The Samurai Cab Co.

The Samurai Cab Co. – now there’s a band name that you won’t forget that easily, and I tell you what, nor will you forget their infectious brand of power pop rock in a hurry either.  Hailing from Connecticut, USA, some of you may already be familiar with Chris McCarvill, the bands lead vocalist and bass player, current member of House Of Lords and who has also played with the likes of Dokken, Jeff Scott Soto, Mike Vesscera (Obsession, Loudness, Yngwie Malmsteen) and Twisted Sister guitarist Eddie Ojeda.  Likewise, BJ Zampa, drummer for the SCC can also be found not far away from Chris McCarvill in the likes of House Of Lords, Dokken, Obsession and Eddie Ojeda.  And whilst Chris shall tell the story below in our interview, it was that association between the two that led to the creation of the Samurai Cab Co back in 2008 after finishing up with the Dokken tour.

Chris McCarvill, take it away…

Hey Chris, thanks for taking the time to do this interview.  Firstly, can you share with us a little history of how SCC came to be in existence?
Hey Scott, thanks very much for the interview, and HELLO from crazy Connecticut to the May The Rock Be With You fans!  Hahaha. Really cool site, ain’t it?

SCC started in a couple different ways. The main one was BJ Zampa and I were getting near the end of the Dokken tour in 2008. This was the Rock of Love tour w/ Poison and Sebastian Bach, so that’s a pretty good-sized tour, y’know?  But it was getting near the end and BJ and I live pretty close together in CT, so we both decided we should make an “off season” cover band so we could keep working between tours and other stuff.  BJ and I seemed to be thrown together in a lot of other projects, so it seemed to make sense.

When we actually got home, we planned on getting a singer, but our first guitarist suggested I sing. I said I’d give it a try…hahaha. It SUCKED for the first couple months I think, but we got a lot of gigs, like 2 or 3 a week, so I had to learn a lot, fast. I still am.

We started getting a lot of work. I mean a LOT, like 3 gigs in one day. Seemed like people liked the band, so as we went on we decided to try out some originals and just not tell anybody that they weren’t covers. It worked better than we thought.  We ended up recording the EP and sold out of it in three weeks. That’s not saying we can retire off this band, but we just seem to keep building, and it makes me really happy to meet so many great people in the process.

The Samurai Cab Co. – ok so an obvious question, but it’s got to be asked, what inspired the band name?
It’s a font. I admit it. I’ve been a graphic artist a long time, and sometimes when I see or hear something it inspires a lot of ideas and visuals. I saw the “Samurai Cab Company” font online by accident and I immediatley thought of the 5th Element movie, Blade Runner, etc. Those are some of my favorites, and it sounded like something from that kind of future world. I knew it would be a tough sell, but I’M THE SINGER AND I MAKE THE RULES! hahaha.

Musically, who or what would you say are the biggest influences on the SCC sound?
Well, I can tell you that we like a lot of older stuff. Queen, Zep, Van Halen, but I have a pretty big punk streak. My younger brother used to laugh at me listening to Asia and Night Ranger and would blast Melvins, Dead Kennedys, 7 Seconds, Nomeansno, Crass, etc. So I got a little punk education. I’ve always loved the 80’s new wave stuff too. Duran Duran, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, etc. That’s where my bass style comes from. Keyboards.

One of the most important lessons for SCC has actually been doing the cover band thing. We can see what songs work and why. For example, our versions of “I’ll Wait” by VH and “Uprising” by Muse seem to go over really well. So does “Crow and Butterfly” by Shinedown. Believe me, I pay attention to crowd reaction. That’s a very big influence. I keep that stuff in mind when we’re working on our own stuff. I’ve also been a big fan of producers and recording. I love Trevor Horn and right now I seem to be going through a Jeff Lynne phase.

Given the majority of our readers will not be familiar with SCC, can you introduce each of the band members and give us a little rock n roll fact or myth about each…
Well, I’m Chris, Hi. I play bass and sing, or try to. A rock and roll fact? Hmmm. Let’s see…drank so much in Germany for my birthday after a festival w/ House of Lords, that I hurled for hours, breaking all the blood vessels in my eyes, so the whites of my eyes were bright red. I looked like satan for weeks. Hahaha.

