ifitbeyourwill Podcast #197 • Johanna Samuels

Johanna Samuels makes songs that can turn a tiny memory into something that suddenly feels enormous. On this episode, we get into Sorry, Kid, revisiting old songs, getting older, the weirdness of memory, and how the places and people in our lives keep finding their way into our music. Johanna is thoughtful, funny, and refreshingly honest about the messy process of making sense of the past while still moving forward. A great conversation with a songwriter who knows how to make the personal feel universal—and a lot of fun along the way.

https://www.johannasamuels.com/

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

colleyc 0:31

Welcome back, Summer Chuggin here. Um I was just talking up, so I have uh Johanna Samuels here today, excellent singer-songwriter coming in from LA. And we were just kind of talking about summer, and I have the summer off because I'm an educator, right? So I follow the kids. But for musicians, I know it's a very hectic time of the year. So Johanna, thanks so much for carving a little bit of time.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Oh my gosh. Of course. Of course. Thanks for having me.

colleyc 1:05

Oh, it's a pleasure. So, Johanna, you have this new record coming out next week, August 14th. Sorry, kids. Wow. Um I've been reading quite a bit about it and how it came to be. And this is coming out on Jealous Butcher and the Odd Man Out. If people want to pursue that. Typically, I start here with a little walk down memory lane. Okay. So here's my poignant first question for you. What were some of those moments as you were growing up? Now, I understand you grew up in New York. You're bicostal, are you not?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Like I'm pretty bicoastal. I was born in New York. We moved to LA when I was like five years old, and then I grew up in LA and then um moved back to New York when I was 18, and then I was there for 10 more years, and then moved back to New York. I mean to LA, hello, for a relationship. And then I had kind of laid down some roots in terms of my musical stuff here. I definitely came up in the New York scene, which I think was really good for me. In in learning just that you you really have to hustle and work hard and be in the snow and take the train, and you gotta really want it. Um so I'm yeah, I'm glad I think it becomes easy in this.

colleyc 2:31

Um I I'm weary to call it a business. It's more of a survival at times, right? Amen. Music industry. I'll put that in quotation marks. Amen. Yeah, it shifted so much. Um were what were some of those moments that that made you want to take on this wild and crazy journey that you're doing with your music? Like, what were those beginning, like, yeah, I gotta do this, or this has to be a part of who I am as I grow? Totally. Do you have some of those stories you can share one or two with us? I'm trying to think.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I mean, I was always singing and playing piano as kind of my that and and drawing and thinking about movies were kind of my freest flow of of creativity and how I kind of survived everything, like emotionally and in growing up. I really didn't think that songwriting and being a performer in that sense was something that I was that was like available to me. I always considered it to be something that mended. And I'm trying to think about the the moment when I knew that it was I I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was a very young adult, and and always kind of growing up, that was kind of what I said I wanted to be. And I I do worship movies, like I I really think it's an incredible medium. And um I think when I went to go pursue it and I went to film school, I all my all my piano playing and and cowboy chord guitar playing was always to learn other people's songs and sing other people's songs. I think I had like a kind of part of my private like healing and and um a sense of taking care of myself. I would really instinctively like obsessively write down lyrics of of songs that I loved and were was obsessed with. And I felt like it brought me closer to the song. And if I could understand every word of the song, then it would be in me. Um and I think subconsciously I was kind of incubating um and studying in this way without realizing that it was something that I actually wanted to do. Like I have visceral memories of being in my room as a teenager, like writing down every lyric of Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and like, you know, all those, all those rock god people. And then when I turned like 18, I moved to New York, which was always my dream to go back and and be there and be from New York and own that part of myself. And it really happened pretty naturally. It was this weird moment. Like, I remember I wrote a song and I like sent it very weird. I was very bold and kind of like not thinking, you know, now I feel like I've learned that what you share on the internet like is on the internet forever. Um, but I mean, this was also before Instagram and all that stuff, but I sent this song that I made on Garage Band to like a bunch of blogs that I listened to, and like five or six of them like writ wrote about it. And then I remember telling my friend Andrew about it, and he was like, What are you gonna like? Are you gonna be a like a singer-songwriter now? Like, yeah, right. And then I just was like, Yeah, yeah, I am, and I'm and I'm not gonna stop. And I and I just was that was it. I started playing like tiny little shows in the East Village, and I was so like the beginnings of playing live, I was miserable. Like, I was so uncomfortable being on stage. I didn't, but something was compelling me to keep doing it. I remember I would throw up before I would play for years and years, and then all of a sudden I just was like, well, I've done this 10 million times, so like I'm just gonna do it. And then it started to become joyful, started to play with other people, started to fall into a community, and that's how how it kind of happened.

