makes so much sense, yeah.

S: It’s just exhausting because it’s another job. The music should be the job. But it kind of feels like [social media] is the job. I think a lot of artists are pretty exhausted by that, and to be frank, I think the quality of art is probably suffering because artists are so focused on social media and connecting in that way instead of just literally reading books and listening to music and watching movies and getting better at making art. I think that it definitely in the long run probably affects the quality of those things unfortunately.

C: A hundred percent. Where do you see the future when it comes to social media? Do you see it taking over more and more, or do you think there’s going to be a shift where people start becoming more offline?

S: Hmm. I got really into mycology, like mushrooms, and because I got into mycology, I also kind of got into ecology and plants too. I’m more into mushrooms, but mushrooms are only there during a certain season. So if there aren’t mushrooms, then I’m like, Okay I guess I’ll look at flowers and plants too. I’m really interested in how these species of mushrooms take millions of years to evolve and it’s so pretty and it’s so slimy and it has these perfect gills and it has this perfect way of being sticky so when an ant lands on it, its spores sticks to its feet and then the ant flies away and then it spreads its spores… It took millions of years to evolve this perfect way of being gorgeous and smelling perfect and being hot. Right? Humans have not been around that long. Humans are a baby species compared to so many species that are on earth that have figured out how to be sustainable and not be invasive and how to exist in harmony with other species. Humans are a nascent species. So, in our lifetime, we feel these epic swings of things, like social media and politics and branding and food trends and all these insane buzzwords, but if you zoom out and think about humans, we’re just figuring shit out and hopefully we get our shit together and we can justify our existence on the planet. It doesn’t seem like we’re trending that way [laughs.] The way that we make so much waste and don’t know how to clean it up and are destroying ecosystems around us… Not to be grim, but that’s just how evolution works. Humans will either figure it out over the next millions of years, or we won’t. Getting really grounded and thinking about deep time and thinking about other species and biology is so grounding to me because, it’s not that fucking deep. The things that feel like these huge shifts within our lifetime… It’s not that deep. You know? Dinosaurs existed for millions of years and got completely wiped out by the Ice Age. That’s dramatic, not Vine going away and TikTok existing. To me at least… I can see how that would rock a Vine creators world…

C: [Laughs] What other things do you do to stay grounded, away from your music?

S: I’ve been listening to comedy podcasts a lot. It’s funny because all the comedy podcasts are talking about pop culture and social media and stuff but it’s still just fun to just hear people talk. I think because Church is so much less of a thing and people aren’t hearing lectures all the time and if you’re not in school you’re still craving someone talking and telling stories — I think that’s why we’re in a big podcast era. It’s just nice to hear someone tell stories and tell jokes.

C: Totally. I love a good podcast. Okay, so you recently covered Sky Ferriera’s “Everything Is Embarrassing,” which has been one of my favorite songs for over 10 years and you crushed it. It’s so good. Can you describe the decision to cover that song and the process of shaping that cover?

S: Thank you. I recorded it before the album came out — I think in, oh gosh, June or July or something. That’s what I’m saying, all these assets get built and put out at different times. They were asking me to do a cover, and I was thinking that I should probably cover a pop song just to go in the direction of where the album was going to be. I was thinking of pop songs that were in my vocal range and were fun to sing. [“Everything Is Embarrassing”] is a song that I listen to and sing all the time; it’s just a perfect song. I didn’t know that Dev Hynes co-wrote it. Did you know that?

C: I did, yeah.

S: Legends.

C: If you listen to it after knowing that, you can definitely hear his influence.

S: Totally! I got this playlist once and it was songs that Prince wrote but got famous by other people — you know that song that’s like, “Just another manic monday…”

C: Yeah!

S: He wrote that song. And if you listen to it, then you’re like, Oh my god I hear the Prince of it all. Or like Sinead O’Connor: “Nothing Compares to You.” Oh, the other really good one is that Black Eyed Peas song that Justin Timberlake wrote and I think he’s actually singing it too. That’s definitely a thing where you realize that someone wrote a song and then you can’t unhear it.

C: Totally. So you were in Cherry Glazerr before. I want to talk about the transition — obviously you’ve been a solo artist for a little while now — from being in a group to being a solo artist and the importance of collaboration. Are you interested in collaborating with other artists? Or is that something you stay away from more now?

S: Yeah! One of the best parts of being in Cherry Glazerr was feeling like a part of a team. Now that I’m a solo artist, I have to do interviews all the time by myself. I have to be a boss of things all the time. It can be very isolating and you kind of have to amp yourself up. Whereas, when you’re in a band, your bandmates are like, You look hot today! That solo shredded! It’s nice to be on tour, cause I have a band, so I have that team camaraderie when I’m on tour, which is really lucky. But in terms of being in the studio, I really like being a solo artist because I totally have physical ADHD and I’m always changing genres and getting excited about new things, and I don’t have to convince anyone. I can just do whatever I want. So I like that part. But it definitely can be isolating to just be one person who has to carry the energy and move forward all the time. I’ve been thinking about how I’d love to start a band. There was a time when I was playing guitar for Yuele’s band and also opening for them solo. That was really fun. It’s so fun to just play an instrument. And I can see a future where I start a side project for sure.

C: So I know you’re a synth and keys person. I’m also into synths. I have the Prophet Rev2. I’m wondering what synths you like, if we can nerd out for a second?

S: Yeah! I played the Juno-106 in Cherry Glazerr through a lot of pedals at the time. I was really into doing pitch bending and stuff and making these really ambient soundscapes. And then I got really into using the minimoog because it’s just a perfect bass synth. I also have a key step sequencer so I make sequences through different filters and different tones and it’s just such a good sounding arpeggiated synth. And then I had a Prophet-5 for a while and that’s just like such a classic, warm sounding pad-y synth. You can also run sequencers through that, so I used the Prophet-5 a lot. MS-20 I actually used a bit on my first record, which is like a monophonic synth that also sounds pretty good for bass, but I used it for a lot of winding melodic things. Because it’s a patch synth, it can be a little bit closer to sounding like a modular synth, but it has an actual keyboard so you can play notes. So many synths! I’ve used the Mother Moog — Moog Source — it’s really good for sub sounds. I feel like when I got more into pop stuff, I was trying to dial sub and bass tones a lot too because it’s so important for pop music to have really fat sounding sub tones. So yeah. I use a lot of synths. A lot of keyboards. I love any weighted key or Wurlitzer or Rhodes too.

C: I love hearing about synths. Cool. So where are you at right now? Where are you driving to?

S: We’re driving to Nashville. My friend Sophie, who’s Soccer Mommy, is buying us hot chicken and we’re gonna have a quick park picnic before load in [laughs].