Samiam delivers hard-edged, cathartic music to Westwood

Samiam delivers hard-edged, cathartic music to Westwood

By Michael Tatum

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Between the hard-edged, guitar-driven sound of his band and the
cathartic, confessional nature of his troubled lyrics, you’d think
Jason Beebout, the frontman of Samiam (playing today at noon in
Westwood Plaza), would be, shall we say, a troubled guy.

Aaron Rubin, Samiam’s bassist, would like to clear up that
misconception. "He’s not really that heavy of a guy," Rubin
clarifies. "He’s not like Ian Curtis of Joy Division or anything.
He’s more or less a happy-go-lucky kind of guy.

"It’s not like the things he says in his songs aren’t true
­ they are, they really happened to him. But he sees his
lyrics as an outlet for him, a sort of therapy, rather than a way
for him to ‘dwell on’ the things that he’s been through."

Still, the disturbing tone of Beebout’s imagery, in the context
of Samiam’s cyclonic guitar sound, remains powerful and disturbing.
Take "Stepson": "I’m free/ He can’t touch me/ Six feet down/ And
there’s no sadness … Nothing simple/ No respect or meaning/ Why
the screaming/ When he’s gone/ Burn the house down."

"He really did have a stepdad that he didn’t get along with,"
Rubin reports, and then laughs, "Of course he didn’t go to the
extent that he does in the song …"

"Tag Along" relates another chapter from Beebout’s life that
might strike a chord with sympathetic listeners. "That song is
about trying to console his stepsisters after their dad dies,"
Rubin says. "It’s about him trying to hold back how he actually
felt, trying to be sympathetic, and understanding that he was their
dad."

Both songs appear on Clumsy, the band’s debut record for
Atlantic. The band had the good luck to land as a producer Lou
Giordano, who pushed the band into what they felt was highly
creative territory.

"Copper Blue (the Sugar album Giordano produced with Sugar
leader Bob Mould) is one of our favorite sounding records," Rubin
claims. "He was suggested to us by Mike Gitter, the guy who signed
us to Atlantic. Apparently, him and Lou go way back. He really made
the record sound as good as it does."

Despite the band members’ purism of their punk leanings, Rubin
insists that the band is all for artistic progress, which for them
means fine-tuning their songwriting. "We don’t really weigh
ourselves down with ‘big concepts,’ or operate from any preplanned
ideas," Rubin says, "but we really want to write catchy, meaningful
songs that aren’t fake."

Considering the sources of their music, that is an
understatement to say the least. In a time when angst is
manufactured and every gloom and doom practitioner suspect, they
put aside the rote pretensions that define many of their peers.
They say their peace and make it real.

CONCERT: Samiam, Westwood Plaza, today at noon.