colleyc 7:01

That's amazing. Yeah, I mean it's because I mean a lot of your music is here I am, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:07

It's yeah, yeah.

colleyc 7:09

It it it starts off with with quite um journalistic or you know, it's ordinary things, you know, and then it they evolve into much deeper kind of hmm. And you had said something on a podcast that I listened to is that most of your songs are a set of questions that you ask. And is that so that the listener can kind of find his or her way into like how do what's that approach that you use where you know songs are a set of questions that that you're battling with, or you want the listener to like what wade would you like it to, or both?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah, sometimes it's so interesting you say that because so often it's a question that I that I that I need an answer to, and I don't know if it's me who can answer it, or if it's this other person, or if it's everyone and you know, like that's ever had that same question. Um, it's kind of an into the void. Um I feel like lately I'm like, I I've never I never I didn't grow up religious at all, but it feels like I'm realizing lately that all my songs are kind of like prayers. This sounds so like self-important. I I mean like in the personal sense of just like a place where I've reached a blockade that like I do not have the tools or or context to feel balanced in. And I and I really am seeking that like I I'm often in my life seeking balance and seeking um a sense of place in the world that like um isn't so sad. And and I think that that like is I think underneath it all, that is the drive that I had in in wanting to write songs and make music is that I want to connect with others and I want in whatever sense that means, you know, whether it's the listener responding to a song and and feeling seen, or whether it's someone hearing the song and then, you know, I've had it's so funny, I've had like after shows, I remember in my 20s when I was playing in Brooklyn a lot. Um I would have my like best friends' boyfriends. I've had like a few of my friends' boyfriends come up to me after a show and be like, is that about like was that about me? Like, did you talk to her? Like what? And I like like no, but like, but maybe it is, and like I'm glad. Yeah.

colleyc 9:49

Like I mean, feelings are universal, right? It's yeah, it's hard to say, like, oh no, I've only felt this.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

colleyc 9:57

I mean, in reality, we do feel these similar kinds of things that I think that you spark in people. And that's why I love that idea of kind of this question asking in your song, where for me as a listener, it really I turn inward with it, you know, and I start thinking about experiences. And you know, and I wanted to to say like place seems to be really important for you as well when you're right, a sense of where you're at. And I guess the the the juxtaposition you had of New York versus LA, two very kind of different communities are cultures almost. Yeah. How do you how do you find place in your music?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah. I feel like it's so weird. Whenever I'm writing, it doesn't matter like if I'm writing about something specific or I'm exploring something that I don't even know what the song is about. I can still see where the song is taking place and I can feel it. I I also I think I've I've I'm learning to lean into the fact that like by nature I am really a a half and half in terms of how I was raised. I have this innate East Coast way of communicating, and I love California, but I do think that um that communication style is often really it makes it makes people uncomfortable in in places that are less direct, like you know, the the West Coast or even the Midwest, or like it's and I I felt a lot of shame about that. And then lately I've started to feel like that's who I am, and I have such a root in the in the East Coast with so many people in my life that do communicate that way, that it makes me feel anchored. Um, and I think that the East and West Coast has really given me gifts for for the lyricism and context for what I'm writing about in their eat each in their own special way. Like, um, I think there's um a true connectivity in New York where if you're going anywhere, you are you are with others, and for better or worse, you're in the armpit of a person you don't know, you don't, you know, like you you're body to body. And there and you can feel you can easily feel alone even when you're surrounded by a ton of people. And then in LA, you know, you can go for weeks without seeing people if you if you want. It's very sprawly, and there's, you know, I often talk about like um in in New York when you're on the subway and someone who is going through like any sort of mental difficulties comes on um the train, it's immediate in the knowing of what's going on, and everyone kind of reacts in their own separate ways. And I feel like in LA, you could like meet someone that is so passively polite that it might take 15 to 20 minutes to realize that they're like unwell, and then no one can hear you scream and you're in a parking lot, and like, you know, like it there's there's this like kind of duality that New York and LA have. Um and I think I've I've tried to take from both of those um sensory experiences in in writing.

