Localized

On Friday, Sept. 18 SLUG Magazine brings I Am The and openers To the Death to the stage of the Urban Lounge. Five bucks gets you in.

I AM THE

Sam Whittier: Vocals
Brian Corollo: Guitar
Jon Robertson: Bass
Jaime Horton: Drums

The Salt Lake City local scene can serve as an uphill obstacle for bands trying to break out onto the national stage. Momentum is important, so it’s a bit surprising that a band with occasional radio play on X96 and KBER would change their name. That’s exactly what Almost Undone decided to do in March of 2008 after about three years of performing under that name. After letting go of their singer, Brenna White, and picking up Sam Whittier, the band became I Am The. A new name, full-length LP and renewed sense of creativity have given the four-piece a shot to branch out from Salt Lake and make their mark on a bloated mainstream rock scene.

SLUG: Why did you guys change your name from Almost Undone?
Whittier: I just wasn’t feeling the name—it wasn’t a good representation of what we were putting out.
Robertson: We had a singer [in Almost Undone] who we would write songs around. Sam is different because he doesn’t need that. He gets what we’re doing.

SLUG: How did you find Sam after the split with Brenna?
Robertson: Sam happened to be at the show when Brenna left the band right beforehand. We decided to play instrumentally, and he approached us after. We invited him to a show the next day, and then to sit in on some band practices.

SLUG: You’ve played all types of different shows, from places like Club Vegas to house shows to all-ages venues like The Avalon. Which is your favorite type of show to play?
Horton: I like playing with places that will work with us. I like having everything sound good with a respectful sound guy.
Whittier: It’s all about playing to crowds that are artistically awake. If they’re not giving you any energy, they’re draining it from you. It’s all about energy.
Horton: When we played with Chevelle at The Gallivan Center, that was great. There were a lot of people there and they seemed to get it. That was probably our best show so far.

SLUG: Obviously the more people in the crowd the better, right?
Horton: Having people at the shows is cool, but I’d rather play to five people who truly appreciate us than to five million fucking lemmings. I want to make a living doing this, but once you start getting outside of a modest lifestyle, everything becomes frivolous. If we ever got there, we’d have ticket prices and t-shirt prices capped at something like 10 or 15 bucks. You can allow your fans to save money and still make a living for yourself. Ego doesn’t come into [our band]. We’re not rock stars.

SLUG: So you guys want to make a living out of this band?
Robertson: Yeah, man. Everybody wants to get there. We’ve put together a press kit and have been sending stuff out to labels and management.
Whittier: We haven’t been too aggressive, though.
Horton: We’d like to do some touring, but we need to play some places where people know us. We can play to five people here, ya know? It’s funny to me when bands say they want to get signed. Nobody ever works for it anymore. They think they can just play a couple local shows and add some friends on MySpace. It takes a lot of work and even more talent to be able to do that stuff.

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