Sam Holmes
Gary: Sammy Holmes. Do you go by Sam Holmes or Sammy or does it matter?
Sam: I always go by Sam. My dad’s name is Sam, when I was a kid, I was called Sammy. As I got old I was always called Sam. But then when I went to get a web site, there’s this Sam Holmes in the United Kingdom, a woman singer, and it was kind of like, oh; so –
Gary: You’d better change …
Sam: And people started calling me Sammy again, so nobody’s got Sammy Holmes, so it’s kind of my stage name.
Gary: That makes sense.
Sam: Only my close friends call me Sammy.
Gary: Are these people from… where were you born? Were you raised in
Corvallis?
Sam: I was born in Bend and raised in Portland.
Gary: Okay. What brought you down here?
Sam: I came here to go to school.
Gary: Ah. Other than music… was that your primary concern? You’ve always had your music.
Sam: I started playing when I was seventeen. I played piano in first and second grade, and I tried playing guitar in eighth grade, but my mom bought me a really terrible guitar (laughter) and I couldn’t play it! Finally, when I was seventeen, I bought a playable guitar and just kind of took off.
Gary: Who inspired you? Your parents? Or…?
Sam: My mom liked music. She liked to listen to Madame Butterfly… we used to watch Hee Haw, and I would see Roy Clark and he would always bring out these really good guitar players; and I liked the jokes and the singing… so I liked Hee Haw. And my sisters had, they were five or six years older than me, they had the Beatles…
Gary: Oh, okay…
Sam: … and Lesley Gore, and stuff like that, you know, so I got 60’s music.
Gary: It’s embedded, huh?
Sam: You know, 60’s and 70’s music, that was a great time for music!
Gary: Good time!
Sam: Yeah…
Gary: Before disco! (Laughter)
Sam: Then disco hit, then the Country went from good to bad in kind of a hurry there...and it’s kind of staying in the bad. Though, to be honest, I haven’t listened to enough of it recently; it could be getting better.
Gary: I hope it is. What they call Alternative Country now…
Sam: Like Neko Case? Oh, boy, she’s great!
Gary: Yeah, and I like the Jerry Jeff Walkers, and the Hoyt Axtons, that type; they were even better than the rest of the Country… just truck songs, Hee Haw music type thing.
Sam: Yeah, it wasn’t with the high gloss;
Gary: Right…
Sam: It’s kind of a rock-pop.
Gary: Yeah, Pop Country.
Sam: But it’s really rock with some glitzy and glammy… yeah.
Gary: When I heard you play Slaid Cleaves, I was surprised and impressed, because nobody’s ever heard of him – that’s a great overstatement – but he doesn’t get the play.
Sam: He’s the guy I remember you telling me about. I had never heard of him until you told me. Which is the song I do that he did?
Gary: I can’t remember the name of it. I know him best by a song I particularly like called “Oh, Roberta”, but yeah, when you played that – I can’t remember the name. I’m terrible at that!
Sam: Well, point it out next time!
Gary: That’s one good thing about the music today, I think, is Pandora and the others, when they match you up with what your interests are and you can kind of control that yourself by what you enter.
Sam: Create your own radio station.
Gary: That’s right. That’s quite exciting for somebody like me who’s not a player or singer; I’m a recorder. (Laughter) Your playing – you said you started out with piano, but do you play any other instruments other than piano?
Sam: I don’t play piano. I played in first and second grade. It’s on my “to do” list— playing the piano again.
Gary: When someone says, “What’s your first experience in music?” – What jumps into your head?
Sam: Probably first would definitely be playing piano in first and second. We had a piano at our house. My older sister was a really good piano player. I think I just took lessons from somebody who was just… you know… out of the method one book. If I had been with somebody who was teaching how to do songs to sing and all that, I might have gotten better. But I got really into sports.
Gary: Do you remember what song you first played on your guitar?
Sam: Oh, yeah. A lot of Neal Young.