colleyc 13:37

Interesting. And I'm fascinated too with your your film school.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

So you attended film school to be uh what what was it that you were studying when when you I wanted to write screenplays and I mean of course when you're like 17, I'm like I'm gonna be an au tour and I'm gonna direct it and I'm gonna write in it and I'm gonna do this, and I like but I was really drawn to the way that a screenplay worked and the way that um the idea of using a frame to tell a story worked. And in terms of images, and in terms of dialogue, and in turn, you know, like in in this when I put songs and I put movies next to each other, you know, there are so many different elements that comprise a successful story in a film. You know, there's the music is oftentimes a really big part of it. There's dialogue, there's the way the camera is sitting, there's the colors, there's there's so many things. And then the best songs to me play like movies in your head. Like I had this huge experience with this song, Madame George, by Van Morrison, when I was in college, and I because I I closed my eyes and I had headphones on, and I kind of rode the the wave of the story he was telling, and there's so much language in that song, but there's also so much sonic environment and like feeling, and I think that in that sense, movies and film um movies and songs are in in a sense the same thing. They use different elements that paint a picture for you and they leave you with a feeling or a thought or a question. But yeah, I thought I wanted to be like a a movie director and a movie writer.

colleyc 15:39

Well, you're writing beautiful movies in my mind when I listen to your music.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Oh man, thank you.

colleyc 15:45

Me too. Like how is there a structure that you follow? Like, I know movies, like you were saying, like there's all these considerations, right? Of setting and the ambiance and the the the words that are said, the light music is much more you know, stripped down. It totally, you know, voice instruments. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah.

colleyc 16:09

Is is there a similar kind of structure that you've taken from your idea of filmmaking and brought it into your songwriting process?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

100%. I think because I was lucky enough to be in school um during the pivot of my focus, I was still, you know, it was my lifelong dream to go to that school. I went to NYU film, and I was like, you know, everyone was like, you're never gonna get in there. You're like such a not great student. And like I applied to no other schools. I was like, I don't know what I was tripping on, but I got in early admission, and and so when I did, even when I pivoted my focus, I I was so excited to be in those classes. And I was so grateful to meet other people like me who loved, loved, loved like art in that way. I went to a big public school and I I, you know, it wasn't not everyone felt that way. And even if they did like, you know, some of the things that I liked, I felt like I always took things to such an obsessive place that like I I felt alienated a lot. And when I started learning about the acts of a of a movie and the the tool, I had an incredible screenwriting teacher, his name was Chris Kelly. We would he broke it down in this way that was so compelling to me, and he he basically framed it like a ha you're in a hall of mirrors. Like within these acts, you are using these indirect metaphors to reveal the message of the movie even before plot points are revealed. Um, and I was so inspired by that. Um you know, like someone's gonna die at the end of like the second act, and in the first act you see them, and the lighting behind them makes a circle around their head like a halo, or like something like that foreshadowed, yeah, exactly. Classic, you know, and that's like a very basic example, but there can be very minute ways of doing it. And I was I was so intrigued by that, and I really just took everything that he taught me and and just was writing songs. I remember at one point I had written like the first 10 pages of a screenplay, and everyone was moving on, you know, like finishing their their screenplay, and I had, you know, I have rampant ADD. So like I started it and then I was like, you know what that reminds me of? And I just started writing 10, 15 songs. And and my professor was like, this is really good, 10 pages. I wait, why? Why can't you finish it? And I was like, well, because I'm I'm doing this other thing. And like I it all bled together for me. I was just in a very, I was so fortunate and privileged to be in such an inspiring environment. And I really wanted to soak it up, and I soaked it up in my weird little artist way that I I've always been this bitch. I just like I'm interested or I'm not, and like I'm interested, and only in the way that I'm interested, until you know it's yeah, classic, classic ADD pin.

colleyc 19:52

Does that that fed into your songwriting then? Just like 100% through the process. And like tell me about your song, like when do you write a song? Like, how does it come to you? And a point to that is like when do you know if it's gonna stay kind of in your journal or it's I want to share this? Like, do you feel that once you've kind of hit onto a song or a series of lyrics that are just like, yes, I need to develop this more? You kind of open those songwriting process doors for us a little bit for sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

