Interview: Samantha Fish

Photo: Samantha Fish, Jesse Dayton by Kaelan Barowsky

Interview: Samantha Fish

By Martine Ehrenclou

From Kansas City, Missouri, Samantha Fish is one of the most dynamic blues forces in the world. A multi award-winning guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter, she’s known for her electrifying live performances and finesse on the fretboard. Her last critically acclaimed album Faster, saw Fish digging deeper into rock and roll while still incorporating her love for blues and roots music.

An adventurer at heart, as evidenced by her willingness to embrace multiple genres, Samantha Fish embarks on her seventh album Death Wish Blues with country outlaw Jesse Dayton, set to release May 19th. Fish was ready for a new collaboration and she found it in the edgy Dayton who has recorded with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings and worked with Rob Zombie on horror film soundtracks.

The follow-up to Fish and Dayton’s 2022 EP Stardust Sessions, Death Wish Blues marks the musical connection between Fish and Dayton, first ignited in her hometown of Kansas City over ten years ago. She saw Dayton perform in New Orleans and pegged him as the one she’d been looking for as a collaborator. They wrote most of the tunes together for the album, a mashup of gritty rock and roll, blues, punk and a dash of Americana.

I caught up with Samantha Fish as she was driving back to her hometown.

Samantha Fish
I’m actually going home for a couple weeks. We got a show in Europe. We go to Zurich on the 20th. I’m looking forward to that. But I’m also looking forward to a little bit of down time. We just did Jazz Fest and it was nuts, so I’m tired.

Rock & Blues Muse
Bet it was a blast though.

Samantha
It was so great. I mean, it’s always so rewarding and I always feel inspired and charged up every time we do that festival, just because there’s so many opportunities and a lot of people see you. We had a really good reception this year that felt really good.

Rock & Blues Muse
What made you collaborate with Jesse Dayton and create your new album Death Wish Blues?

Samantha
I had been wanting to do something along these lines for a couple years. My manager and I talked about this kind of collaborative side project that would have a certain aesthetic and style that would be a departure from what I was doing in my solo bands. I could never really find the right person to make me feel like, ‘yeah, this is it.’ We’d actually met 12 years prior to that when he’d come play in Kansas City.

I kept in touch with him loosely just through social media because I’m a fan. The guy’s got a pretty deep catalog of original music, but he’s also backed up some country music legends Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. And he’s also worked with some rock and roll heroes, like Glenn Danzig and John Doe. I just always admired the guy from afar. But when I saw him come through New Orleans, a light bulb went off and I said, “Wow, if we could do this together, I think it’d be really cool.” He was receptive to it, and so we started working on it.

Rock & Blues Muse
Tell me about the recording process at Applehead. It’s out in the country, so I assume you stayed there for 10 days?

Samantha 
Yes, the studio had living quarters on the other side of it. Jesse and I stayed out there and the band lived close by, so they traveled back and forth. I was really excited about the idea of recording in Woodstock just because of the history there. It was something new for me. You know how it is, the location can affect the sound so much in such a subconscious way. Where the record was made is part of the story and the sound.

Photo: Jesse Dayton, Samantha Fish by Daniel Sanda

Rock & Blues Muse
What were you going for with the album? Did you have an intention of making it more gritty or edgy?

Samantha 
Totally. I mean, we had a North star we were shooting for. The general idea when I was talking about having a band with a vision for a style and aesthetic and a sound. We wanted it to be gritty. We wanted it to be tough. I wanted the songs to have very catchy hooks. So we focused on that. And then bringing in John Spencer. That’s a calculated move too, because I’m such a fan of John and what he’s done, not only in the blues explosion of Boss Hog. One of my favorite early records as a teenager was A Ass Pocket of Whiskey, the record he made with R.L Burnside. To me, he’s just incredibly gifted at bringing together different styles of music in a way that’s got an explosive quality to it. And I wanted to make a record that had that explosive quality that was exciting to listen to. And John delivered, absolutely.

Rock & Blues Muse
“Supadupabad” is a fun song. Tell me about it.

Samantha
We wrote that in the studio. We laughed our asses off writing that song. I guess Jesse likes smoking weed, so it’s about smoking weed. It’s the most up-tempo song on record. It’s kind of a party song. And he’s a great storyteller. He wanted to tell this story about meeting a dangerous woman, and he does it in his classic Jesse fashion. He’s got a pretty good imagination. We were laughing when we were writing those songs. It was really fun. We wrote the song around the groove, and then we started playing it with the band and we sort of approached it with some reckless abandon. We really were just having fun with it.

Rock & Blues Muse
How did the lyrics come about on your song “Riders” with cities as one night stands.

