Former American Football drummer Steve Lamos on his teaching career, emo origins, and musical background.
Your first recording credits are playing trumpet and doing backing vocals on Braid’s first two studio albums. I also found a pic of you performing with them. What was it like recording/performing with them and how did that come to happen?
Yep, my first few times in the studio involved playing trumpet for Braid. I was new to this kind of emo / indie music, and so I’d ask bands if they wanted trumpet on a track or two as a way to make connections.
The Braid guys seemed to like what I came up with, and so I did several tracks with / for them around ’95/’96. (One track called “Radish White Icicle” still sticks in my head to this day.)
They also invited me to join them for couple of weeks on one of their earliest tours (in the summer of ’95, I think?) to squonk on the horn and to help them move gear.
Roy was still drumming for them then. My first touring experience was actually as a Braid roadie.
So was braid your main introduction to emo/indie? Or were there other bands you had heard of before?
I looooved Cap’n Jazz! They were one of my favorite live bands ever: their shows were like religious experiences for me sometimes.
But I also loved many Champaign indie bands, especially Hum and Poster Children and Castor.
Also, back then, the Blind Pig in Champaign had all kinds of stuff coming through: I saw Sunny Day Real Estate there with about 20 other people right after Diary came out. Lots of amazing house parties, too: I saw Lungfish play in someone’s kitchen!
How’d you start playing the trumpet?
I started around age 7 or so, after starting the violin around age 5. My dad was an accordion / keyboard player in a dance band of sorts, and so he’d sometimes take me to play with him.
I probably played with him publicly on a song or two for the first time around 8 or 9 years old.
How’d you go about teaching yourself the drums? Do you have any favorite drummers?
I’ve always listened to lots of jazz, and I’ve been especially enamored with Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette forever.
Those two have always been a huge influence on me.
But, to answer your first question: toward the end of college, I decided that I wanted to play drums in rock bands–and so I bought a kit and started asking to play with whomever around Champaign / Urbana would let me sit in. I also bought a couple of books of rudiments and started practicing quite a bit.
Between those books, playing with records (especially cool early 90s stuff like the Sea and Cake, early Tortoise, June of 44, Rodan, etc.) and jamming with friends, I got lots and lots of practice.
Is it because of jazz that you play with a traditional grip?
I started playing traditional soon after recording AF LP1, actually: I had started doing some electronic-y stuff under the name “DMS.”
I found that trad grip gave me a slightly different angle for snare hits with a slightly different kind of tone. I liked how it meshed with the electronics better.
At this point, I switch back and forth depending on what a song feels like it needs.
What have you been up to ever since leaving American Football?
Anyhow: since AF, I’ve been playing quite a bit with my friend Vidushi Goyal. We’ve been working on some of her stuff, some of my stuff, and some stuff together.
She’s a pretty amazing talent. I’ve also spent lots of time trying to figure out how to use Ableton in a live setting, and I think that certain things are starting to work on that front.
I’ve been trying to “sing,” too, a little bit on some stuff as I play: at times, I think my harmonies are starting to click; at other times, things sound nightmarish.
I also spend a lot of time helping my kids with music lessons: my older one plays violin and my younger one plays piano. I sit and practice with them most days.
How’d you start working with Vidushi and what kind of music do you guys make?
I’ve known Vidushi for 6 or 7 years now, and she lives very near where I work. About two years ago, she started sending me some really cool music that she had been writing, producing, and recording herself.
There were a couple in particular for which I immediately had some drum ideas, and so we started trading files back and forth.
Since then, we’ve rented a practice space together and been rehearsing once or twice a week.
We play loop-based stuff, and we try to make it interesting in a live setting: both of us would rather play live than sit for extended periods of time in a recording studio, and so we share that love of performing in front of people.
What got you into teaching? When did that happen?
I started an MEd in high school teaching way back in 1995, which was right around the time that I started playing drums.
I then decided to stick around Champaign / Urbana for a PhD starting in 1997, which coincided with the beginning of AF.
I finally finished that PhD in 2004, and I’ve been out here at the University of Colorado-Boulder since 2005.
