Photography by Brizsa Pedroso, Styled by Sick Jacket Vintage
That’s something he doesn’t want you to know about him, so I’m here to divulge in his honor.
Sammy Volkov is cool in the kind of way that your grandpa’s best friend is cool. He has charming stories to share and tends to blab on until he loses his place in the conversation (or maybe until I interrupt to remind him to relax his forehead).
I discovered Sammy’s music in early December 2022 when I came across an instagram story sharing the release of his debut album, Be Alright. I’m always curious to hear what’s coming out of our city, so I turned it on while I was washing some dishes.
I am someone that vibes with music before properly listening to it. One of my favorite things is loving a song, wanting to dance to it, and then sitting with it and realizing that the artist is pouring their miserable little heart out. Oops 👯 So, while many of the evocative stories on this album might be suitably filed under “politics” or “heartbreak” or even simply “therapy”, I still found myself swaying to it in my kitchen and even asking my boyfriend, “doesn’t this album just feel good?”
Sammy’s life has so far been quite compelling; he lived in New York to go to school for acting, he lived in Los Angeles to get his ego crushed in acting, and now he’s in Edmonton wearing slutty shirts for Dollhouse.
“There are so many distractions in big cities and for what I want to do, Edmonton is the perfect place for me. I’m open to going wherever it makes sense but for now, this has been like a beautiful incubator where the community is quite insular but not cliquey and they’re very supportive of me. I’ve made lots of good friends and it’s just been great. I love it here.”
Let’s circle back to the ego-crushing – how does one go through that, but then persist on the path of ultimate vulnerability by writing and recording an entire album?
“I think what happened was that [in Los Angeles] I was feeling so vulnerable and isolated but I was also meeting a lot of new people and I was feeling very inspired with no distractions – good or bad. So I was going from all of the stimulus of trying to figure out a new city to being alone in my shitty room. It was the perfect way to start writing a lot of music and playing at open mics. I would focus on an artist I loved and then try to write a song like them. It was a great accidental songwriting school. I am really grateful that I had that and most people would not choose that for themselves.”
Sammy’s love of timeless sounds and movies is evident and he’ll happily deep-dive into conversation about music history, but he says he wrote this album to prove to himself that he could do all of these genres and that, in the future, we can look forward to something completely different.
“I want it to be sweet and catchy, but dark and creepy. I love that dichotomy and somehow making those things coexist. That’s my goal, artistically.”
Well, that just happens to be my favorite genre. Can’t wait.
What is your writing process like?
“A lot of it is preconceived. I can hear the song and arrangement and I always have a lot of reference tracks that I give to the musicians like ‘let’s try to go for this vibe.’ I think that’s really important. There are way too many tools at a producer’s disposal so I think it’s completely essential to have some discipline and really limit what you’re going to work with but then like.. there is still SO much freedom in that. Like if you want to make a record that’s inspired by Al Green or something, that can mean a lot of things. There are a lot of different ways to accomplish that.”
Every form of art is the artist’s take on inspiration. Even if we are all inspired by the exact same thing – we can make it our own if we want to.
“The only thing you can control is how you behave and only YOU understand you. You gotta do what you like and you gotta make the stuff you wish you saw and the stuff you wish you heard. And as soon as you’re like ‘ok, this is what I like but I think there’s more of an audience for this’ then you’re diluting that pure approach that only you have.”
Have any little secrets you can share with me about the album that you haven’t talked about yet?
“The last song is called Birthday Letter and it’s a pretty special song because I wrote it after a memory of when I was first in New York for an audition. I was watching – it’s kind of embarrassing – but I was watching Terms of Endearment. There’s a scene in the hospital where they’re coming to terms with the fact that they aren’t going home. And I’m in this hotel room having a full on breakdown, fetal position on the floor of this hotel. I realized that it was the first time I was facing the feelings I had about my brother being in the hospital and I hadn’t registered how impactful that time was. It was what inspired that song.”
I hate to think about all of the unconscious memories our brains are holding on to. When will they come for us? 🙂It’s like this fun adult game.
“It was a turning point for me and that’s why I made it the last track of the album because it’s the most personal one. And like.. One of the weirdest ones. And it’s an opening to future weird things.”
And, last question: do you have a favourite music venue in Edmonton?
“The Aviary! It feels completely safe and unpretentious. They’re interested in doing what the community wants. The variety there is unparalleled and everyone is always very nice.”
Currently, you can check out Sammy Volkov on tour with his friends all over BC and Alberta. Maybe see you at The Blue Chair in Edmonton on the 15th??
buh bye!