Reflecting on their upstate New York hometown with “Townie,” band member Sam Nelson Harris says the X Ambassadors feel rewarded by their music’s impact on fans. The Local Spins Q&A.
On the ‘Townie’ Tour: X Ambassadors play Grand Rapids this week. (Photo/Tyler Jay Hanson)
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As Sam Nelson Harris from indie-rock/pop’s X Ambassadors puts it, he’ll always be a “townie.”
So the band’s new studio album stands as a testament to the group’s upbringing in Ithaca, N.Y., described as a small town that shaped brothers Sam Nelson Harris and Casey Harris, along with Adam Levin.
The group formed in 2009 has since released four studio albums, several EPs and graced the Billboard Hot 100 Chart with singles that include “Renegades,” “Unsteady” and “Home,” recently performing their new song, “No Strings,” on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
The New Album: ‘Townie’
On Wednesday, they bring the 44-city tour behind “Townie” to Grand Rapids, playing Elevation inside The Intersection at 7:30 p.m., with New West and Rowan Drake opening the show. Tickets are $30 in advance, available online here, and $35 day-of-show.
Sam Nelson Harris recently chatted with Local Spins writer Enrique Olmos about touring, growing up in upstate New York and his penchant for top-shelf coffee.
Enrique Olmos: So you’re on the road right now in support of the new album, “NAME.” What were you up to in the moments before this interview?
Sam Harris: I actually just got back from the gym. My days on tour are so hilariously regimented. I try to do the same s— every day just to keep myself sane. I woke up a little late which is nice. Slept in. I make my coffee first thing. I do a little pour over. I’m a freak. I bring like a scale and I hand-grind it over and I do this whole like low process, but it’s worth it for me. I love good coffee. So I made a little pour over. I did my morning meditation. I did my journal pages. I do like three pages of my journal. I walked to the gym. Oh, I made a smoothie.
Enrique: What kind of smoothie?
Sam: Blueberry, banana, a little bit of spinach, a little bit of almond butter, oat milk and usually I have like some collagen protein that I put in there but I didn’t bring it with me this time so I gotta make a little whole foods run at some point.
Enrique: I’m curious if your tour routine was always so structured and regimented or if that developed over time?
Sam: It definitely evolved into that over the years. The older I’ve gotten, the more I feel like I need more to keep my energy up, keep my morale up. Touring is very hard period. All this kind of stuff really helps. If I’m not exercising or eating right and getting my delicious cup of coffee every morning, I really think that I’m not doing myself any favors or anyone around me. But at the beginning it was just like no consideration to my own health and well being at all. I was just like we were just running and gunning it.
Enrique: X Ambassadors recently put out a record and one of the themes involves the place you grew up, which was upstate New York. Can you paint an image of the kind of town you grew up in?
Sam: It’s a small college town. The way the town is geographically situated. You have these two universities up on the hills. There’s a hill to the south. The city is at the base of a lake, one of the five Finger Lakes. South end of the lake you’ve got Ithaca College on the hill that’s kind of like to the southwest. Cornell is on the hill on the east end of the tip of the lake. Those colleges kind of overlook the town below. Growing up now, it’s so different because now the town, the city and the university are so much more intertwined than they were growing up and when I was growing up in the city the town was so separate from the university. The students would never go into town. That was our territory. That was for the townies. That was for us.
Enrique: What would you and your friends do for fun?
Sam: There are these incredible waterfalls. One of them was right across the street from my high school. And these amazing gorges that you go swimming in during the summertime and make out with people and drink and smoke and it was just a really pretty idyllic place in the spring and summer. And people don’t realize that.
Enrique: Did Ithaca have any kind of artistic community?
Sam: Yeah. There’s a cool kind of niche artistic community in Ithaca. There was a pretty robust theater community. I did a lot of acting and a lot of theater as a kid. There was a great regional theater in upstate New York in Ithaca called the Hanging Theater where I did a lot of plays.
High-Flying Set: X Ambassadors on stage at 20 Monroe Live in 2019. (Photo/Jamie Geysbeek)
Enrique: How’d you get into theater and acting?
Sam: I mean for so many different reasons. I think that I really loved getting outside of myself. I really loved pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. I spent a lot of time doing that. Acting outside of actually doing that work. A lot of time trying on different personas and ways of dressing, ways of talking, friends. I really loved to just transform myself constantly, I think because I didn’t like myself very much growing up. I struggled a lot with self confidence and I still do to this day. But I also really loved being the center of attention. I think I craved my own spotlight and I found that in various ways and carving out that space. It was a nice exercise for me to learn how not to be afraid to take up space. I think that was a beautiful thing actually. I needed to learn that lesson of hey it’s okay to say how you feel. It’s OK to take up space. You have every right to be here. You have just as much right to be here as the next person.
Enrique: What else helped you get comfortable with taking up space?
Sam: Definitely playing music and playing in a band. From the get-go, we were 13 years old and we were writing our own material. My buddy and I started the band and then when my brother joined, it was later on in high school. We were always doing original songs and I actually didn’t think twice about it.
Enrique: How do you feel about touring?
Sam: It’s a double-edged sword. I love it so much because I get to be in front of our fans every night and feel that love and appreciation for what we do. We spend a lot of time feeling very isolated and in our own kind of bubble and feeling like nobody cares, and then you get out in front of a couple thousand people and it’s worth it. You hear your people afterwards or before the show coming up to you and telling you their stories about how your music has helped them or affected them. It’s just the most rewarding thing in the world to get that kind of validation every night.
Enrique: What’s difficult about it?
Sam: It can be grueling. It really takes a toll on your body. Physically moving through space every day in such a drastic way. You’re either on a bus traveling hundreds of miles and you wake up in a new city and you’ve got to reacclimate yourself to that. Or you’re flying from place to place and that’s just … oh my God. Flying is just so brutal if you do it constantly over and over and over again. It’s all more comfortable now. But it’s still a grind.
Enrique: Do you have any favorite spots along the road that you’ve try to return to when you’re in a particular city?
Sam: Yesterday, we were in San Diego and had coffee at this place called Dark Horse. I got some beans from there and that were great.
Enrique: What kind of coffee beans are you into?
Sam: I say give me a co-fermented bean. That’s what I’m really into right now. I’ve got this one on the bus that’s really good. I love a natural Ethiopian too. Something that’s really fruity and kind of funky and weird.
Enrique: What’s a co-fermented bean?
Sam: So it’s where they throw in a fruit like mango or strawberry or cherry that ferments with the beans. It’s crazy. It’s becoming like wine. It’s getting pretty wild and I really am loving it all.
VIDEO: X Ambassadors, “Half-Life”
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