Amidst the launch of her electrifying new live album ‘Paper Doll: Live’, we had the pleasure of chatting with Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and renowned guitarist Samantha Fish. Samantha Fish hails from Kansas City, Missouri in the USA and her work draws on a whole host of influences, including bluegrass, country, rock and more. She's currently on tour in support of the release of ‘Paper Doll: Live,’ which was recorded in the Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, Tennessee. This is Fish’s first official live album, capturing the electrifying stage presence that has made her one of the most compelling performers in modern blues and roots music. The album documents a band firing on all cylinders in front of a packed crowd, elevated by the soaring harmonies of Nashville gospel legends The McCrary Sisters. We spoke to Samantha about her life as a guitar player, touching on her love of the Gibson SG, her approach to guitar technique and how she developed her iconic on stage looks.
So firstly, thanks for chatting with us, you’ve got a new live album coming out, Paper Doll, coming out in June. I've said this in an interview with Phil Sayce recently, I'm a sucker for a live album. I love them. I wish more people did them. So that's really, really exciting. And I managed to get a quick little sort of preview opening with Kick Out The Jams cover. Very fun. Love that decision. What kind of led you? What led you to do that? Where did that come about from?
Well, that song had actually been our walk-on music for about... I don't know, two, three years prior to that. And every night I got so used to hearing it as like this pump up, you know, let's get, let's get, you know, in the headspace, get charged up, get the audience fired up for us to start our show that when I did the record with Jesse Dayton, We were floating different songs. I said, man, the songs, the song has just been our walk on music forever. And I'd love to actually open the show with it. And it just carried over into my band. And it's a great, it's a great. way to open a show, I think, you know, it's kind of an invitation. It sets an intention. It lets the audience know like, Hey, you know, buckle up.
Yeah. I feel like it's a, it's a great show opener, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. And it was recorded in the Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, Tennessee. What led you to that choice of venue? Is that a particularly special venue for you? How's the vibe there?
Yeah. Well, it's a beautiful old theatre. The room sounds great. It does have a lot of history. Our particular reason for choosing that space was a lot more to do with proximity to the record label and everybody kind of coming together. Because when you're when you're doing something like this and you have this many people involved, it's like, you know, picking a perfect meeting place, that works well for everyone can be a challenge. So it just was perfect as far as location and the time of year we needed to do it. And my record label had worked in that room before. So they knew the system fairly well and knew, you know, knew what kind of sounds we'd be able to get out of the room. Sometimes that knowledge going in ahead of things is super, super helpful. So You know, not to kill the romance of it, there’s a lot of logistics.
I suppose that's the thing with any kind of beautiful theatre venue is they're always characterful. You never really know what to expect sound wise, I guess.
Right, right. Exactly.
Great to get those practicalities locked in. And so I'm a huge fan of the SG, as I believe are you. I feel like most people would identify you with playing an SG. And, you know, for me, I always kind of think of it as the guitar that a lot of people either start with or end up on. That’s how it's fit into my own journey. You know, I'd love to hear a bit about what what led you to to the SG as a guitar player and what you like about it, what you get out of it.
You know, so I started playing an SG, I think it was late 2015 or no, it was 2016. And it was just a guitar that I've always been attracted to. Like, you know, I love Angus Young and I love, you know, Derek Trucks, Sisters Rosetta Tharpe. I think, you know, there's a lot of amazing SG players over the years. And I just it just looks so badass, you know, and I think I just want to. I for totally superficial reasons to just go and try it. And I got lucky because sometimes when you choose things for superficial reasons, they don't fit you for, you know, very, very real reasons. And I just got very lucky that that one fit my personality. The tone of it, you know, I feel like it's pretty versatile. And so it kind of just became my go to you know, especially like the big rock numbers, you know, I felt like there was an ease of movement on the fretboard for me. I could just get a lot out of it. We've paired well together. It was sort of a shot in the dark when I first got one. I just sort of said, I'm going to do it, and I'm lucky that it worked out and we became fast friends.
Yeah, it's so funny. I feel like the versatility of the SG is really underrated. I think people see it as kind of, you know, it's the Jack Black guitar or whatever. And then, you know, you pick one up and you're like, oh, my goodness, I can do everything. It's so playable. Now at Guitar Interactive, we have the pleasure of an audience of real guitar nerds. So I love discussing like the minutiae of technique as well. And I'd love to know just a little bit about sort of how maybe you developed your technique in terms of touch points, how that journey was and if there's anything that you do that's maybe a bit unconventional that people might not notice.