Gary: Ah!
Sam: A lot of Neal Young. The Eagles, Jackson Brown, Dan Fogelberg – kind of that Country-Rock thing. Then when I moved away from home, I had a roommate who was really into Country, so I got really immersed into Country. Yeah.
Gary: Any particular song you remember?
Sam: Yeah, I remember lots of them! I got really into Merl Haggard.
Gary: When you were growing up, were you in any kind of talent contest?
Sam: No – I started getting into some bands. A year later, by the time I was eighteen, I started playing in bands.
Gary: Just by your introduction to some songs, that time of your life sounds like it may have been influenced by a different crowd at times – or that’s the impression I got by some of the things you were saying.
Sam: There was so much great music when I was – and that stuff is still – you go listen to elevator music, it’s all stuff we grew up on; you go channel surfing on the car radio, it’s all music from 60’s, 70’s, 80’s. Isn’t there really anything new?
Gary: I don’t know. What do you think?
Sam: Well, I think advertising. So, you want to sell to the people who have money, and the people who have money are the people our age. Right?
Gary: Yeah… yeah. Good point. Yeah, we’re the majority now. The boomers are right at the peak.
Sam: But it’s kind of interesting that kids know music we grew up on really, really well. I mean, they know all these songs. And kids first starting to learn to play music, they learn the same songs we were learning.
Gary: It’s pretty amazing. People like myself, I find myself being a little arrogant when the kids don’t know a song, and you go, how would I really expect them to know, but they do – they know so much.
Sam: Yeah.
Gary: Your profession, did you want to make music your profession or did you just fall into it?
Sam: Well, I think when I was in my early twenties, a bunch of my friends were really trying to make a go at music and I consciously decided not to and did get a college degree and do the career thing, had the wife and kids but did keep music as a hobby. And then it’s kind of funny, about the last five years I kind of said, “Oh..”, trying to go back; kind of not working as much, you know – do the substitute teaching rather than the jobs that take a lot of time and energy.
Gary: Yes.
Sam: I have a lot more free time and I’ve been working on music the last five, six years, trying to get… I had a lot of deficiencies in my playing I wanted to overcome; I just felt like I needed to put the time in.
Gary: Yeah.
Sam: So, I’ve been doing that, and I’m making progress –
Gary: very good –
Sam: --the thing about music, once you learn something, you learn there’s a bunch of other things you need to learn, so – which is why music is so great. You can never get to where you want to be.
Gary: Did you go to Oregon State U?
Sam: Yeah, I did.
Gary: In education? Or…
Sam: Yeah, I got a degree as a shop teacher.
Gary: Oh, wow!
Sam: Yeah, I taught electronics in high school and community college and then I went and worked at HP for sixteen years.
Gary: So, you were entrenched in the American Dream!
Sam: (Laughter) Yeah.
Gary: So now you are more of a professional musician and substitute teaching.
Sam: Yeah, I used to have an empire, now I have a 5x10 storage unit that holds everything and I’m renting out a garage from a friend (laughter) and I’ve learned how to live cheap!
Gary: That’s great!
Sam: Yes, I’m going back to where my friends were doing this in their early twenties and I was getting a college degree, I’m going back!
Gary: That’s great! To echo my parent’s words, it’s something you can always fall back on and that’s teaching! Although, right now, (May 2013) it might be a little tougher to get in there than before.
Sam: …to get a regular job, in teaching. Yeah. This year I’ve worked every day but two.
I did a lot of half days and I actually have a job for the end of the year. So I’m plenty busy at this point. But it’s fun. I like teaching, I like every day being different.
Gary: Yes.
Sam: I do kindergarten one day and calculus the next, and then special ed, you know, middle school.
Gary: That will keep you on your toes, I understand! I’ve done a lot of subbing myself.
Sam: But, the great news is, when the day’s over, the day’s over! Which is not true if you’re a regular teacher.
