Samia Redefines The Concept Album

The month that Samia released her second album, Honey, she began working on her third. “I had a really overwhelming experience releasing a second album, which many people warned me I would have,” the 28 year-old says. “You put out a first album and nobody knows who you are, so there's no expectation. Put out a second album, there's a small group of people with really strong expectations, so you're likely going to disappoint them. I'm so grateful for how it went, but I think at that point in my life, I was so tuned into what any person in my audience was thinking or feeling, and I was reading too much and I learned my lesson.”

To tune out all the “other” that comes with making music — the press, and reviews, and live events — the singer, born Samia Najimy Finnerty, turned to very beginning: a blank page. “I just needed to remember why I love music. I had to find the love in it again. Sometimes the release process can feel so far from the core of things, the inspiration, the thing that feels so fulfilling. I don't love the eyes, so I just wanted to find my purpose in it again.”

The result, Bloodless, enters the world on Apr. 25th, a stunning, genre-bending record centered around a central concept: “when the thing that's not there becomes the most important thing.” The album explores new, bigger sounds for Samia, but don’t let the phrase concept album scare you: this is through and through a Samia album, gut-wrenching personal lyrics and all. “I'm always singing about personal things,” she says.

When we meet to talk all things Bloodless at a midtown coffee shop, it’s exactly one week before the album release, and Samia has finally perfected how to prepare for a brand new album cycle: “I'm totally dissociated,” she says, half-laughing. Here, a comprehensive case for that not being the case, and more behind-the-scenes details on the building of Bloodless.

What does pre-release week look like for you?

We've done some radio stuff and interviews, but that's it so far.

How are the pre-album interviews going?

They're going well, I hope. I hope they're going super well.

Do you prepare your talking points for the album? This is becoming an accidentally very meta interview.

An interview about interviews. I spend so much time thinking about this [album] concept and writing about it, that I have all these documents that I've made for myself about the concept behind it.

Your own Brat manifesto.

Totally. So [the story] is all somewhere, I've just got to unlock it.

What was the theme you started to notice in your writing that eventually became the concept for the record?

I was studying historical muses as a personal project, and it evolved from that into this thing about unknown and unsolved mysteries. I think halfway through, I started writing with that in mind a little more, and it became a North star where if I was lost, I would just go back into the pool of this concept. It ended up being a nice tool.

When you're building this world on paper, are you also thinking of visuals?

I was a little. I was watching Twin Peaks and The Blair Witch Project, so that all must have seeped in, but I wasn't necessarily actively thinking about it.

At what point did the title come to you?

I wrote the song “Bovine Excision” which ends with “drained bloodless.” And then I was looking through all the lyrics and I mentioned blood a bunch of times. I think it was an accident, but the bloodlessness really pertains to the concept where the thing that's not there becomes the most important thing.

How do you know when you're done with the record?

We thought we were done. Then I listened through it and I was like, "It needs two more songs." And so then I pulled all my hair out trying to write two more songs, and they had to be amazing for me to feel complete. I was really nervous for a month that I wasn't going to get the songs. And then within a week, I wrote the last two songs.

What was the spark for them?

I became upset about something in my personal life, that's usually all it takes. I just got upset. So I wrote “Proof” and “Hole in a Frame,” and I was like, "Okay, I see the story now."

What defines a concept album, in your opinion?

I've just been thinking of it really literally: it's an album with a through line conceptually. All the songs are about the same thing. And a lot of the time, for me, that means I force them to completely retroactively like, "This could be about that!”

Can a concept album still be autobiographical?

I'm always singing about personal things. Everything is totally autobiographical, and I've learned my lesson about being too vocal and open about what the songs are about in my personal life. the concept also helped me there where I didn't feel like I was exploiting other people's stories as much on this one. I could say whatever I wanted and it was half fiction, half real.

Where did you write this record?

This one was in between Minneapolis and North Carolina. Minneapolis has always been a real well of inspiration for me, so it's really easy for me to write in Minneapolis.

Was that part of what prompted your recent move there full-time?

I went there to make my first record with these three guys that I've ended up continuing to work with, and that was an incredible experience, so I just kept going back. I love the people there and my best friend fell in love with one of those guys and now they're engaged. So she lives there now, and that's why I moved there, just to be close to them.

What is the music scene like there?

It's really honest. There's a lot of punk history and inspiration there. It's just a really strong community. You can really feel that everybody has each other's backs.

Beyond Minneapolis, have you been able to find your own community or friendships with artists in similar stages of their career?

My friend Sabrina, from Blondshell. We text all day. We’re in a parallel cycle right now [Blondshell’s new album If You Ask for A Picture, is out May 2], so we've been doing a lot of the same stuff and just texting each other in real time, warning each other about certain things.

Have you decided how much you’ll read online about Bloodless when it comes out?

Hopefully nothing. Let's see if I can do it. I think I strengthened my muscles there on the last record; I’m not as swayed. I guess you grow a little every time.