A Conversation with Sam Lachow
Recently, I had the chance to have a Skype sesh with Sam Lachow, up and comer out of Seattle. I think it’s safe to say that he’s one of the most unique rappers in it right now; he’s done a great job of finding his niche in music. We had a lovely, light conversation that you can read below!
STS: What’s your longitude/lattitude right now?
Sam: I am in Manhattan, and I go to Washington on October 12th, and I’m hoping to shoot 2 or 3 videos and get some new music done.
STS: Speaking of your videos, you do all of those yourself, so you’re like a jack of all trades! You produce the beats, you rap, you direct the videos. How do you think that separates you from most other artists?
Sam: It gives me more control over everything ya know? I’m a bit of a control freak and that’s kinda why I started doing music videos. I knew a little bit about editing and directing but I kinda thought that, like, it’s my music and I don’t want someone else making the video for it because they go hand in hand. I still work with others and collaborate with others if they have better equipment than me or something else valuable. But with the beats, I think that really separates me in some ways because I think my albums are very different to listen to, they differ from listening to a mixtape or something where each beat is coming from a different producer. I liked the old Lil Wayne album because they were coming from Manny Fresh and he was keeping it in the team
STS: Do you find it hard to balance everything or is that a big deal to you?
Sam: I think it’s definitely harder work, *Sam’s cat enters behind him* here’s my kitty! What was I saying…oh it just takes a lot longer to make the album. Ya know I make the beats myself instead of just like searching online for them, and rapping is sorta third for me. I start with production, that’s what I take most pride in, and then video directing. I’m okay with ghost-writing or getting people on my beats, I just want people to hear what I’m making.
STS: Your most recent project and video, LittleManBigCity, one of the coolest video concepts I think I’ve seen in a long time, can you tell me a little bit about the thought process in that and the relationship between you and your brother; has it changed?
Sam: He did really well! It was just us and we didn’t have anyone else with us, so he was the one pressing the button in all the shots with me, he was the one behind the camera. So I was like “Okay, press it now!” and he did great with it. It was a really fun experience, and him and I are so close, he reminds me so much of myself. A lot of what I do is inspired by him, and even Brand New Bike is inspired by leaving your childhood and growing up, moving on to bigger things. I’m 20 years old I’m right at that age, I’m not old enough to drink but I’m too old to fuck around.
STS: What does Charlie have in store for his future?
Sam: Everyone in my family is in the arts, and that’s pretty hard to escape, so I just want him to take the easy route and go to medical school *laughs all around* and have it all laid out for him. But since he’s so much like myself I know that’s probably not realistic. But he’s a smart kid, charismatic, and he’s the sweetest dude ever. He’s the man, he’ll be alright.
STS: So then what do you see in your future? Where’s Sam Lachow going?
Sam: I guess my dream life would be able to do all the art shit that I love (directing, editing, videos, rapping), and I could make money off of that, that’d be sweet, I would love that. If that means I would be a freelance video director, I’ll shoot videos for other people and consistently put out albums. I wanna put out an album every year.
STS: What’s your next musical venture?
Sam: I’m going to Seattle to see some of my collaborators, including Maggie Brown, who I’ve known since pre-school, she is a very talented musician, piano player, guitar player, and she’s provided some of the music behind my beats. If you’ve seen my documentary for my last album about the making of, I’m doing something like that but in the form of a short film. I’m sort of tinkering with the idea of featuring a lot more people, like having someone sing and me not even rapping. I’m excited!
STS: Yeah like in Gary Payton, you had two essentially unheard of dudes, Sky Blaow and B Skeez.
Sam: Yeah I love working with people that I’m close to, even if it doesn’t help record sales. They’re part of my group. Rather than hearing some random person on Youtube that I had to pay to get on my song, I want to keep the features coming from my source. You’re always hearing something new.
STS: Recently you partook in the Get Your Buzz Up Competition at Webster Hall, and you were…
Sam: Number 1!
STS: Haha yes! How did you feel about that?
Sam: My manager and friend, Michael Rodriguez signed me up for that, I didn’t know much about it so I looked into it and I was kind of intimidated! I was mad that he signed me up for it at first. I was like “There’s no way I’m winning this thing, like, it’s Webster Hall in Manhattan!” All these guys were shouting out like Brooklyn and Queens and it was a really different environment. I was performing my music for people who had never heard of me and that got me really nervous. But I won, I had fun, and I really enjoyed it.
STS: So does that open up an internal door that maybe you want to do more shows in different places
Sam: Yeah definitely! I wanna get out there a lot more now.
STS: Switching it up a little bit, I’ve seen in random places “Shankbone”. What exactly is that?
Sam: Well, I’ve been rapping since 5th grade, and in 7th grade I met some guys and we just formed Shankbone. We were a couple of Jewish kids, and we didn’t even realize what the shank bone was for Judaism, it was just coincidental. I’d make little loop beats on Garage Band and we would record on my Mac speaker. We made little 20 track CDs that we sold in our middle school, and people would actually buy it. We would come home every day with 100 bucks in our pockets and it was tight. As we grew up, each CD got more legit, but it was still Shankbone and it was still goofy stuff. Our last CD got us some performances, it was on iTunes and it was a lot of fun. So I decided then to go solo, but I got started with Shankbone. Our music video called Blaow is on Youtube, it’s great. It does a good job of showing the place that we grew up in.
STS: That’s cool! Kind of a random question, but the last 15 seconds of the Gary Payton video…?
Sam: HAHAHA! The Jew man! I think he kind of thought it out before but he messed up a couple of times and it just ended up working well.
STS: Who was that?
Sam: My friend Lucas, he’s a nice Jewsh boy. He was actually in Shankbone. I’m thinking I’m gonna have a rabbi in the rest of my videos somewhere…
STS: I’m a huge proponent of that! So you’re talking a lot about your stomping grounds of Seattle, who are some of your favorite local artists?
Sam: There’s a whole rap scene in Seattle, like Macklemore and Blue Scholars. They were huge before Macklemore, and I was always a fan of them. They ran it in Seattle. Our music is different, and I’m trying to break away from that scene, but I’m still a big fan of them. I’m so into producers, so like Ryan Lewis, I’m a huge fan of him. And also Sabzi of Blue Scholars. I’m a big fan of the video directors in Seattle, like Zia, who directed the video for Wings by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. They’re all a lot older than me but I aspire to put out work like that some day.
STS: When I think Seattle music I think Sol, I’m a big fan of him
Sam: He was one of the first shows I’ve ever seen! I wanted to check out the rap scene and so I checked out a few concerts and I saw him and it was a really fun show, so I was like wow I really wanna start performing. Also Tom Pepe, from my album. He’s doin his thing.
STS: Besides rap what’s your favorite genre?
Sam: Well, there’s a lot of rap coming out nowadays that I like, but I get a lot of inspiration of my beats from old Soul and Funk music, so I love that. I love Grateful Dead, slowly becoming a Dead-Head.
STS: Wrapping up, anyone you wanna thank publicly for anything?
Sam: I wanna thank Michael Rodriguez, he’s really been on my ass to get things out and put myself out there. I’ve never had a manager before and he’s really pushing me a lot which is cool. And to the city of Seattle for raising me, so much of my shit is inspired by that. And Andre 3000 by teaching me how to flow!
STS: *laughs* YES Andre 3000 reppin the dirty south! Alright man, pleasure talking to you, looking forward to what you put out!
Sam: Yeah man, take it easy!
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