Gary: That’s true. I can attest to that from both ends of the spectrum there, myself and my wife, also. You come home and you’ve got so much more to do for the next day.
Sam: And you just worry about it. You worry about the kids and all the things you didn’t get done because to do it right, you’ve got to work 24 hours a day, but you can’t work 24 hours a day.
Gary: Right. Well, how do you relax other than music and coming from school?
Sam: I think I use exercise; I like to exercise. And hanging out with friends, that kind of stuff. I like being outdoors, being in the woods, that kind of stuff. Corvallis is great for that. A lot of times when I’m doing that, I’m doing my exercise—
Gary: Yes.
Sam: --in the woods, hiking, running--
Gary: Well, you bicycle, too, don’t you?
Sam: Yeah, right now, with where my job is, I rarely drive my car. I drove it today because I’m going right from here to Portland.
Gary: Have you ever had any experience with a fan that was strange? Over exuberant or …
Sam: (Laughter) No.
Gary: Maybe intoxicated…?
Sam: No, I haven’t had that problem. I think they’d be better than I am for that kind of situation!
Gary: So, you think it has to do with being well known or not well known or as well known?
Sam: Yeah, I just haven’t met the right kind of crazy person yet! (Laughter)
Gary: That’s probably a good thing!
Sam: I’ve met some crazy people, but not that kind of crazy!
Gary: Now, do you write some of your own songs?
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Actually right now, I’ve got enough songs for a vocal CD.
Gary: Hmm.
Sam: And I’ve just got to learn how to play ‘em. I’m just so busy with all the music I’ve got going right now, and I need to really focus on those. I keep saying, “I’m sorry I’ve got such a mix of things” – kind of thinking when school gets over, but I’m libel to be working this summer. They’re like 95% complete, so I gotta tweak some words, really got to play them to find out what’s not quite right, get ‘em mature so I can record them, so that’s kind of my next plan – to get that CD.
Gary: Yeah.
Sam: And then, I think I’m going to be – you know, this little five-to-six year deal I did to try to work on music – I did that and I think I’m probably gonna have to go back and be a working stiff for a few years.
Gary: Yeah, well, you never know!
Sam: Yeah – yeah, maybe! I’m learning how to spend a lot less money.
Gary: I guess it’s the goal of every artist to get their work accepted and to be seen by others.
Sam: I have no thinking that I’m going to be making any money at music. The amount of money you can make with music is getting less and less every year, and the cost of living keeps going up every year.
Gary: What is the scene in Corvallis in this 2013?
Sam: Well, it’s really kind of interesting. I lived for a year in Arizona, and I ran into one of my buddies in New Mexico – I lived in Northern New Mexico for a couple of years—and I was in this band there. I ran into one of the guys from this band. He’s up in Taos, he has a recording studio and he’s playing a lot and I said, “So, how’s the music scene in Taos these days?” This is thirty years after we had been playing there. He said, “You know, Sam, it’s the same as thirty years ago. If you can make a hundred bucks one night with a gig, that’s a good paying gig”! And I stopped and thought about this. Yeah, you know, thirty years ago, you could get a hundred dollar-gig – a hundred-dollar per person gig – and every now and then you get one now! And it’s thirty years later. But, you know, I think now days it’s hard to get a fifty dollar gig. (Laughter)
Gary: That’s amazing – that we don’t support our musicians. I don’t know if it’s current times, or has it always been that way for artists and musicians?
Sam: Well, I think there are so many people trying to do it, for one thing.
Gary: And the internet.
Sam: And the internet. And also, people can be really selective in what they want to listen to with it. I mean, if you come into, like this coffee shop; I’ve played the coffee shop where several people out there have their headphones on and they’re listening to other music – they have their personal music. I don’t take offense to that. You see people going everywhere with headphones on.
Gary: It seems to me, you’re walking down the street and you see two people together with earphones on, it’s rude on both sides! (Laughter)
Sam: And then there’s the people, you see them in a restaurant and they both got their cell phones out and they’re texting and all that and think, are they texting one another, but actually you know they’re not. Even then, it’s a different world.