I mean, I think I'm an avid journaler. I always have been. And I always save everything, every sticker, every ticket, everything, and I paste it in. And I a lot of the journaling that I do is like pre-processing. Um, and I feel like when something recurs again and again for me, it it like it's almost like a stone in a river where like all of a sudden, after a you know, a hundred days of like sorting through this feeling or event or whatever it is, you look up and you realize, oh, actually, like it's you have one line and it's a it's a it's a soft stone of a of a so of a lyric. And and that is something I think it's like you're writing even when you're not writing, and there's a lot, and then that's lyricism, but like there, and then in those, in those periods when I'm journaling, journaling, I'm also playing one Tom Petty song over and over and over again. Or I'm, you know, like I you I keep your inspir for me, it's so much about keeping inspired and listening to other people's music and seeing live music. Like half the time I'm at a show now, if I'm inspired by it, I'm like writing songs in my head while I watch this other person play, which is so strange. But that's like the lyricism end of it. And then musically, I feel like it's it's picking up your instrument and just fucking. Walking around and taking your feelings to the instrument, and sometimes something once again comes up again and again and again, and you're like, I like this thing that I don't know what it is, but I like it. And then you realize, oh, actually, if you put this chord after it, it's kind of like a nice little chorus, or like once once I feel like I have come up with one verse in one chorus, you basically can take that and put it away and write a whole song lyrically because you have the structure of the chorus and you have sorry, that's my dog. So sorry. One second.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

No. No. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah, you have you have Yes. If you have a chorus and and a lyric and a verse, you then just because I love the structure of pop music, you can take that and you know how the c the verse goes. So you can write ten thousand verses just with a just with your pen and like even put the other put the instrument aside and then focus on lyrics. And let's say you write 20 verses of a song, you find three or four that really mean the thing that you want to say. And then your chorus can be, you know, I'm a I was told when I was younger that like a chorus should be seven words that everyone can say. So sometimes I sometimes I try to like lean into that, and then other times it's seven words that everyone can say, and every time you sing the chorus, it's it's a different version of the same thing, or um but it I think of it as you're starting with like in terms of taking people on a ride, I want it to start in a place where they can connect with me, like one-on-one, and then and then it grows and it builds, and then it breaks down, usually. I'm trying my band always makes fun of me and they're like let's shake it up, please. Like but it's a it's a really it's an effective structure that I did not create.

colleyc 24:23

So But I mean it totally works with with w what you write and and and perform.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Thank you. I mean, I it makes me feel something, so I figure it works.

colleyc 24:36

But absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I I've been listening to your back catalog as well a lot.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Oh man, thank you.

colleyc 24:43

I definitely see that like what you're describing of of the structure that's in your in your head and how you work it, you know, with with the ups, the peaks and the valleys and stuff. It's really um great singer-songwriter. I mean, you I just love your lyrics and I love that you can just pour 20 verses, you know, like that's a special ability that not a lot of people can do.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Oh man, thank you.

colleyc 25:08

Sometimes squeezing two verses out is like No, it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

It's hard.

colleyc 25:13

It's so hard. And I know that like just based on your journaling that you've been doing since, you know, the beginning of your time, uh there's lots to talk about, you know, there's lots to write about, and you have all these great memories that you can feed on. Um let's talk a little bit on about sorry, kids. Um because that is a record that you had written kind of parts of it in the past, and then you had some holes you filled with newer songs.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Is that am I getting that right? Totally, totally. It um it wasn't it wasn't originally meant to be that way, and it it ended up, you know, when I wrote those songs, I obviously wasn't like this will be for a record called Sorry Kidd and I'll make it when I'm 38 years old. And like it it was it was more like more stuff that I had to get out and I had to write them, and I was playing them live at the time. And then they just never really got recorded in a way that that I felt was, you know, the thing. And then I kept writing and writing, so I like kind of forgot about those songs. And then I have I had friends in New York that, you know, I have some very some of my d best friends have just seen me through the fucking ages. Like they're like, I was at your show where 10 people, you know, were there and like, what about white limousine? Like, come on, and I'd be like, that's not that's like come on. But yeah, it I I brought it to Redo and it kind of breathed new life into it and amazing song.

colleyc 26:46

White limousine. Thank you. Um brilliantly written, like it's such a good start to it. Um it just pulls you in. I'm excited to listen to the whole thing as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Um but Oh, we'll send it to you. Well, I guess you only would have to wake wait a week, but yeah.

colleyc 27:06

Yeah. And and so some of the songs then were a process of like re-recording, or did you have the original recording and just tweak it, or was it a complete start over?

