Nine Black Alps

Sam Forrest of Nine Black Alps and CraveOnline

Sam Forrest:  We are just supporting a tour with Social Distortion and Supersuckers.  It’s nice because there’s no pressure and nobody’s heard of us.  We’re just there to make a noise and not be taken too seriously.  I think it’s one of the most fun shows that we’ve done.  It’s just really nice to be in America. 

MR:  How did you come up with the name Nine Black Alps?

SF:  It’s taken out of a line in a poem by Sylvia Plath (the Couriers).  We were really stuck for a band name and we had to think of one really quickly.  A friend of ours added us to a show (our first show) and we had to think of a band name.  It seemed weird enough and scary sounding. 

MR:  Everything Is, has been out for a bit now.  How are people taking to the debut full-length record?

SF:  I don’t really know!  [Laughs to himself]  I don’t think that it’s made us millionaires or anything.  We are gradually getting people in America to come to our shows and they beginning to know the words to our songs.  I find it really bizarre because it’s something that I never really expected.   Basically, we haven’t been dropped from [Interscope Records] yet.  I don’t read sales figures or listen to marketing reports.  So… I don’t really know.  We haven’t had to go back to the day job just yet and that’s all we are really concerned about.

MR:  What was the inspiration for this record?  It seems like there is a very serious undertone throughout the listening experience of this record.

SF:  Everything Is!  Our songs were mostly written when I first moved to Manchester (UK) from New York.  I had this flat without a television or any furniture.  I couldn’t get a job.  I spent days at a time in the house writing music and recording it on an 8-track tape machine.  I think that the inspiration was just out of boredom and panic about “what have I been doing my whole life.”  I moved to Manchester with the expectation of getting a job or having some kind of career.  It completely didn’t work out that way, so I recorded all of my angst and frustrations within these songs.  Most of the time, it’s just writing words to fit in with the melodies without paying any real attention to it.  The last thing that I thought would happen was that our music would reach the public or that we would release a record.  I am not absolutely sure why I wrote some of that music.  It just seemed to fit and it sounded cool.

MR:  That’s kind of crazy how you didn’t have any direction and it just worked out for Nine Black Alps.

SF:  Well no!  I’d pretty much given up on music altogether.  I’ve played bass guitar in bands before, but it never seemed to work out for some reason.  So I decided to go to a completely different city, start over, get a new life and a new job.  Then I met [David Jones, guitarist] and I just had a couple of songs that I’d been writing.  That’s were the band was conceived and eventually grew into what it is today.

MR:  So how did you get started in the whole music thing?

SF:  It evolved from dancing around in my bedroom to the Beatles and head banging to Iron Maiden records.  I picked up the bass when I was young and started learning how to play along.  It’s not something that I took very seriously and it just sort of happened.  On the other hand, I can’t imagine what I would do if it weren’t for music. 

MR:  There are a few songs that I find very striking on the record.  Cosmopolitan being one that grabs my attention the most, I find the lyrics to be extremely intense.  What is that song all about?

SF:  I was seeing a girl at the time and she had a copy of [Cosmopolitan].  I leafed through it and the whole thing made me feel old, stupid, not rich and undersexed.  It made me want to be a better person and I was going through this whole self-improvement thing.  I know it’s a magazine for women, but it seems like the whole message is that you have to have this amazing job working in the media, have firmer skin and have whiter teeth.  You can’t be old, you have to know what’s going on all of the time and you have to be culturally aware.  This song was just a reaction to the magazine.  Again, it’s just filling songs up with words. 

MR:  It is synonymous to pay attention to the media and be disillusioned by the images and words.

SF:  Yeah.  When you have no relation to what you see in the mass media and makes me think that it isn’t like my life at all. 

MR:  What are your biggest musical influences growing up and what bands/recording artists from the past do you feel have influenced your sound?

SF:  I grew up with bands like the Beatles because they don’t waste notes in ten-hour long guitar solos or jams.  I’ve always like compact songs.  Nirvana and the Pixies had a great sense of songwriting as well.  Anything that goes beyond the song causes me to lose my attention. 

MR:  Who are your favorite artists at the moment?

SF:  I just go into Wilco.  I’ve never really been into them before and I just got into their records.  Their lyrics are brilliant and the music is gorgeous.  It’s nice to find a band out there that is still making good records.  I didn’t want to be stuck listening to Neil Young and Beatles albums for the rest of my life.

MR:  There are a couple bands out there that have an incredible energy about them.  These bands are lyrically driven and the music is rich.  Personally, it’s necessary to be intelligent with the words and the music.  You know... the whole package.  It’s good to be passionate about something.

SF:  I agree.

MR:  Is music the only thing that you focus on?

SF:  I write, but it’s not anything really meaningful.  It’s usually just outbursts of panic.  I usually just wake up too early in the morning with a head full of madness and break out the guitar.  Over a cup of coffee or tea, you get these supposed profound thoughts that usually turn out to be complete bullshit.  You think to yourself “I’ve got to write this down, it’s amazing!”  