BJ Zampa. The guy’s a legend. I don’t even know where to start on him. Hahaha. He’s always classy, but leave it to him to buy a rubber band gun and start shooting people when they aren’t looking when things get really stressed out.  BJ has an awesome sense of humor, so we always get laughing about how ridiculous things usually are doing music.

We got Chuck Beckman, our permanent guitarist, cause he kept showing up and sitting in, and basically blowing everyone’s doors in. When your friends are coming up and telling you “you gotta get that dude in your band” you sort of realize something’s happening there. So…we got him. Then we gave Chuck a makeover. (I’m friends w/ a few hairdressers) There’s a video of it on youtube. Since most people in our crowd didn’t know him, he was an instant hit. Chuck is also a black belt in Tang Soo Doo.

We got our keyboardist, Jeff Baryla, in a similar way to Chuck. We were doing pretty good, shows were a lot of fun, Jeff kept coming to shows and finally said he wanted to play keys for us. We tried him out and he’s been in since. Jeff hasn’t had any outstanding rockstar stories (that I can mention) so you’ll just have to take my word for us that we’re all clean cut, Disney-like gentlemen. (coughing)

So when you are sitting down to write a song for SCC, what are some of the key things you try and ensure are in each song?  Aside from catchy as hell hooks and chorus’s!!!
Yes, I’m a big fan of choruses. They’re fun to sing and perform, especially with guys that can play and sing so well. I think when I write there’s several things I try to accomplish. Take “I’ll Be Fine” for example. Sounds like pop fluff at first listen, but as much as the lyrics might seem disposable, there’s a pretty strong message in there. “I’ll Be Fine” is about overcoming hardship. I may make fun of myself, but that’s the underlying message.

On the music side, it’s not really hard to grasp on the first listen, but try to play it. It’s trickier than you think. Now try listening to the bass and imagine singing lead at the same time. It’s really no joke. Hahaha. Mix that with a lot of adult beverages and you’re really pushing it.

I guess the overall point is that I expect a lot out of music. Of course, I want a great crowd reaction and get people smiling, world peace, sell lots of t-shirts, etc, but beyond that, music is something that gives people strength, it can take snapshots of the highs and lows of your life, releases aggression, or pull you out of misery, etc. I take it very seriously, I just don’t take much else very seriously…

When it comes to songwriting, is this something that all members of SCC are involved with, or is it largely yourself?
IT’S ALL ME CAUSE I’M THE SINGER AND I….hahaha. Is it me or have you noticed an ego problem? Most of the stuff we have is written by me, and we’re starting to record live, with all of us playing together, which is refreshing. Also we’re getting more and more familiar with our own “sound”, and as we do that, I think the other guys will start coming in with more ideas. Beckman has his own solo album, and BJ is always a great set of ears in the studio. No matter what I write, it still gets interpreted by the guys and that makes it sound like SCC.

You guys released a 4 track EP last year and are currently working on your first full length album.  When can we expect to see this released and are the songs on the EP a pretty good indication of what we can expect on the album?
Great question! Timelines! hahaha. Well, I wrote something like 30 songs, and we’ve started chipping away at them. We were playing 4 times a week solid in the first half of the year and we were all so shot it was hard to even want to record. (some of us still work full time). But we’ve cut back on shows on purpose, and that’s allowed us some breathing room. I think we’ll have most of an album recorded at least before BJ and I take off for Europe w/ House of Lords in October. That’s the goal anyways. We will absolutely have a couple free new songs from the record to give away onwww.chrismccarvill.com in October.

Speaking of the EP, the lead track “I’ll Be Fine” comes with a pretty amusing video clip…what was the inspiration for that video story line?
You ask good questions, Scott. I hope I’m not killing you with such long answers. I’m not a huge movie fan, but some filmmakers reach me enough where I want to try it. I decided that ok, we basically don’t have a budget (this video cost less than $200 to make), yet everyone I know has an iphone or similar, which is awesome at capturing video and sound. We have a lot of friends and fans, and we’re more or less creative people, we should be able to come up with something besides 4 guys playing in a warehouse.

