Interview with SAMSARA: ‘I feel like our sound is constantly changing’

New York-based teenage alt-rock band, SAMSARA, brought out their debut EP, Paralyzed in Paradise, last month, fusing grunge, rock and funk to bring us a fresh, seriously catchy sound. Next up will be their single ‘Fat Cat’, which will be released within the next couple of months.

The band comprises local New Yorkers from Queens and Long Island, Dylan Trif (lead vocals), Charlie LoMonaco (guitar and backing vocals), John Devito (bass), Ben Bustamante (drums and backing vocals) and Brendan Sandhovel (bass and rhythm guitar). Charlie, Ben, and John have been friends for many years since they met at music school in Long Island and together with Dylan, they formed SAMSARA. Brendan joined their first summer when John was headed to university. Their name comes from ‘Saṃsāra’, a Sanskrit word meaning the cyclicality of all life, matter and existence, a fundamental belief of most Indian religions. They’re also fans of Nirvana, both the band and the transcendent state in Buddhism that Charlie describes as ‘an endless repeat, almost like purgatory’.

Paralyzed in Paradise is an exceptionally polished debut considering that Dylan, Ben and Brendan are still at school and Charlie and John have just started university (Charlie mentions that he is studying music production and engineering at Berkeley and Brendan says he’ll be applying to study computer science.) The EP opens with NEVERMIND, a blisteringly energetic track written largely by Ben and Dylan, who writes most of their lyrics. Charlie describes the song as ‘a story of a guy on the hunt for somebody, of somebody chasing someone else’.

As it frenetically kicks off: ‘Run away but you cannot hide, you are in my sites at the perfect time. Well, you seem lost, that’s something I don’t mind. Now I’m with you, there’s no place to hide.’

‘It’s a cool one,’ Dylan said of the track. ‘We wrote a decent amount of it together at Charlie’s house but later Ben was playing it when we were trying to sleep, I was so mad at him!,’ he laughed. ‘A couple of days later, Ben started playing it again and I started going ‘Hey, oh, I can’t let you go’, it’s about losing everything you can’t hide.’

‘I feel we don’t get stuck on one sound’

Interestingly, while there are commonalities running through all the songs on the EP, namely pounding riffs and energetic drums that drive the songs forward, along with Dylan’s powerful vocals, tracks such as ‘NEVERMIND’ have a very different feel to ones like ‘By Your Side’: ‘When we wrote ‘Tell Us Your Name’, we thought that would be our sound but I feel like our sound is constantly changing, I feel we don’t get stuck on one sound,’ Charlie said. Brendan chips in: ‘Our tastes have changed in that time.’ Ben starts to laugh: ‘We used to constantly sound like Nirvana but eventually that started to change!’

The version of ‘By Your Side’ on the album bears little relation to their initial version, according to Charlie: ‘I’d written this weird shoegaze thing on GarageBand but my mom said Dylan wouldn’t be able to sing over it,’ he laughed. ‘That song was soooo much slower!’ Brendan starts laughing: ‘Yeah, now it must be 154 bpm, right?’ Dylan describes it thus: ‘It’s a funny one! I was talking to a friend in high school and I’d started developing feelings for her. I was at her house and just started playing Es on the guitar and it gave me an idea for a song, so when we got to rehearsal, we had lyrics and some Es!’ (On the guitar, not drugs!)

As the song goes: ‘Baby, if the worlds collide, I’ll still be standing by your side, ’cause I’ve been told that we’ll grow old and I’ll see your name in the sky.’

Another track on the EP, ‘Filthy Habit’, was actually inspired by the John Lennon song ‘Cold Turkey’, according to Dylan: ‘Ben wrote the instrumental parts and I wrote the lyrics. The song gave me the idea of addiction and going cold turkey. We changed the lyrics, though! The original chorus went ‘I love you, can’t have you, you are my dirty woman’ but we were worried our moms wouldn’t like it! (They changed it to: ‘I love you, I can’t have you, you are my filthy habit.’) I finished the lyrics at home, I was on a roll! Charlie called A LOT! He wanted to call it ‘Dirty Needle’ (Charlie starts laughing)!’ John looks surprised: ‘Oh, I never knew that before!’

Charlie interjects: ‘In the bridge section, which I wrote, I wanted to change a couple of the lyrics, the ‘I’m living without you’ part, I wanted it to be darker. For my collab on ‘Filthy Habit’, I was going through GarageBand and Ben was doing drums, we improvised the bridge.’ Ben jumps in: ‘I remember writing that song, it was one of the first I’ve written. Some of my demos are sooo bad, I played it for Charlie! Charlie came up with the ‘da da da da’ (on the drums) at the beginning of the song.’

As the track kicks off: ‘Cold turkey is getting close to warm, feel like I’m inching towards a storm, need something to relieve my pain but that’s something that I shouldn’t name.’

‘It’s about a very wealthy person and not fitting in with a wealthy community’

They are all feeling the restrictions of lockdown and Dylan says that they had 20 shows lined up before the pandemic hit. However, new songs are on cards: ‘We have one song almost done,’ said Ben. ‘It’s been done, other than my vocals for about a year, they’re waiting on me!,’ Dylan said. ‘It’s called ‘Fat Cat’ and it’s about a very wealthy person and not fitting in with a wealthy community and also about moving to a new town and not fitting in there.’ It will be the first track they have produced themselves, due to Charlie developing his production skills at university. ‘I was like wooooooah when I heard it!,’ Ben said. ‘The drums are very good!’

Charlie is a big fan of fellow local teenage rock band, Dead End: ‘They’re way cooler than us!,’ he laughed. ‘They’re punk inspired. I also really like Spitfires and Social Creatures (both in New York). John also cites all three as some of his favourite local bands. Dylan is a big fan of local duo Sam and Chloe. Ben jumps in: ‘They’re both prodigies.’ Dylan is also a fan of punk band Zig Mentality. They’re all huge fans of Nirvana and Queens of the Stone Age and when I say they remind me a lot of Queens of the Stone Age, they look delighted: ‘That’s the best compliment we could ever get,’ said Charlie happily.

If they could tour with anyone, Brendan picks Arctic Monkeys. Ben goes with Royal Blood: ‘They have this heavy sound that is an alternative kind of pop, they’re very cool.’ John is still thinking: ‘It’s kinda weird, they all like Arctic Monkeys and Queens of the Stone Age but I’m a diehard metal fan. I’ll say Primus (a Californian funk metal band), we’ve all liked them at some point.’ Dylan interjects: ‘Yeah, we saw them together.’ Dylan decides on Oasis and starts laughing: ‘Everyone will want to see them fight on stage every night! Or The Beatles, to say you’ve toured with them, you’d be just wow.’

(Photo from left to right: ‘John, Brendan, Dylan, Charlie and Ben)