Hello My Name is Sam from The Bobby Lees

Sam Quartin knows she might resemble a misanthrope. But the powerhouse Bobby Lees front-woman simply despises modern technology and all of its cold, clinical trappings. Don’t ask her about any currently popular memes, viral videos, or TikTok influencers — she’s never online to see them, she swears, and she’s proud to note that she has absolutely zero presence on any social media platform. “And three years ago, I got rid of my smartphone, and I just have a flip phone now,” she says. “And this one author I like, Murakami? I’ve read almost all of his books, fifteen of them because there’s time — you just have time because you’re not staring at a screen. And I was never into that Facebook/Instagram stuff. When it first came out, I had it for a minute, and then I just saw what it was doing to my brain, so I got off it pretty quickly.” Can an artist still have a successful career in the entertainment business? Quartin seems to be doing alright. Candy Land, the new horror film she stars in, directed by her husband John Swab, just hit theaters and streaming services, and the reviews are all positive. Ditto for Bellevue, the latest garage-punk barnstormer from The Bobby Lees, its fourth, that hit shelves last October — it follows up on all the promise of the quartet’s Jon Spencer-produced breakthrough from 2020, Skin Suit; Quartin is a feral, fanged force of nature on a dozen Bellevue originals, plus a cover of The Waterboys’ “Be My Enemy,” and she just keeps growing more charismatic and fascinating.

Would all of Quartin’s accomplishments resonate more in fickle pop culture if they were touted on Twitter? She’s not sure, she sighs. “But thank God Kendall (Wind), our bass player runs the online band page, so I don’t have to do it. I mean, I feel like it is kind of like a newspaper now in the sense that people aren’t reading publications, unfortunately. So we’ll pick something we want to put on there, like a tour announcement or something for the record. But other than that? In the day-to-day, I don’t engage — she handles all that stuff, which is great.” She thinks she’s found a communication system that actually works. She can’t text from her retro flip phone, and she’d rather just chat with her friends the old-fashioned dial-‘em-up way, she says. And she refuses to sacrifice any of her valuable new free time to maintain a busy online existence — she tried the tech once in its early days, but compulsively staring at that tiny screen simply drove her to distraction. And fame and fortune can still happen, the rocker adds — you just have to adjust how you define them. As we declared in our pandemic cover on The Bobby Lees, Quartin is a star just waiting to take her place in the firmament. But she’s now understandingly cool with it not being the overnight supernova fans were expecting. She explains more of her philosophy below. And a 20-date national “Bellevue” tour kicks off in Chicago at the end of March.

IE: You and John live in Tulsa now.  But was there a big L.A. premiere for Candy Land?

SAM QUARTIN: We did a more private screening before it came out for people that worked on it or were into it, and that was in Santa Monica. Then it finally came out two weeks ago, and it played at a few theaters in Texas and L.A. and we did it at the Circle Cinema, which is a really cool non-profit art house theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I love that place. And it was great — they did a two-week run when it was supposed to be just a one-week run. But they said the shows were packed, so they extended it another week. And now it’s on-demand wherever people rent iTunes and all that. And do you know Marc Maron? The comedian and podcaster? He just saw it last night, and John showed me a picture last night where he posted about it. And it’s funny — I’m not interested in doing that stuff; however, when people who are known to do it, it actually can help your project. So basically posted about it and said, “ Go check out Candy Land, which was really nice.

IE: How was it doing horror, as the truckstop hooker Sadie?

SQ: I was excited about that. But I had only one friend who had been around sex work and had been around that kind of thing. And John wanted to have a wild film, and the purpose of it was not to be politically correct — if anything, it was kind of the opposite at a time when it felt like you couldn’t say anything without offending somebody. So he wanted to reflect on his religious upbringing and just make a wild ride. And even though I knew this was not an expose on sex workers, I still felt like, “Okay — I’m playing someone who has sex for money, so I feel like I need to talk to somebody about it.” So there was one girl I know who was really open with me, and I just wanted to know when you’re doing that, where your head was at. Like, are you in **your body? Do you go somewhere else? Are you ever enjoying it, or is that just never a part of it? So she was just really open with me and told me some weird stuff. And it was weird, the stuff that I was nervous about. Like, I had done sex scenes, but nothing like the opening scene, which looks real, but it wasn’t — we weren’t actually having sex, not like a Lars Von Trier film like “Nymphomaniac” or whatever. But it was actually really fun, and I remember after it, I was just hysterically laughing. It was a blast, and everyone on the project and their intentions were good — there was nothing exploitative going on in this active truck stop in Montana. It felt very real, and it did not feel gratuitous.

