Q: Hey, can you tell us a bit about where you come from, and what made you want to start a career in music?
A: We are ethnic Armenians who first met in Ukraine and started to write our music there. Ukraine is the best place for finding your national identity even if you are not ukrainian ethnically. There, in Kiev we realized that we are Armenians who wants to create contemporary music about Middle East. Kiev is defenitely a “New Berlin” so that’s why our mid-eastern music is blended on techno. It’s our bow to Kiev’s electroic culture.
Q: Did you have any formal training, or are you self-taught?
A: Lusine (who is singer and co-producer) studied at Kiev Musical Academy. She was all about jazz, soul and high-end vocal training. I been prepared to the career of the classical musician but when I felt that rap wave will vanish all other genres in music I used the neuralyzer from Man in Black to forget everything I knew about Bach, Wagner, and stuff like that.
So yeah, both of us had formal musical training but both of us are doing what we can now to erase the basic musical knowledge from our heads.
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences, and why the name ‘Samuum’?
A: I will never forget the sandstorm which I saw once during my trip to Jordan. It was giant orange cloud which was moving towards me and had very specific sound.
Arabs are calling these sandstorms ‘Samuum”. Since that time it was my biggest visual and sonic influence.
The meeting with real “samuum” was reason #1 why we called a band with the same name. The reason #2 is that we are the first band which is telling the true story on Mid-Eastern life for the western audience. We are revealing unspoken facts, we are picking some well-hidden details and highlighting them . For the Mid-Eastern pop-culture we are definitely the “stormy” band. The band which can shake and brake some traditional norms.
That’s even more important explanation of why we are called “Samuum”.
Q: You have just released your new single, ‘Asel’. Is there a story behind it?
A: The song is about our “must” to speak out loud about things we are not tolerate with.
We developed this idea in a music video. It tells the story of thousands Armenian girls who were enslaved by desert tribes during the time of the Genocide of 1915 (which was provided by Ottoman Turkey against Armenians). All of these girls were marked with tattoos. These tattoos were made to remind Armenian women firstly about about their slave status, and their second function was erasing the roots of these women and merging them into this new cultural environment. After getting the tattoo, girls could be abused in any way – from sex-working to forceful marriage. Some Armenian women who survived those horrific times still have these shameful tattoos across their faces.
Sadly we must admit that nothing had really changed 100 years after these terrible events. We understand that violence against women during war conflicts is one of the tools of spreading more fear. That’s why modern dictatorships use that tool and spread the results of it through social media. It’s a real gendercide! We need to stop this targeted cruelty against women during war conflicts and our work is a reminder about that.
Q: Can we expect a new EP or even an album from you in the near future?
A: Sure, big bang album is coming in 2023. The true story of Mid-East told by an angry local girl.
Q: What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
A: I I told you about sandstorm which I saw in Jordan. It’s a big and fast moving cloud that destroys everything on it’s path which is weak and unnecessary. I think every one of us has some temporary trash inside, which needs to be destroyed but remains within us for years for no reason. We always keep cleaning our inner worlds as the last action to do.
So we would be happy if Samuum’s music will be that “destroying” factor for everything temporary and unnecessary within our audiences’ hearts.
Q: Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more?
A: From artistic perspective – for sure! But if we’ll speak about contact with audience, we definitely feel the bick lack of it. We need more concerts. Much more concerts. And fame) To gain this we even ready to understad how that goddamn TikTok works.
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: God bless phone recordings. It’s all about them in our creative process. Since our two core band members are living now on different sides of the world, we are just about humming and ommming in our phones during majority of creative time we have. Studio sessions and rehearsals takes much less time for sure.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: To stop acting with music as with the “work after the main work”. Music should definitely be the main thing. Especially in the beginning. Of course, when you are as big and saint as Jared Leto you can combine music with something like acting career, but in the beginning of the path music takes all your time, you know. So for us the hardest part was to refuse from office life and stable incomes just to have an ability to be 100% present in music creation process. Yep, we started to buy cheaper clothes since that happened, but we definitely became musch happier. No pain no gain.
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: This year we played our gig at Dubai Expo right next day after Coldplay. It was great experience and big achievement for us. We also want the same success path from underground to pop scene as Coldplay did. I think is so normal for the band to become more clear and simple record after record, year after year. When we become clearer for our listeners, we feel more proud.
