Sometimes it’s in our friends basements to an uninterested mix of friends and local college kids. We’ve only played a handful of shows so far. Haha, it really depends where we’re playing and who we’re playing with, etc. If we throw together a set for an acoustic/stripped down show or just play with a toy keyboard all night, I could probably pull off a 20+ minute set no matter what.ĭo you want to talk a bit about the live show then, based on past material I imagine the energy is always high. While the live show will probably always stay rooted totally in just like, energy, craziness, whatever–ideally at least–it’s nice to be able to do different things and tie it all together. Some of the lo-fi upbeat stuff from DC Snuff Filmand Bad Vibes Forever remains but it sounds less like an exercise in the genre and more something that’s consciously trying to push beyond the trappings of punk. It sounds like on the new tape you’re exploring more in general. one of our friends pointed that out, he said when he first heard “salvia plath”, which is like the most weird, warped r&b sampling thing ever, he had no clue how it fit into our style, but after listening to the tape it made perfect sense. Yeah definitely, and in the context of our new tape it actually fits in a lot better than you’d think. So I guess that explains how something like “salvia plath” fits into the overall scheme of Teen Suicide. I guess if I had to answer that in a way more succinct way, I’ve always played around with both pop songwriting and weird experimentation and sound art, but this is the first time in my life i feel like i can successfully (or almost successfully) blend the two. It all comes down to pop songwriting and hooks. the most energetic, un-energetic, whatever. I like ambient music, I like experimentation, I like sound art, but above all else I just want to write the best pop songs in the world–maybe the darkest sometimes, maybe the most disjointed, the most dissonant. I could never consider myself any kind of producer, I don’t know anything about that. Often it was the stuff I felt better suited to and it certainly was the stuff that got the most attention but it was just me messing around. I’ve always written songs first and foremost and seen any weird side experimentation as just that. Do you consider this, like a return to your roots, or is it something that’s been going on all along? So a two piece punk project in eighth grade, and Teen Suicide is also obviously a two-piece punk project. So i will not fall deep into the earth by Ricky Eat Acid around 2010 is when i decided to move from giving CDs to my friends to putting music up on Bandcamp for whoever wanted it. We made our own website and we even had shirts.Īnd I guess I’d kept up giving CDs out to people, first as a sort of joke still but by the time I was about 16 or 17 it got more serious. We were a two-piece punk band and we put out two CDs which we sold at school for like 2 bucks each. The first band i was in was in 8th grade. I started giving my friends CDs and things like that. I’ve been writing and recording stuff since I was a freshman in high school, maybe before that actually. I had the requisite MySpace pages since at least like, 2007 or so. Sam Ray: Yeah I think at least officially released. There’s Ricky Eat Acid material on Bandcamp from back in 2010, is that your earliest officially released material? Check below for a sampling of Ray’s various projects, and read about crazy shows in Philadelphia and Ray’s ambition to write the best pop songs in the world.īeats Per Minute: Hi Sam! So let’s talk origin story. We’ve been following Baltimore-based lo-fi punk duo Teen Suicide pretty much since their first release went up on Bandcamp, so it was with great pleasure that we were given a chance to chat a bit with singer/guitarist Sam Ray.