Debuting with their first single back in 2018, the eight-piece musical collective known as Sammy Rae & The Friends has taken the world by storm with their fusions of jazz, pop, rock, and other multitudes of musical genres which have helped them emerge as one the best new artists recently, with the release of their newest single covering Tears For Fears smash hit, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

Sammy Rae & The Friends members C-Bass, Sammy Rae and Myra Moon chatted recently with Variance’s Ethan Ijumba to discuss their band’s formation, its diversity, their composition process, and artistic as well as personal growth they’ve had since coming together. Be sure to read the full article below and stream their newest single on all streaming platforms.

Ethan:
So originally you guys are all based around the same area, correct? All starting in New York, some from other spots of New York and I think one of you guys’ members is not originally from New York, is that correct?

Sammy Rae:
Well, we're originally from all over the place. I'm from Connecticut, Will’s from Connecticut, C-Bass is from Virginia Beach, JQ is from Miami, Kellan is from Alabama and Max is from Los Angeles. So we're not all from New York, but we did all meet in the New York City seen in the last couple of years. we're all in the same neighborhood now, which is something we talk about a lot.

Ethan:
So how exactly did your initial careers as a singer-songwriter, backing vocalist, drummer? How did they originally all come about? Like how did you guys have your inception for what you guys do in terms of music?

Sam:
So I knew from the time I was young, I grew up in a really small town in Connecticut and there were no real arts opportunities available to me and I was kind of an odd duck, I had a hard time making friends, had a hard time feeling seen and comfortable in my skin, and I knew from the time I was 12 that I wanted to form a band. But as I got older and I started writing songs at like 15 and 16 and you can perform at a little open mic in Connecticut or whatever, but there are 10 people there and you're 15 years old and it's just you and your instrument. So I started to realize that I was lacking in this band energy, I wanted to have a group of people around me, and when I got to New York and started seeing that other bands were working out. I was focusing a lot on when I do find these people, however, I find them we need to be a group of friends, but we need to be a family-first, we also need to exceptionally talented so that our music is impressive, and we have a successful career. But, we need to be people who are a family first because I had lacked that for so long in my life and I knew that there were other folks out there who wanted to look at a project and see friends and they wanted to see somebody who looked like them and somebody who thought like them and whether or not you realize that people also want to spend time learning about and looking at people who don't look like them and don't think like them. 

C-Bass:
So I started doing music like in high school part of band programs and then I was also an artist in high school and it didn't take me long to realize that that's what I wanted to do as a career. So I went to college for music and then I moved to New York City after being in Virginia for maybe like three months doing a contract just to save up money to move to New York City and then I just started playing drums with different people from like in the New York City area. I started recording and performing drums with different artists and then you know as you keep doing that you meet like a ton of people and you develop your own network. And that's how I met Sam and that's how I started getting to playing with Sam and so it all just kind of started from just me really liking drums and then just being like this is what I want to do with my life and then those small little decisions, you know grew into building a career in music for me. 

Myra:
I can also say I started out of the womb, I was just singing everything out of the books, whatever you could make a song and I started to get really serious about it, probably middle school throughout high school, and so on. I joined any extracurricular activity that was arts-related, even if I didn't have only singing involved if there were dancing, arts and crafts, or any place that provided a recording room, sound booth, or a writing session I was there. When I was looking into high schools I did a couple of auditions for arts high schools and got rejected by all of them, but it also taught me to keep pursuing what I want like okay that that's a no on that side, but that doesn't mean forever or in general. I think that provided me with an ever-flowing infinite to keep going and to keep finding new opportunities and new open doors for myself. Then after one year, I made the conscious decision to leave college which was the first moment in my life where I was like where do I go from here? And then low and behold that's when the internet and Instagram came in clutch out of nowhere I asked that question that gave me the answer and I met Sammy through Instagram from one of her posts and it was kind of like two stars being like, you're amazing, no, you're amazing and she asked if I wanted to perform with her one night at an open mic. 

Ethan:
To go along with your guys’ inception, the two biggest values and themes I've seen through your guys' careers as a group and also as individuals, its the individuality and innovation that you guys represent as a band. Was there any specific people or moments or quote throughout life that helped you in terms of taking your journey and doing things differently rather than following any kind of path, but more so trailblazing your own?