I think the thing that people have brought to my attention that maybe isn't completely conventional, but I don't know, it just feels second nature is my picking technique. I do. I kind of go back and forth. I, I know it's not technically called hybrid picking because that's actually a very specific thing. It's hard to describe it because it's something that I've sort of trained myself to do without thinking, but you know, I'll pick, I have a guitar picked between my first finger and my thumb and then I'll employ my other fingers to, you know, do some some some like sweeping picking stuff behind it. I also like to use my, you know, I like to tuck the pick away and use my thumb to hit bass notes while I'm picking higher melodic stuff just to kind of fill in some low end sometimes, and that was a technique that I picked up from kind of like North Mississippi Hill Country blues players.
As far as my fretting hand, I don't know if there's anything technique-wise that I can that I can note, you know, I just for a long time, it was like I was just doing the best I could to tread water. And then, you know, I just found I just found the way to hold the guitar that felt comfortable to me. I mean, I think that, you know, there's a lot of education out there and, you know, there's the correct way to hold things. You're taught that if you go to your if you're formally trained and stuff. I'm definitely not. But I also think everybody has different sized hands, guitars are different sizes and shapes. So what's really important is just figuring out what feels good to you and isn't causing dysfunction down the road. So we all have different hands and it's kind of like you got to find your way. So I can't really say too much that there's anything super special about my fretting hand. Just that I had to find the way to hold the guitar that felt good to me, you know.
Yeah. I think that people sort of talk about like the head dive on an SG, like it's a bad thing. But I find that one of the benefits of them as well is because they sit on you kind of like this [diagonally]. It's quite nice. There's like a minimal transition from sitting to standing. It’s funny swell you should talk about choosing guitars for superficial reasons I’ve always thought that when players use a combination of the pick and their fingers it just looks really cool. Like that's always something that I was kind of like, dang, I need to do that more in my playing. There's something that both looks and sounds really cool about it.
With aesthetics in mind, you are somebody as well that I would class as just having a very strong look on stage, that red catsuit you had made recently - I love that. For me, when I'm when I'm watching other guitar players, I guess it's kind of undervalued, but I think how you present sort of aesthetically, it's it's another facet of creativity, right? It's another touch point of who you are and what you're doing. You know, and you have this sort of great look going to who's the inspiration behind the leather catsuits?
Oh gosh. You know, it's just something that like, I wish I had like a specific, oh, you know what? The very first suit that I had made was all black. I got it done for the Grammys and I was totally, you know, looking at Susie Quattro pictures of her and her, I mean, the cat suit she wore was iconic. So it was a different version of it, you know, some different embellishments. But it's just for me, once I get down one path, with like a look or fashion, it's like, oh, wow, this looks really good. So maybe if I can take it in this colour and try this different cut or this different style, and then we're down a rabbit hole, you know? And it might start over here, but then you kind of chase it until something else, you know, catches your eye. But I definitely, you know, I mean, I reference a lot of classic, you know, rock and roll vintage songs, cuts and styles just because, you know, and really it's about like what looks good on each individual person. You know, for me, it's like I'm just trying to find stuff that works well and looks good for me on stage because, you know, there's a lot of movement involved in what you do. So how you wear your clothes and how it photographs, how it videos, you know, it's all part of it. You know, and I feel like fashion is just another... another form of artistic expression so you know and i i think it's you know for me it's show business and it's it's It's something that I really, really enjoy. And, you know, and it's it kind of continues the story of the music. I really enjoyed diving into that, you know. I love clothes.
Yeah, I know, me too. I think stage is this great opportunity. It's like everything you kind of wish that you could wear, but might be a bit much in real life, you can wear on stage.
Yeah my my closet's absurd it's like somebody invites me to dinner and I'm like I've got so many you know I've got a closet full of clothes I'm like I can't wear any of this stuff to dinner it's crazy!
Yeah there's stage clothes and life clothes. So as a tangent from that do you have any really interesting gems in your personal guitar collection at the moment do you have any kind of cool weird stuff?
Oh, cool, weird stuff…
That could extend to guitar gear as well.
Okay. I'm feeling, I haven't acquired anything new recently that's like, oh, that's super interesting and weird. I'd say like, you know, the thing of note that people always kind of talk to me about are my cigar box guitars, just because it's a little bit of an, you know, see them everywhere, you know, slightly unconventional, but yeah. I those are from a techie perspective, it's as simple as it gets, you know, I do love I got a 335 about a year and a half ago that I really, really love. A Silver Sparkle custom shop that I just love playing. It's a dream. It feels so good. And I love getting that feedback on stage with it. And just it can be really aggressive. It can be subdued. I mean, that that guitar is a superstar. I love that guitar. I don't know. At home, I've got mostly, you know, maybe other... guitar players can relate to. I've got all these kind of sad odds and ends that like some some of them collect dust and then I feel bad. I've got this pedal steel that I got years ago that I had such great intentions with it. And it's just it's been a big dust collector because that thing, you know, like learning how to fly a helicopter is very complicated.