Gary: Speaking of that, The Rolling Stone magazine said in 2011, digital sales outstripped physical sales of CD’s for the first time ever.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Gary: Any thoughts about the industry on that or opinions regarding file sharing and that type of thing?
Sam: Well, that’s sales.
Gary: Yes.
Sam: The file sharing is probably where the bulk of all music is coming from. So somebody might share something of yours, and then that person becomes a fan. But what you see is… the people… there’s just so few big named people. The record companies have kind of got their few… the Adeles… I mean, watch American Idol. American Idol will tell you everything that’s wrong with music in America or in the world. Here you have this show that’s… what, an hour long…maybe it’s two hours? I don’t know… but, the little bit I’ve watched of it, there’s very little music. And it’s a lot of talking, and it’s all glitz and glam—I mean, there’s some people who can really sing, but then there’s the deal , they bring on people that have no business being on so they can make fun of them. It’s… it’s… they make it a competition like, oh, there’s one winner. It’s kind of like, we have sports, right? There’s only one winner. Out of hundreds of football teams –
Gary: Yeah –
Sam: --there’s only one number one. And if you aren’t number one, you ain’t shit. And it’s kind of going that way with music. If you aren’t at the very top, well, you aren’t any good, are you?
Gary: Yeah, I understand. That’s what I find from a fan’s point of view. Corvallis has lots of people that are just fantastic to listen to.
Sam: I suspect a lot of places you get…,
Gary: Yes, you probably do –
Sam: … and if you can find out when and where they’re playing, you know? There’s this guy…gal in Summit who puts on some great shows. I don’t know if you’ve ever been out (there). She has this personal connection and she puts on the best… The best music in Corvallis is out in Summit! (Laughter)
Gary: Really!
Sam: And there’s some other people putting house concerts on… and there’s this whole… Music’s kind of become this underground thing. There’s just some great, great… there’s some great musicians. Yeah, there’s some great stuff out there. In ways, it’s harder to find, but in ways, it’s easier to find because you got the internet and you go… you can do your Pandora thing. But there are people trying and traveling. You got regional acts and national acts, they travel around. Whoever’s putting on the show has them sleeping in their houses, sleeping on the couches, pitching a tent in the backyard.
Gary: Has your music taken you to different-- many places? Or have you mostly been in the Oregon area?
Sam: Well, you know, I’ve been traveling in Central America—
Gary: Oh, yes!
Sam: --and carrying a guitar, it just opens doors! All the sudden you have instant credibility and I just feel a lot safer as a musician.
Gary: Yeah –
Sam: “He’s not a tourist, he’s a musician!” (Laughter)
Gary: I think I mentioned to you before, William Veley? A bass player in the area? (see W. Veley on this site)
Sam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gary: His son plays a lot in Brazil. You might want to check that out just to hear what’s going on with him.
Sam: Brazil’s got some great stuff going on with music.
Gary: If you could go back – or any musician today – is there any musician you would love to say, “I played with them” or “I toured with” or “I had the chance to sit down and jam with …who”?
Sam: Yeah.
Gary: In another sense, what excites you in music from the past or today that stand out as favorites?
Sam: Well… Boy, you know, it would have been great to sing with Emmylou Harris… (Laughter)
Gary: Yeah…
Sam: That’d be great! She sang with about every other musician on the planet, so my turn should be coming up! (Laughter) Maybe when she went through the “H’s”, she missed out on me! (Laughter)
Gary: Well, let me ask you a couple of quick questions. Just for fun, if you’d complete the sentence if I say, “Music is….
Sam: Wow. (Laughter)Okay. There it is. It’s “Wow”!
Gary: Okay. “My music makes me feel…”
Sam: That’s actually what I’ve been thinking about. Well, it makes me feel a lot of different things…. Comfortable.