Sammy Rae:
It was important to me that we had a great deal of diversity and confident freethinkers, it doesn't make sense if everybody is from the same place, thinks the same way, looks the same way you're then only really tailoring to the folks who look like you and we're so grateful to have an audience that is so diverse and of so many different like races, places of origin and identities and ages and economic existence. We had a diverse group of people who were all very confident in themselves, but of course, I didn't know who they were going to be or how they were going to show up, and for maybe two years, some people stop playing with us, new people started playing with us, and we finally found this groove here.

C-Bass:
For me, It was very much like yeah, I loved drumming and I just got so involved in it. To the point where I just started looking after some of my favorite idols and while watching interviews from them and I think one big one that we really kind of sold it to me was kind of an ex pretty extreme quote from Miles Davis and it was basically that you shouldn't have a plan B in this and for what you, for me hearing that and especially where I was in high school, being inspired by music, I was like I gotta do this and this the only thing I want to do. I don't know if I'm glad anything else, nor do I want to be good at anything else, I just want to play drums for a living, you know, and that really felt like my calling and so I went into New York City and instead of thinking like I need to get another job to support this, the only thing that I thought about and it almost seems naive now, but if I just focus on the music, everything is going to play out. 

Myra:
For me, I guess I had this unconscious confidence that I knew that that would carry me, you know, and like I will be supported, and I wasn't wholeheartedly like the naive sunflower, I knew that I was like ok I know you know in the future I will have hard times and obstacles and everything like that, but for some reason, my will is very strong and it won't budge from leaving and me accepting that and always acknowledging that and giving that, giving that passion and feeling the time of day to do what it wants, it is loud, it has allowed the universe, the world to like do its lessons or do its teachings on me. And I think in my head I was like, there must be some invisible string or something that's gonna always kind of keep pulling me and keep me on this path, like, and if I have confidence in that, if I have confidence that my passion, my will, my goals, and my dreams and everything will constantly readjust me to the path I'm meant to be on, then there's no worry, there's no need to think about, should I follow anybody, should I follow a crowd? Let me try to figure myself out through these people or figure it out myself. I will constantly, always keep learning about myself every day, but sticking to myself and being like the quote-unquote loner or you know, staying in your isolation, and taking the time to figure out who you are without a lot of outside things telling you giving you suggestions.

Sammy Rae:
I think we all were kind of like black sheep wherever we came from. We all kind of had this like I want something bigger than myself, but I'm not quite sure it was. And how could we have possibly known before we got to where we are now. It was just time, we were all late bloomers, but it was our time to find our people and start capitalizing on being ourselves, so I'm grateful that we're finally there. 

Ethan:
Aside from the recording sessions, rehearsals, and performing music together, what else does the group do you guys bond over or just do together? 

C-Bass:
Literally everything.

Sammy Rae:
I really can't convey this loudly enough that we truly are like Myra touched on it very well, but we are each other's best friends and it's really special to see some of yourself and your past self and your future self and things that you want for your future self in these people who are so close that you spend so much of your life with. So it feels, you know, we've already been through this phase individually where we have to try to be something else in order to fit in or we have to subdue certain parts of ourselves in order to be a real scene and that's not the case here, Nobody's trying to be anything else. So it's very liberating to be able to just fully be yourself in this environment and, and with that, you know, we have a lot of common interests. We all love to travel, we love to be outdoors, we love to see new places that aren't New York that's one of Myra’s blots in life as you know, I love looking at Myra on the road as much as I love being on the road, I love watching Myra on the road. Then, of course, we love music, we love consuming music and we love making music, we love film we play a lot of video games, It's funny what I'm saying and I feel like I'm talking as the collective mind, but that's truly what it is that we love these things and that's why we're as firm as we are and we also love learning about ourselves that's a big passion I think we all share as we're growth-minded people and we like to know ourselves better, and so, in turn, we're always getting to know each other better because we're always evolving. So, you know, we love to travel, we love music, we love film, we love gaming, we love cooking, we love eating and we love each other. 

