Samantha Fish: Good Music is Good Music (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part One…

How did you first connect with Jesse Dayton?

I met Jesse twelve years ago when I grew up in Kansas City. I would go to this club called Knuckleheads all the time. Literally every day of the week I’d be in there, just like trying to soak up what was going on. They had local talent, but they also had people coming in from all over the country. It was a touring spot and Jesse was one of the artists who frequented there. He came in a couple times a year and people just loved him. So I knew about him from then, and then I kept up with him like everybody keeps up, through social media.

And I became a fan of his hustle, to be honest. He has his really diverse solo career that he’s been nurturing for years and years. He’s backed up so many amazing legendary musicians, and that’s pretty incredible. And then he’s got his foot in the rock world with John Doe and with Danzig; I always thought that was really cool. And then he’s a cinema buff and he was in the Rob Zombie movies. He’s written books; the dude just has got a lot going on. So I knew he was fearless, but it didn’t come up to have him on this record until January of 2022.

My manager and I had been talking about this project for a long time, this idea to do a collaborative record, something rock and roll. But we didn’t know who the other person would be. But when Jesse came through New Orleans in January 2022, it was like a lightbulb moment. He’d be perfect because he’s fearless. And he was open to it.

From the beginning, you’ve always been kind of a hero in the blues idiom, and yet you’re more successful than most blues artists in not letting yourself get painted into a corner, as a strictly blues artist. Has that been something that you have done consciously?

I think if you have a lot in you – and most artists do – you want to be all over the place. And it’s really hard to streamline and focus on a sound. But you also don’t want that to be your defining thing forever, because you want to have that freedom to shift, and to make art that moves, that you get excited about. I think people really are quick to want to tell you, “This is your sound. This is what you are.” It’s not really a conscious pushback; I’ve just naturally been making music that feels right for me, that I can get excited about.

If you can really create something and take it all the way through execution-wise, you’re living in the moment. I’m not doing it consciously; it’s just where I’m at. And that’s when you’re making the most honest music, and that’s when people resonate with it, hopefully.

It used to hurt my feelings when people would say, “I preferred this record, or this band or this era.” But that’s okay. That’s all right for people to appreciate your past work or, have a favorite time period, and that’s fine. People move and change. I’m changing. They’re changing, too. It’s okay.

Some of the press materials for the tour note that you’re going to be playing songs from throughout your catalog. Does that mean that you’ll introduce material you haven’t done in a while, maybe even songs that you’ve never played live?

Yeah, we’ll be adding in more stuff. We just wrapped up the Death Wish tour, so now it’s like putting together a new show. It’s the first time in my career that I haven’t had a new record to focus on in putting a tour together. It’s fun to go back and reimagine older material. I’m excited to take on that challenge of going back and connecting with the older material and trying to bring it into 2024 and where I’m at now. It’ll be a nice way to spend the year, while I’m gearing up for the next thing.

What appeals to you most about playing live?

The feeling that you get. When you really connect with an audience and they’re right there with you, there’s this thing that happens. It’s a beautiful thing, and it’s universal. It happens all over the world, people’s appreciation for music. I could go play to a crowd where English is not the default language, but we still have the same feeling and the same experience with each other.

I still feel great on stage. I still feel that excitement. I’m trying so hard to do something. And when you can actually pull it off, it’s a really cool feeling. I don’t know how to describe it, other than it’s like being on a roller coaster.