I went to work thinking about “I’ll Be Fine”. I always liked Terry Gilliam’s “Adventures of Baron Munchausen”, and in that movie, Death is always chasing the main character, and he usually escapes. I really like the sybolism of that. It reminds me of my own life. I storyboarded most of the video, bounced a lot of ideas for it off friends, and it seemed like everyone really liked it. That really inspired me to get it done. I like playing with the Death figure as a symbol, but also as a real-life character. In the opening scene he’s reading a newspaper and getting irritated at us making a lot of noise at the next table. So, yes, the video is supposed to be entertaining, madcap, and basically like an episode of Scooby Doo, but it’s done with the hope that the message comes through.

Since we’re on this, I also have to thank so many of our friends who donated their time, ideas and locations to make the video possible. SCC has one of the best posse’s in the world. Really.

Chris, going from your usual role as bass player for the likes of House Of Lords, to being a singing, bass playing frontman for SCC, how have you found that transition?
Actually amusing. I’d been playing bass and singing backups a long time before I started singing lead. As soon as I did that, first gig, EVERY girl in the room wanted to talk to me. I was like “holy crap”! hahaha. I mean, I talked to girls here and there in the past as a bass player, but being a singer? It’s like being the mayor. Know what? It doesn’t suck.

You have played bass with 3 of the most recognisable vocalists in hard rock and melodic rock, James Christian, Jeff Scott Soto and Don Dokken…what have been some of the biggest learnings you have gained from them with regards to shaping your style as a lead vocalist?
I’ve been totally lucky with the training I’ve had. Don’t forget Mike Vescera from Obsession also. He’s got a very unique voice and style that’s tricky to harmonize. I learned a ton from Jeff, I was real young when we first started working together. I think I probably learned the most from Jeff, just because I was kind of new to singing at that point. I’d have to say the most important thing with these guys is to make THEM sound good. It helps being able to get your voice resonably close to their sound so that harmonies gel. James is a totally tremendous singer and musician, so it’s always a pleasure to work w/ him, and Don is a lot more talented musically than most people think. Everybody has taught me bits and pieces. Like I said, I’m very lucky for the experience.

There is a new House Of Lords album coming out soon, titled ‘Big Money’.  How did the recording process for this album go compared to the last couple of releases you were involved, and musically is it what we have come to expect from House Of Lords on the last few releases?
Well, the recording process for House of Lords is always pretty quick and very intense. I wouldn’t say it’s changed much since 2006 or so. I actually do the bass tracks in my home studio at my house. Generally, James writes with several other guys including Jimi Bell, Robert Marcello, Tommy Denander and others. I’d say that it’s directionally consistent with the last few releases.

House of Lords is all about absolute precision when it comes to the bass tracks. It’s quite a challenge to record that way. I don’t know if everyone knows this, but James was a bass player back in the day too, and he’s great still! So, he knows if ANYTHING is off or inconsistent. I really appreciate that he lets me do pretty much whatever I want live, so I’ll do the best I can to do what he asks for on the recordings. I’m really a 4 string finger-style bassist, but this time I used a 5 string Steinberger copy with a pick. It just sounded best. Our last tour I used an octave pedal and played everything up an octave, with the pedal doing the lower, and everyone seemed to really like that. BJ said it “Sounds like the gates of hell.” hahaha. That’s probably what I’ll do on this tour as well.

As far as your bass playing is concerned, you have released numerous instructional videos which I am sure have been used to influence legions of young bass players!  However, who has inspired Chris McCarvill as far as playing bass is concerned?
First of all, Thanks! That’s pretty cool to hear. The majority of those, and I think there’s like 5, were recorded all in one day, and it was the first time I ever did a dvd. I felt like I was getting sunburnt from the huge studio lights. I wish I could do them differently looking back on them, but if people get something good out of them, then that’s cool with me.

