Interview With Casey And Sam Harris Of X Ambassadors

Casey and Sam Harris from X Ambassadors performed at Music Midtown 2015.  Below is an interview with them.

Your full-length album, VHS, just came out this summer, how long had you been working on it?

Casey: It was like a year or more even.  It went through several iterations; there were probably at least three different versions of the album before we got to the one that actually got released.  We had written well on probably forty songs or more and had to pick and choose between all of them.  There were of course last minute additions and all that. 

Who would you site as some of your biggest musical influences in general and in regards to the album?

Sam: I big influence for the structure of the record came from some of the hip-hop records that we grew up listening to like Fugees, The Score - that record was a big one in the way that it felt very cinematic, kind of like a movie, like a Quentin Tarantino movie or something like that.  36 Chambers, or like Beastie Boys records - Ill Communication, for sure.  And then musically we all gravitate towards soul music.

Casey and I grew up listening to lots of different soul.

Casey: Our dad had a massive record collection of old records from the 50s and 60s.

Sam: Yeah and for me I always wanted to be able to sing like Aretha Franklin (laughs). She’s like my favorite. I think sonically she was a big influence on me to be quite honest.

What are some differences between playing at a festival versus playing a normal show?

Casey: It varies hugely. It’s funny, I used to try to group festivals together but they really vary at least if not more than shows at regular venues.  You could play a festival that has fantastic accommodations…and a fantastic audience and then you can also play festivals that are the complete opposite.  It can really run the whole spectrum.  Today we’ve got high hopes for.

Sam: It does depend.  A festival is not usually about the one band and that’s kind of what’s exciting about it, is that everyone is kind of trying to one up each other a little bit. No one would admit that. Yeah, but I think every band is vying for that spot that is like the act to have seen at Music Midtown or Bonnaroo or whatever festival.  And it can have a big impact on your career, too, if you have a really breakout performance at a festival and the timing is right and the coverage is massive enough.  That could be really big and that’s really exciting.  The normal shows you will do at a normal venue are about us, it’s our show.  It’s a little more personal to us that we get to do something for our fans directly.  That’s so gratifying, too. 

Do you have a favorite song to play live?

Casey: I would have to say I go through phases with each of the songs.  Certain songs I tend to come back to enjoying playing live but it never tends to be the same one.  It always depends on the night and the audience and how I’m feeling before the show honestly. 

Sam: For me, I love singing “Gorgeous.”  That’s one of my favorite ones to do live just because I get to sing all sorts of crazy stuff on it.

Do you think you will ever get tired of playing your more popular songs like “Renegades” for example?

Sam: You know, I think I was listening to someone doing an interview the other day and they were asked a similar question and they had just seen the Rolling Stones play and they realized these guys are playing songs that they’ve been playing for nearly fifty years and they still love it because they are entertainers.  That’s what you do.  So for me, and I think I can speak for the whole band on this, for us, as long as people will still enjoy hearing that song then we’ll enjoy playing it.

Casey: Whether we’re enjoying playing the song, it’s more about we’re enjoying playing to the audience and playing for the audience and they’re enjoying it.

How did the band come together?

Sam: Originally this formation came because Noah and Casey and I moved to New York and met Adam, our drummer, at college.  The first week of school, I heard he was a drummer and I gave him our CD and we jammed and that was pretty much it.  But before that Casey and I grew up playing music together with our family but it wasn’t until I had joined a band with Noah…we’ve known each other since we were little kids.  We started our first band in seventh grade and eventually Casey started playing with us in high school. 

Did you always want to go into music?

Sam: I think so.  I’ve always loved performing and I’ve always loved music. I wanted to be an actor for a long time; I was a trained actor, and I went to school for it and I did it professionally a little bit.  But I think music really for some reason felt like it was more unpredictable to me, a little not so safe of a choice and that’s kind of why I gravitated towards it.

When you aren’t working or recording or playing a show, what do you do in your off time?

Casey: Sleeping. Or flying on an airplane or riding in a van.  It’s crazy, these days…I think the most time we have off is like four days.  It’s great, pretty much since the beginning of this year, things have just been ramping up for us and now we are in non-stop go mode.  Basically we write music on our computers in what little down time we have during a tour.  Then I find myself in most of my spare time just trying to catch up on sleep.  Whenever we’re in New York we barbecue.  Whenever we have a couple days off, we go in for it.  We try to get in as much good home relaxing time as possible.

What does the tour schedule look like for the rest of the year?

Sam: All over the place.  We’re doing the fall tour in the U.S.  That goes from October through November.  Then I think we are going to Europe.  The after, we have a bunch of radio festivals around that time when everyone does their holiday radio shows.  Then back to the grind.  There are a lot of big tours coming up next year.

Casey: We have our schedules booked up until February at this point.

Sam: Most of the touring will be on our own.  There is one tour that we just confirmed that we will be opening for somebody, but you’ll find out soon enough.

Now for some lighthearted easy questions – cats or dogs?

Sam: Dogs.

Casey: Dogs, I have to say.  We both grew up with dogs all our lives.

Last song stuck in your head?

Sam: The song by this guy named Kwabs called “Cheating on Me.”

Casey: It seems like every morning I have a new song running through my head.

Beatles or Stones?

Casey: That’s tough. I have to say Beatles.

Sam: Yeah I’m in a Beatles phase right now.

Favorite movie?

Casey: Um, Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Sam:  Out of all the movies in the world? That’s a really hard one. The original Star Wars.

Major pet peeves?

Casey: Getting up at 3 a.m. to fly.

Sam: When people call me buddy.

Weirdest fan encounter?

Casey: Most of our fans are pretty chill.

Sam: We’ve had very profound fan encounters but like a quirky one…last night a security guard came up to us and showed us these two IDs and asked, “are either one of you guys married to either one of these two women?”  None of us are married.  It’s just two ladies that told the security guards that they’re our wives.

Favorite show you’ve played so far?

Casey: One of my favorite shows we’ve playing and it’s been a little while but we opened for an Imagine Dragons show in Montreal and they had let all 18,000 people before we went on stage.  Which is not typical of an arena show, usually as an opener you’re playing while people are still coming in.  So it was a packed stadium and man, Montreal gets down.  They are into music.

Sam: For me, I gotta be a softie and say it’s the first show the four of us ever playing together in this DIY café called Goodbye Blue Monday.

Casey: I remember that.

Celebrity crush?

Casey: I’ll have to plead the fifth.  I’ll get in trouble with my girlfriend.

Sam: Well I won’t get in trouble with my girlfriend for saying this, Tom Hardy.  I’ve got a serious man crush on Tom Hardy.

Hidden talents?

Sam: Casey can whistle really well.  Um, me, I think if you give me a day I can probably remember some Shakespeare monologues.

Pre show rituals?

Sam: I do vocal warm ups.  I do yoga.  I do all this other stuff and the rest of the guys smoke…and drink beer.

Is there anyone you want to catch at Music Midtown?

Sam: I would love to be able to see Sam Smith but I don’t know if we’ll be able to stick around.