C-Bass:
We also love to party too and love being the coolest kids, 

Sammy Rae:
You know, it's funny that you say that and that's special to feel like the cool kids because now there are so many people who we were in their place 5-10 years ago and they admire us so much and that's such an uplifting feeling. I want you to look at me so that you know that I made it and like you can make it if that makes any sense. You know, that's common. I think our dream is to make our community feel very seen and appreciated and I think that's almost as important to us as making good records. We have a very strong community and it's important to us that they feel appreciated and that we're always making them feel seen because it just happened this way. We started playing these sold-out shows we saw the same people all the time and they all look the way that we looked when we're 5 and 10 years ago. Eager to make friends, not really sure what's going on, not really sure what they're wearing the right thing, and we remember that and we want to make sure that they know that as cool as you think we are on stage, “Oh my God, that's them”. We've always gone for this is us, and we refer to our entire fanbase as the friends were just like the eight faces of the friends that you see at every show, but we work hard to drive home that point of inclusivity and that's, I think a passion of all of ours as well.

Myra:
I think what makes us so good of a group and a band and like, just a group of friends is the automatic guarantee. Like without even thinking is like the guarantee of a safe space, you know? And even in one of our songs while we're performing on a stage we sing, “this is a space for you” and it feels like when you sing that there's an expansion of what we have and what we give to each other. And it's all due to that safe space that we create. It's sort of like a, you know, the term of toxic positivity, you know? So it's like when there's nothing but positive love there's not a lot of room to grow on how you can be as a person, as a group of people, you know, to grow your mind. 

Ethan:
So with that being said from being such a diverse group of friends and that you guys have put each other on to the specific artist or cultures that you previously weren't familiar with and vice versa?

C-Bass:
150%, I know that whenever I go to Sam's house, she has this vinyl player in her living room and there's not one moment where we're not listening to a new record that she has collected, and that's just Sam you know every single one of us, all eight of us have new music that we're showing. I remember even just last night you know Myra was putting on some really dope on R&B stuff that I had never heard and it's just we're always sharing music, I mean you know what's crazy? It's almost beautiful to think that the music is always part of the hang as well. The music is the ninth member of the band, it's always there like there is not one time even when James and I are playing video games, we always have our iPhone playing something else instead of the Super Smash music. The music is always hanging out with us and I’m getting to learn a lot about different tastes, a lot about different music that I just had never heard before because there's eight of us and all eight of us come from different places. I've gotten to be in touch with so many different types of music and bringing it to the drumset as well and just seeing how I can integrate my own voice into this new music that the friends are showing me it's been very special. Like Sam has always told me, “C-Bass it doesn't always have to be killing okay”, and she said it as a joke, but I actually take it to heart to like I'm like, you know what there is, there is something outside of just what I perceive to how I perceive the music that I want to always be aware that if I am going to go into a situation, I don't always have to do the things that I do, but I can do the things that I'm also influenced by. 

Sammy Rae:
There is so much music that will impress you because it isn't at first listen wildly impressive, like, again, we all come from different musical backgrounds. C-Bass comes from jazz and world influences, Myra comes from R&B and Kaya comes from a lot of gospel, Will comes from rock and folk and like classic rock, I come from classic rock and Americana stuff and jazz as well. I have a  musical theater background. So it's nice to have somebody like C-Bass who is really into this heady theoretical impressive music right out of the gate because it's so thought-provoking and that's really special. But sometimes I'm like, I need you to come over here and listen to the Shuggie Otis record because he's doing like the most with the least. And that can be impressive on the second or third listen. But, its music is the kind of spirit that's always holding us together when we are not immediately at work. It's something that we all obviously bond over and it's a language that we all speak that brings us closer together. It's a method of communication for us.

Ethan:
So to go with that last question, you guys mix so many different elements of music from soul, funk, blues, jazz, rock, pop, among other genres. Do you ever find it difficult to compose an array of genres and blending them together?

Myra:
I can only speak from me and my perspective and experience, but I get the feeling like it's like the answer would be no it's not difficult because I don't think we think in that way where once a song is being made when we're making music our mindsets aren’t working like we gotta add this type of data that how would that work? Like you know, not like a mathematician or like some science laboratory experiment. I think a lot of it it's going by feeling, coming together, just playing it out, and hearing it. 