MR:  So you are doing a mini-tour on the United States west coast at the moment in support of your record and playing Portland this evening.  Where do you go from here? 

SF:  I think up to Idaho, then to Utah and off to Arizona.  Then we will come back closer to the ocean on the Southwest Coast.

MR:  Those some strange states out there!

SF:  I know I can’t wait.  All of those places are like being in this surreal dream. 

MR:  Well, when you are out in Utah, if you get a chance, check out Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.  It’s pretty trippy out in those places.  It’s a bunch of epic scenery, wide-open spaces and a red sheen to all of the rock formations.  It might inspire something.

MR:  What is the live show like?  What sets you guys apart from other bands?

SF:  We are not particularly professional live band.  We are really good, but we don’t have any pretenses to our music.  There is no real audience interaction.  There is no slowing the songs so everybody can catch up with us or “Are you ready to rock?!!!”  It’s just not who we are.  It’s a shame because I do appreciate that kind of thing.  Physically, I can’t do because I would feel like a fool.  The music is intense and it’s just fun.  We just play the music as hard and as loud as we can.  We are fairly down-to-earth people and we aren’t getting caught up in the whole image. 

MR:  Whom do you get compared to the most?

SF:  Nirvana.  That’s what everyone tells us. 

MR:  What do you think that other bands are lacking these days?

SF:  I think that everything is overcomplicated and overly self-conscious.  Then, there are all these stupid rock n’ roll bands.  When I get a chance to just listen to music, I typically turn on something nostalgic.  I am conservative like that.  I don’t really dig for music out of magazines.  The best way for me to listen to anything new is when my friends make me a mix CD.

MR:  How is the label handling all of your music?  How’s the business?

SF:  It’s a dream.  They let us do what we want to do, we get to choose our own producers and we have reign over our website.  Usually, you get a whole image makeover and they dress you up in strange clothes.  I think they are really happy to let us be who we are.  I can’t complain.  I am sure that on our second album, they will dress us up in suits and we will be told to make it sound more eighties. 

MR:  Are you playing any festivals this summer?  I saw that you have SD Street Scene coming up in August.  What are you looking forward to the most?

SF:  Yes, we will be playing San Diego Street Scene with Queens of the Stone Age.  I really like the Casbah.  That’s a fun place to play.  The End Fest in Seattle is something that we are looking forward to playing at.  The Mars Volta and other bands will be playing the festival as well.

MR:  What are some crazy, memorable experiences that you’ve had on the road?  I saw you guys at Exodus at South By Southwest Festival (TX, USA).  I don’t know about you, but I had some pretty wicked times back there.

SF:  That was a hellish gig.  I don’t think that our bass amp worked.  Nothing worked.

MR:  I don’t think that I spent one moment sober for the whole week at SXSW.

SF:  It’s like a week long of drunken handshakes with too many people.  Your like “uhhh… hi.”  I actually just stayed on a balcony for about two days getting totally out of it by myself. 

MR:  So what is the most memorable thing to date?

 SF:  Well this isn’t anything crazy really.  The other night when we were in Seattle, we came out of the bar and this mentally ill Chinese woman attacked me.  She would throw up her hands screaming, “Why won’t you dance with me?  Why won’t you dance with me?  She was actually insane and I was sort of drunk.  She is actually haunting my dreams at the moment.  I made the mistake of going up to her and asking her if she was okay.  She grabbed on to my arm and for the next twenty minutes she wouldn’t let me go.  At the point, I thought that it was kind of funny and amusing.  By the end, it completely mentally broke me!  When you have a 60-year-old Chinese woman grabbing on to your arm, you just don’t know what to do.  Everybody else didn’t seem to think that anything was wrong.  Even the security at the bar didn’t do anything.  They were all just laughing it off.  What if she tried to bite me or something? 

MR:  Have you been coming up with new music on the road?  Are there any signs of making another record in the near future?

SF:  Its pretty much all there.  We have about 30 songs now.  We are looking forward to making our next record. 

MR:  What drives you guys as musicians?  What caused you to make it your passion?  Do you feel like it has paid off?

SF:  Nervous energy.  It’s an escape from reality.  When we share our music with other people, it just feels a bit weird.  

MR:  What do you have to say about the music industry?  Just how difficult has it been to get to where you guys are now?

SF:  There is so much hot air about what it takes to be successful and what’s cool.  The best thing is to completely ignore the consensus as to what music and image should be like.  We never really fit in because all of these other bands were going for Interpol and all of the 80’s influenced music. 

MR:  Just be your self?

SF:  Yes, exactly.  I don’t know if that will give us any longevity or if we will just end up being a flash in the pan.  We just play what we feel…

Check out the band at nineblackalps.com/