I have yet to try the world of pedal steel that intimidates me.
It's my favourite sound on the planet, but it's like I was like, yes, this is. I don't know if I’ve got time time in my lifetime to figure out how to do this.
I suppose the difficult thing in some ways as well about being sort of a full-time professional musician is that whilst you dedicate a lot of time for music you end up with less time maybe than you expect for it in other ways it's harder to maybe acquire brand new skills .
Something I like to ask everyone, mainly because I like to steal people's trick, is do you have any pearls of wisdom, let's say, main pieces of guitar advice that you kind of wish you would maybe have had when you were younger or just something that you like to impart to make people a better guitar player?
When I was young, it was like, you know, anytime I'd get the opportunity to do a guitar solo and improvisational [I’d take it]. I'm in the blues world, so a lot of jam sessions, it’s kind of about improvising around the traditional form. Right. And I would just throw every trick in, you know, it's like, here's this, like, here's this, but the composition of a guitar solo, what makes it the most effective thing? The one trick that I learned that I expanded on over the years, it was something Luther Dickinson taught me in the studio because I was trying to do a solo on the Wild Heart record. Trying is key operative word there. And he came and he was like, that's all bullshit. He's like, you need to come up with, he's like, there's a melody in the song. He's like, here's a hook. You can hear it when it's what you're singing. He's like, you need to cop that and build something around that, create a counter hook, you know, and build. It's like you do you create a hook, you build off of that, you know, you weave something exciting. And if you can return to that hook at the end of the solo, when it comes to fruition, it's like that's when the cheers are, you know, the cheers come. And something about that music, you know, that return to the earworm. It's just a little trick I've used over the years, you know, but I think that it's effective.
I mean, in music, what are we trying to do other than write great melodies and stuff that really engage people. So as a guitar player, because I think I was getting bogged down with with trying to show what I could do, you know, and sometimes the best approach is just to lay back, listen and breathe and come up with like a real simple idea and figure out how to execute it with the most dramatic dynamics, you know.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's those singable moments, right? And in guitar solos, they're really fun to hear. And it can be it can be hard not to pull out all the tricks. I suppose the best approach sometimes is learn the tricks so that you can choose not to use them.
To sort of cap things off - we’ve got this new release coming out, live release. Is there already new music in the work? Because, you know, I know how it is. By the time your albums come out behind the scenes, typically you're kind of halfway through the next one. What’s next? Just lots of touring or are you writing?
Well, yeah, I mean, we're kind of in that endless touring space. You know? That's what we do. You know, we got the machine - we’re out here doing doing the touring thing. But also, yeah, I kind of come to this point with every record, every recording, all the new music. You hit this point where you're like, okay, I've played this song about 100 times in front of an audience, and it's been great but I need to go write something new. Like I have something else to say now. And it takes a while to come full circle to that sometimes. But I'm excited to, you know, whatever comes next. I'm writing. So long story short, writing.
Another thing that I love to know is kind of where your seeds of inspiration come from songs. Do you find you're somebody that just wakes up and you're like, oh, there's a song in my brain? more calculated how do songs come for you?
I wish there was a way, like a solid way, you know, sometimes you wake up and you have something. Most of the time for me gibberish I wake up and I've been dreaming about a hook or a chorus I'm like oh this is great then I write it down and I’m like - that’s nonsense.I I find for me sometimes just driving around doing something where my mind is engaged on something and then all of a sudden a melody will come to me and I'm like oh that's interesting I'm gonna sing that into my phone and then you know however long it takes to get back to the phone. Melodies - if I’m sitting down with a guitar I'm like that was cool that was interesting, you know. Maybe a lyric came to me while that was happening. Maybe, you know, for me, melody... If a melody comes to you, that's like the... that's the window to something special. I've got pages and pages of lyrics that like might never find a home because, you know, It's just they might not find a suitable melody and you can't shoehorn you know, a bunch of lyrics into something where it doesn't fit. It just doesn't make for a great song. So if the melody comes, that to me is like, that's the sign. Okay, this is something I need to work on. And it could be anything. It could be a bass line. It could be a guitar lead. It could be, you know, vocal melody. Who knows?
It’s so funny you should say that because I have, I write all my riffs when I'm behind the wheel of a car and yeah, totally relate to that. Anyway, I, I won't sort of keep you any longer because I know you have a show tonight but thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us and we're wishing you all of the success for Paper Doll Live.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Samantha Fish’s new album “Paper Doll Live” is available now on Rounder Records. Further info: www.samanthafish.com
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