Sammy Rae:
Yeah, and everybody has their own superpower. So I could just show up with a lyric, melody, and chords but I either have to say you know, we want it swung or I need to get a nice Bossanova going or we need a nice folk groove going or something hard-rocking and C-Bass is going to offer what C-Bass is capable of offering on the drums as influenced by C-Bass’s experience. So C-Bass isn't going to bring you country-western, you're gonna get country western from the guitar with Will if that's what's required for the song. But you're not gonna get jazz from Will because that's not his superpower, jazz is Max’s superpower. You're not going to get world stuff from Kellan on the saxophone, you're gonna get it from J.Q. on the bass because that's his superpower. So we always start with okay here's the song, here's what it's about, here's the chords, here’s the melody, here's kind of what the groove is and then it usually starts with J.Q. And C-Bass taking my input and offering their superpower to get this baseline group going and then everybody else comes in and sits on top. But we don't think of it as difficult because it's not like all right let's get all these different elements into this song now. It's just that the common thread is always this is the way that this group of eight people performs songs. You know, we're not thinking about, oh, it's not jazzy enough, It's not folky enough, It's not this or that enough. This is just the way that this group will present music and none of us all come from the same background and another thing is as we continue to share more music with each other. 

C-Bass:
We're also very adaptable. So like whatever is given and put in front of us. We start with something first. It's not like we come with like 50 ideas and try to make them all work. It's more like maybe one or two ideas and then it's like, oh I know how to add this pot of whatever we're trying to do, you know? So well we're all very good improvisers and we're all very adaptable musicians.

Ethan:
To go along with how you guys come together to make music, do you guys have a process aside from that when it comes down to composing lyrics together?

Sammy Rae:
No, I think we're very new to that, we've only just started doing that. I've only just started uh the writing process is something that's always been very particularly precious and personal to me and have a really hard time letting people in and not being able to effectively co-writer in the past. Even though I've had like oh right set up I really admire somebody or watching like I have friends. I have a co-write at 2 P.M. With this person for three hours and we're gonna write a song whether or not it's good we're gonna write it. And then I have another one in the morning and then have another one the next day and that like quantity versus quality, it's not bad because sometimes quantity is good and some people are really capable of it, but not being able to write with another person has been a deep source of insecurity for me over the years, and it's caused me to feel like I'll never be an icon like Paul McCartney or Elton John or Bruce Springsteen or Fleetwood Mac because I don't have or Sly & The Family Stone, because I don't have the I'm not, I'm not prolific like I don't get song after song after song. But it's huge and you know, let's get down tune is shaping up and it is what it is because of your influence on it. and, you know, Will was a huge part of “Let's Throw A Party” and Myra was a huge part of “Whatever We Feel”. So it's new for us, we don't really have a process yet because it's very new. 

Ethan:
So have you guys been making your music and everything you composed? Let's Throw A Party and The Good Life. And a lot of that music ranges from so many various themes of elements. But was there any specific influence that inspired each EP differently?

Sammy Rae:
Well, “The Good Life” was my first stab at songs that would require a band and some of the band is on that record and some of the band is not, because I was with other players at the time and I was just thinking of them as like session players like I hired the guys that I knew because I didn't know very many people yet. I was still new to the scene and it's me and all the background vocals. The girls aren't even a part of it, C-Bass, Kellan, Max, and JQ are missing from a couple of those songs, and Will is missing from that entire record. So as that came out and got success and we started playing those songs, which kind of felt like my songs, I mean obviously they're our songs, but you know you're impressed when you see Myra singing on stage because you don't hear her on the record And once we kind of had the solidification of, okay, this is the project, this is the band, this is who we are. It felt important that we started becoming more collaborative in the writing process because I wasn't just writing for myself anymore. I was never just writing for myself, but that's all I knew when I did the first one and now I'm not writing a saxophone line, I'm writing a line for Kellon, I'm not writing a groove for a drummer I'm writing for C-Bass because I know what C-Bass can do, I'm writing bassline ideas for JQ because I'm thinking about him specifically. So once you know, in terms of themes, The Good Life is much more coming-of-age songs, I just got to New York songs, identity crisis songs, and navigating through the world in that way. Then you know a couple of years later I'm a little more confident in myself, I have better friends, I know what I'm doing and Let's Throw A Party is a lot more like it's a lot more mature and it's a lot more reflective on the past. The tune of Let's Throw A Party and kind of the namesake of the whole EP, I was reflecting on kind of throwing a party and being celebratory and being grateful in the face of chaos in general like in the face of things that you can't change, aging or your parents passing, or sickness or financial instability, there are certain times where you work really hard to try to preserve something and it's just not in your control and having this energy of being joyful and confident and grounded enough that you can still throw a party and like celebrate in the face of chaos and that song had been in my head for a long time before it came to fruition.