SPEAKER_01 27:18

It was a complete teardown and start over because I I had started the record, I was like eight songs in and then had to stop, and I didn't feel that it would be I I just wanted to if I was going to to make it elsewhere, I wanted it to be a fresh, full experience. Just because, you know, frankly, I most all of the time I'm working with no money. And if a producer wants to work with me, I feel very lucky. And I also because of that, I want it to be a priority that the producer feels like it's as much of a creative expression for them as it is for me. So for me to bring up recordings of other songs and be like just you know, add your twist. Yeah, like um and it's like a complete thought, really, right? Right, right.

colleyc 28:14

Instead of it being all done within that same exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Yeah. So I wanted it to be a full imagining from both of us that like we would put our heads together and this would be born out of it. And he did an amazing job, Rado. He he's very talented, and my friend Patrick Dampfear did a lot in helping me finish my vocals and uh mixed it and mastered it. It ended up being a really cool collaboration. Yeah.

colleyc 28:49

And kind of looking back on all that, how are you feeling about you know, you're on the eve of the the it being released? Um I think about that whole process and I mean it's kind of done now, right? Now you're just kind of getting ready for all the promo and totally the tours and stuff. How are yes, where are you at with it right now?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

I am feeling like, you know, excited and nervous. I like at this point this record has taken like four years to make and get out, and I I really am eager for it to be out and for me to move on to to other material, but also now that there's been this build, it's also very we did we ended up doing a really long rollout for this record. We did six singles, and so it's just a lot of build-up, and it's been a lot of work for each single, doing you know, a video that was a priority for me to do a video for each single, and so it's been a lot of work. I'm a little exhausted, but I'm also trying to um get myself ready to be gone. I'm leaving mid-August and I'm gone through the beginning of October doing tour and stuff for this. So I'm also a little pre-homesick, you know. I I don't want to leave my dog, and but that's the stuff of the life that I chose for some reason.

colleyc 30:15

Somebody told me it's like you work 24 hours, but you're only really working for one hour, right? But you're always on when you're touring. Like it's I know it's a grind in a it's such a grind for like an hour or so.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Hundred percent.

colleyc 30:29

Every other day.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Hundred percent.

colleyc 30:32

And so you'll be hitting the road with it come mid-August, and like what about new newer stuff? Like where where are you at? Are you still kind of like just totally consumed right now by sorry kids? And then once the tour's over, you'll have a big deep breath and the next of the next journey?

SPEAKER_01 30:51

I actually I've been you know, these songs are now not new. And I have I've been writing quite a bit. I was pretty blocked up for a while. And in the last month or so, I feel like it's really been flowing again. So I'm I'm I think in order to keep myself sane, I always have a new set of songs that I'm that I have percolating. Um and then the promo stu, you know, the the release of a record is is its own job and it really isn't very musical. It's more about you know, sharing what has been made and and and performing those songs which I now are very, you know, in my fingers and and they've changed meanings like a hundred times and I'm ready to do that. But I also I like to keep just like creatively going forward. Otherwise I feel like sometimes I I just get blue if I don't if I don't have something coming out of my hands, even if I'm like you know, drawing or or like um kind of art yeah, yeah, somehow.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Totally, totally.

colleyc 32:09

I love that. I love that. Well Joanna, thank you so much. I want to just say, listeners, go out and see Joanna if you can. Uh if you're lucky enough that she passes through your city, go to the show, buy the record, buy a shirt, say go say hi to her, tell her how the music influences. These artists work their asses off, and this is how the recognition comes is you going to them and seeing them. So please do. Um it's a great record. I wish you all the best with the release next week and your tour, and I'm just so excited for listening to this whole complete one and all the stuff that you're gonna be doing down the road, because I feel it in you that this is this is you, and uh and I'm gonna change it now. This is the your direction, and one chapter closes, another one opens. So it's true.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

But oh man, thank you. That's uh really thoughtful and kind.

colleyc 33:06

Well, uh I really enjoyed this conversation. I think that your your question, uh your answers have been really uh intriguing and and uh passionate and uh thoughtful, and uh it's just been a really nice conversation.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

I think for me too. Me too. Thanks for having me.

colleyc 33:24

Thank you. And uh you take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

You too.