IE: Are you a blonde now?

SQ: I had dyed my hair for Candy Land — they wanted it pink. But it washed out, and it’s blonde when it washes out. So I just kept that going, so at the moment, yes, I am. And I am doing a project in April, a part in a new film, John’s project called “BRBS” — it’s shooting California and in Tulsa, and it’s set in the future, where now we all have chips in our arms, and they’ve gotten everybody except this small resistance group, and I play someone in the resistance group. I don’t wanna give anything away, but it’s really fun, and it’s also frightening.

IE: I can’t believe you guys are friends with the great [actor] Frank Grillo.

SQ: You like him? He’s totally awesome! Frank and John are like best buds — they talk all the time, they work together, they’re like brothers, work brothers, and they work really well together. He’s in John’s next film that comes out in February, Little Dixie, and that one I’m not in. And I’ve never done scenes with him, but I’ll get to in the new project, BRBS.

IE: What’s your other non-John film that’s coming, Albert Sandoval’s By the Rivers of Babylon, with Crispin Glover and Connie Stevens?

SQ: Yeah! I didn’t know that she had dated Elvis, so I was trying to get the scoop. But that was a weird horror movie I did out in L.A. It’s supposed to come out this year, but we’ll see. It’s one of those projects where you don’t know what exactly is going on with it. But Crispin is great. We’ve worked together twice, and he’s been wonderful. He’s really sweet, and he likes the band. And he does so much stuff that people don’t know about. He has a house in the Czech Republic, where he’s been shooting his own films for years. He built all his own sets, and he does really cool things on his own that the mainstream is not aware of. When you have fun with things, and you’re unpredictable, people don’t like it.

IE: Speaking of unpredictable, have you noticed that in every Bellevue song, from “Hollywood Junkyard” to “Death Train,” “Monkey Mind,” and “Ma Likes to Drink,” you assume a different vocal personality for each one? Almost like you’re acting as you’re singing.

SQ: Yeah. And that’s interesting. I feel like whatever mood the song evokes, I rise to the occasion. And The Waterboys cover, “Be My Enemy,” that one’s really fun to sing live because if there’s anyone that’s fucking with, or not telling us something or not being straight with us — and that’s my biggest annoyance, just not being told what’s going on —I get to release it that night from whatever bullshit’s gone on that day. So I direct all the energy to that song, and it feels honest. And I want it to feel honest, you know? But I feel like I’m gonna be gone really quickly, so I’ve gotta put everything into my work. I think I first noticed that feeling as soon as I started with the band. As soon as I got sober and realized how ephemeral everything can be, I was like, “Okay — this is it.” That’s why with me, the stuff I like or whatever I gravitate towards, I don’t care what genre something is. I just wanna feel like everything’s been put into it. If they’re giving me everything, then I don’t care if it’s hip-hop, country, whatever — I like it. It’s hard for me to like a band that just feels like, “It’s a casual Tuesday night, and we’re here to sing some songs for ya!” I mean, that’s great if that’s what makes you happy. But I don’t wanna spend my time on that, so I try to put everything into it until I’m happy with it.

IE: Have there ever been moments when you brought too much to a performance? Slipped over the edge into danger?

SQ: Yeah, I did. I jumped off a bar when we were playing in France that I shouldn’t have jumped off of, and I fucked up my foot. And then I was in the hospital because I thought I broke my foot, but I didn’t — it was just a really bad sprain, but I couldn’t play the next couple of nights on it. I mean, we played the shows, but I was just sitting, which was agony for me because I wanna run around. But I was like a crazy person, just rocking back and forth in a chair the next night in Belgium. So yeah, I’ve learned that with certain things, maybe don’t do that. Unless I have a few days off, then I think, “Okay, you can do whatever you want, so if something bad happens, you’ll have time to recover.”

IE: Parallel to that, what energy do you bring to acting that’s similar?

SQ: I don’t know yet if I’ve been able to bring to acting what I bring onstage with the band. Because I feel like when a show’s good, I kind of lose myself, and I don’t exactly know what’s happening, and I’m really in the moment. So I don’t know if that happens on set. I’ll put it this way — when I play a show with the band, I feel like I’m supposed to be there. I’ve earned my place, and I’m gonna show up and do this show. But when I’m acting, I still feel like, “Who let me **do this? I have no idea what I’m doing! And there was a lot of money put into this, but they’re just kinda winging it and figuring it out?” But that’s just me being too self-judgmental.

Appearing 3/30 at Schubas Chicago.

-Tom Lanham

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