I started playing bass at around 11. My aunt had an old acoustic that I popped the top 2 strings off of and tuned low, and tried to play to the radio and MTV. I got a real bass when I was 12, and my teacher (mom and dad told me I had to take lessons) kept telling me that I kept bringing in music w/ keyboard bass, like 80’s new wave, which has a lot of loud, crazy bass parts, even if it isn’t really a bass guitar. So I learned to play a lot of really hard stuff right up front. You try playing “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood on a bass guitar…and while you’re at it, watch the video. You can see a lot of my influences right there.

But, I got into bands and kept wanting to get better and better, so I eventually discovered the usual rock suspects of the late 80’s, Billy Sheehan, John Alderete, but I also learned to play a lot of guitar parts and solos on bass, like Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen. At the same time I discovered Kate Bush, whom I still totally admire.

The day after I graduated high school I moved to Hollywood, CA and enrolled in Musician’s Institute. Here I took lessons from Tim Bogert, Jeff Berlin, Steve Bailey and many others. I was a young, impressionable kid and I have to say that that school really opened my eyes to so much about music. Jeff Berlin stood out as a huge influence, but I get compared to Tim Bogert sometimes. I also snuck into guitar and drum classes, just to see what I could bring over to bass.

I promise, I’ll shut up soon, but the guys I really like to listen to now are Flea, Paul McCartney, Tony Levin, Pino Palladino and Jeff Berlin. I also like guitar players. Guthrie Govan is pretty awesome, and I’ve always loved Brian May, Dave Gilmour, on and on… I get musical inspiration from all places and bring it back to bass.

You have had the opportunity to tour the world with the likes of JSS and House of Lords, is there a particular place or tour that sticks out as the most memorable, whether that be for good, or evil reasons haha!
Again, I’ve been very lucky to get to travel and play with some great musicians, and meet so many awesome people. If you think about it, you get to see people at their best when they’re at shows. That means they aren’t worn down by work, they’re usually dressed in clothes they like, and they’re there to have fun. Just being part of that thing that makes people happy is an indescribable high. It’s not so important where that happens, really, it’s just meeting all those people who get something out of the music. Awesomeness.

That said…trying to get a rock band into Peru is…difficult. Hahaha. Had to provide an itemized list of every single electronic device on us, since the exchange rate is totally in our favor, I think they thought we were going to sell everything. We also had to get yellow fever shots and pay a $4,000 deposit, which was returned to us since we didn’t sell any of our gear. Fun, huh?

Barcelona. The people, the architecture, the food, the weather. Everything in that place is astounding. I really like it there.

Sao Paolo, Brazil is a pretty crazy hang. Our promoter brought us to the huge dance club surrounded by strip clubs. We had private tables in the balcony, and they would bring up twenty supermodels at a time for us to choose from. They also have unbelieveably over the top banquet style brazilian bbq’s called Churrascaria.

Thanks for answering these questions Chris, if there is anything else you would like to add that we may have missed, here’s your chance….mentions of bass or other endorsements permitted 🙂
I can’t imagine saying much more than I already have, but…hahaha. I actually got interested in making basses from scratch this year. I have no experience, but I researched a lot, built a workshop over the winter, slowly bought tools, and I just made my first bass body out of a chunk of alder. It came out pretty good and it’s hot pink. Not for everyone, but I don’t think anyone will forget it too soon. I plan on making an entire bass this winter, neck and all. It’s a fun hobby between all the running around I normally do.

Well, I’m sure that’s enough. hahahaha. Been a pleasure and a big thank you to anyone who actually read this whole thing. I hope you’ll give SCC a listen, and if i’m playing somewhere near you, don’t hesitate to contact me, or at least come up and say Hi!

Essential Information

From: USA

Sounds like: Classic power pop rock

Band Members: Chris McCarvill – Lead Vocals & Bass, BJ Zampa – Drums & Vocals, Chuck Beckman – Guitar & Vocals, Jeff Baryla – Keyboards & Vocals

Websites: Official Facebook Page & www.chrismccarvill.com

Latest Release: The Samurai Cab Co. EP – 2010