Samantha
Well, we’re musicians. We’ve been going city to city our whole lives. We thought it was kind of an interesting take to treat the city, treat the gig as if it’s a one night stand. You’re in and out, it’s fun, but you got to roll. But we also kind of touch on the fact that when you’re living this lifestyle, you develop these relationships within your band and you kind of roll around in your own little bubble. You talk to a lot of bands and most of them are total nerds, you know what I mean? We all have weird little inside jokes with each other and it’s because we spend entirely too much time together.

Rock & Blues Muse
I really liked “You Know My Heart.” It has a nice country rock vibe. Was that you and Jesse writing together or more him?

Samantha
It’s funny, when we started the co-writing process, that was one of the first songs Jesse sent me. We’d thrown all these adjectives at the wall. We’re like “tough,” “raw,” “aggressive,” “rock and roll.” And then that’s the first song he sent me. It’s so not that. He sent me the verse progression and some lyrics. I wrote the chorus and took it to this minor place. It ended up being a really beautiful song and the first duet that we ever wrote together.

Rock & Blues Muse
Performing with Jesse is a little different than what you’ve been used to as the sole front person. Now you’re sharing the stage with him. What’s that like?

Samantha
Well, it was a little weird at first just because I think we were both kind of hyper-aware of it and just wanting to be respectful because it’s so easy to ruffle feathers. And we both came into this, “Hey, let’s just be respectful and supportive and figure this out.” It’s cool because I get to back him up when he’s ripping a solo. That’s fun for me because I do love playing rhythm guitar. And he gets to do the same thing too. And honestly, the show rocks, so it’s kind of fun for us. I mean, we really go up there and just play loud guitars for two hours and we have some fun and the crowd likes it.

Rock & Blues Muse
Does it take some of the pressure off not having to be front and center every second?

Photo: Samantha Fish by Daniel Sanda

Samantha
I’d say a little bit. I guess it does. I can trust and know that he’s got my back and I’ve got his back, and it does take a little bit of that pressure off. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been really blessed, but I still get nervous. I mean, I’m like everybody else. I get anxiety. It’s like you kind of build up this moment and then it’s like your body has to figure out how to handle all that stress hormone. Sometimes it shoots straight into your heart or something and you get freaked out. But I still get that way.

Rock & Blues Muse
What makes it more anxiety provoking? Or is it just random?

Samantha
I don’t know, really. It depends on your mood that day. I think it totally depends on a lot of things. How you’ve been sleeping. How you’ve been eating. How you’ve been living. And then your body just sort of responds.

We played Jazz Fest the other day and we were supposed to play one stage and 30 minutes before we were performing, they’re like, “We got to move you up to the big stage. We had a cancellation. You’re now playing in front of 50,000 people and you’re not going to be quite as prepared and you got to play 10 more minutes.” So, we’re scrambling, trying to fix our set list, do all the shit. That one was a little bit anxiety inducing because things weren’t going completely according to plan.

I was having a real tough time with it for a while, probably back in 2017 when things started really moving quicker for me. I started having some panic and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it and control it. The more you fixate on something like that, the more often it happens.

Rock & Blues Muse
What did you do to help yourself?

Samantha
Well, I realized that it’s not about me so much. When you really put yourself in the shoes of the fans that come to the show– they got a babysitter, they took time off work, they bought the ticket and drove to your show. They are there to have a good time. They don’t give a fuck what’s going on in my head. I mean, it’s not so much about me. When I took myself out of my head and put myself more into this collective shared experience with the audience, it helped a lot. I don’t know why, but that just kind of helped me rewire.

Rock & Blues Muse
That’s very cool. I would imagine that once you get past the first or second song that you’re pretty relaxed at that point.

Samantha
Sometimes on song four, I’d have a heart attack. I don’t know why. It’s a weird sensation sometimes being up in front of a bunch of people and they’re staring at you and you’re like, “Oh my God, what are we doing? This is so strange.” And it’s maybe just not my nature. I was really shy when I was young, so it’s just a different thing for me. But I love being on the stage, even with some of the stress that it can induce sometimes. I think it stresses me out because I care so much. I really fucking care.

Rock & Blues Muse
I get that. What do you love most about performing live?

Samantha
I guess when I was young and I would go see shows, the effect it had on my life is what drove me to want to do it, because I wanted to make other people feel how I was feeling. It gave me a voice. There’s nothing more exciting than the stage. When I can get an audience on the same wavelength as me, and we’re all kind of just doing this collective thing together and they’re totally in it with you, there’s not a better feeling in the world.

For more information about Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton see HERE 

Watch “Death Wish Blues”