Sam Russo
SPB: How do you primarily find new music?
Russo: I still find new music the way I always have -- on the road and through friends. When I'm on tour I write down dozens of bands people recommend me and I always listening to the radio in the US. I have a few friends who are really switched onto new music and I get them to make me CDs for the car, or I just let them DJ when they come over for drinks. I love the feeling of discovering something new, it makes you feel like a kid again.
If you're interested I have a story about discovering a musician for the first time. I was on tour with Bangers (great band) in Germany and had a night off in Berlin. It was raining and after dinner we had no idea where we were so we wandered around the rainy streets drinking beer and trying to shake the night-off blues. Anyway we decided we wanted to see some music so we asked around folks in the street for a good music bar and got directed through some alley's and a park and around some side streets to a little cafe/bar place and we huddled inside out of the rain and slopped our way up to the bar. It was candlelit, warm, and absolutely packed with very hip looking Berliners.
We ordered beers and set up by the stage to watch whatever was coming. That's when Aimee Argote took the stage. I'd never heard of her or her band Des Ark, but sitting watching her in the heart of Berlin, feeling wild and almost gone on a dead end road and then to be pulled back in by her breathy, broken voice and big deep eyes as she just hurt and sang, for that to come out of nowhere was wonderful. It was intimate and moving and melodic in a way I'd never heard. Totally unique. I was absolutely lost in it. I bought her record and packed my bag around it and even though the tour was another week long the first thing I did when I got home was listen to that record and it was like I was there again. I'll always remember that night and I'll always have the record to take me back there. So I've always got my ears peeled for new stuff when I'm out because you never know when something so inspiring will just appear on a stage and steal your heart.