Gary: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, I’d say comfortable.
Gary: And we should support our musicians because…?
Sam: Because we like to; because we enjoy the music?
Gary: Yeah?
Sam: Yeah. I mean?
Gary: That’s fine. Anything that you wanted to bring up? Or anything that you wanted to endorse? Can people buy your CD’s if they choose?
Sam: Yeah, so I’m really a singer, but the only solo work I have is an instrumental CD. (Laughter)
Gary: Have you always considered yourself a singer first and then a guitarist?
Sam: (Laughter) When I first started playing, my friend said, “Sam, don’t sing! Just play the guitar; you have a horrible voice!” And I just kept singing and about two years later, I was hanging out with a bunch of musicians and my friends said I’m a good singer and now “you gotta work on your guitar!” I was having some real serious rhythm issues and they couldn’t play with me because of that. And of course, I didn’t really work… well, knowing I was having troubles made me pay a better attention; you know, I did get better. So – but, part of it is I can remember words to songs really well. I remember chords and all that. And then I had… maybe you wouldn’t say the strongest voice, but the loudest voice (laughter), so ultimately in a lot of situations, I became the principle singer in a lot of situations. Especially in places where we weren’t using a PA.
Gary: (Laughter) I see. But you know you have a wonderful… I want to say a blues… kind of sound. I don’t know how to describe it. To me-- the only way I can describe it is to compare it to someone else—it’s like a Bill Morrissey –
Sam: Uh-huh.
Gary: -- it has a roughness to it, but it’s very emotive.
Sam: I have a lot of people who say, “You know, you sound just exactly like …” this person or that, and you know, I’ve never heard the same person! (Laughter)
Gary: Wow! What do they say, just out of curiosity?
Sam: Oh… uh, I don’t even keep track of who they say anymore, you know? I do know I probably imitated some singers in the past.
Gary: Who were…?
Sam: Well, some of my big influences were Jim Morrison
Gary: Sure!
Sam: Gram Parsons … but I was never able to drink that much (laughter), or sound that drunk. Lowell George of Little Feat was another.
Gary: They have been in Corvallis recently, have they not?
Sam: Well, they’re still playing a lot and they’re great. You know, I at one time had a friend in Corvallis that knew Bill Payne the piano player and we got backstage passes when he played in Portland one time. I got to sit and talk to Bill Payne for like half an hour. He is amazing… a wonderful man. He’s an amazing musician, but he’s also a great photographer; and then he’s doing stories that – like interviewing old people. But I guess right now, Robert Hunter (?) and Bill Payne – Robert Hunter wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead—
Gary: Okay –
Sam: They’ve come out with a new album with Bill Payne and Robert Hunter writing the words.
Gary: That would be a good one to hear.
Sam: Yeah, it would. I always liked Robert Hunter’s lyrics. A lot of people just said the Grateful Dead was Jerry Garcia. Well, he was a big part, but there were so many parts to why they were so good.
Gary: It was the whole thing.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. But Robert Hunter’s words were a lot.
Gary: Well, unless you’ve got something you would like to say or add, I’m good with that if it’s okay with you?
Sam: Yeah
Gary: It’s been fun!
Sam: Yeah! If you come in here, I might find something else to say here, but today was kind of good to have it, there was time.
Gary: Yeah.
Sam: I need to do more of that. I tend to have this habit, I just get up and I play. But I think when people are in here, they’re reading the paper, they’re doing their work. It’s one thing to have music as background, but when you start talking, people go… but that also draws people in and you want to –
Gary: And it’s a coffee house, it’s not a staged production.
Sam: So, I think that will be my focus the next couple of months here is to work on interacting.
Gary: As a fan, I’ve always enjoyed when they tell me something I don’t know about the song. It just gives it a little extra personal touch.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. I need to do more of that.
Gary: Or make up one! This is a little song I learned from Bill Robinson (laughter). Well, thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Sam: Alright. Cool!