Ethan:
With that being said, now that you’re both main members going forward, as a drummer of the band, as well as Myra, you’re 1 of the 2 background vocalists of the band. How would you both describe your roles as core instrumental and vocal pieces?

C-Bass:
Well, I take on different roles, so musically I provide a lot of rhythmic information obviously because of the drummer. On top of that I take on this role whenever I play drums, I try to create bedding for people to play on top of. But I also want to interact with the instrumentalist and feel like they can, you know, do their thing. If Kellan is bringing it on a solo, I want to push that solo, I want to make him, you know, be the best that he can be. Honestly, I think my role in general, and in life too is I want to build up people and allow them to be the best versions of themselves period.

Ethan:
So aside from your work and contributions that you've had to the group, can we ever one day expect to see anything upcoming solo from work in the future or any like any credits or like anything we've got going on. 

Myra:
Yeah, I do have one song that's been made and it's wholeheartedly new for me. It's been something that I've been longing to do for so long, but I give myself logical reasons to hold myself back, and then I stick to it. But, eventually, you get tired of feeling sick and tired and you have to get yourself out of that because then it's like you've run out of frustrations on the world and outside things and now you're like, okay, I really can't be mad and blame anything else right now but myself. So finally I did start making music and I'm still in this phase trying to figure out my genre and my nature where I fit into the music industry in general and I just gotta do it.

Ethan:
Regarding your roles in the band, on a personal aspect, aside from Myra & C-Bass other members of your band come from different backgrounds, cultures, groups, and ethnicities. How would you describe the importance of your band's diversity? 

Myra:
I think the importance is to always keep in mind, at least for like, for myself, as a person of color is to always have just confidence in yourself. If it loses out and it seems like she's cocky or whatever. I was just like, no, this is just me being a black person and me enjoying my blackness and if somebody feels uncomfortable, well go over to the next room and then your vibe might change, you know? But I will not go anywhere. I also think it's very important to me because I'm gonna be straight up with you, I see a lot of bands that are predominantly white with one or two black people. Following is also what you do see is predominantly white bands with black background singers. And that's an automatic stereotype that it's like, all right. This is that type of band. Like they're just using these people for like, you know, for their color, for their race, for what they have, you know, or their culture and they’re like broadcasting that to create revenue, to bring in fans to bring in money, like all this. And it's just like, all right. That may be the case for a lot of bands, a lot of people out there, but it's wholeheartedly not the case for this band, you know, and it's hard not the case for me and how I feel that. 

Ethan:
To stem that back to that, I think guys really exemplify the term friends when based on how you all come from different area and places, but you're all on the same page about so many of the same things and it doesn't matter what you look like or who you are, what color you are. Your foundation of you guys coming together, not based on what you look like, but based on who you are as people.  

Sammy Rae:
I think it’s because we're all students of life, you know, we love learning about the world around us and we love learning about stories that are not our own. And we talked a lot about how to make sure that we're a family and that familiar friend energy is constant because there are so many incredible bands who people love and they haven't survived the test of time because there's this inherent lack of health and there's this toxicity underneath and the way that we resolve that is that we're always communicating and that we’re always present for each other when necessary. But we also feel okay to assert boundaries and additionally not everything about a friendship is comfortable, it's not all nice. Like recently, you know, in the last two years, one of our band members had their mother passed away and that was trauma and a sense of mourning that we all felt and the challenge was how do we make them feel more comfortable and in light of recent current events, it's not comfortable to have this conversation, but it's necessary for all of us to grow as individuals and it's necessary to learn how to uh, you know, I don't have this conversation if Myra doesn't impart this wisdom on me in a way that only she is equipped to do. So I would be lacking when I try to move through the world. You know, it's a perspective that I need to understand. And I need to be uncomfortable because that's the only way that change happens and it takes a trusting friendship for you to come at us with that sort of conversation or just you and I come at me with this sort of conversation and me go, please make me uncomfortable because that's the way that we grow. You're saying this at the same volume that you're saying, please listen to me because this is really painful and to just be okay to have these conversations and both be willing to grow is really important. I'm gonna grow because I'm learning something and I'm checking myself and you're going to grow because you're letting your feelings out, so it's important.