Saosin Digs Fellow Performers And College Audience
by Tracy Bueno

Before going on stage and rocking out, I managed to interview Saosin, a rock band part of this year’s Extravaganza Festival at Harder Stadium.

I sat down with bassist Chris Sorenson and asked for his views on Santa Barbara. “Well I just got here and I’ve been here before,” he said after taking a break from the band’s soundcheck, “It reminds me of where I live now.” Later in the interview, he admitted to being an avid fan of Freebirds.

Having completed both American and European tours, I was interested to find out what Sorenson had to say about college campus tours. “We’ve played on college campuses too, like USC, UCD and others,” he said, “College tours tend to be different because there’s a lot of performers and music going on. It’s more diverse in a crowd and it’s cool.”

I went on to ask about their thoughts on the other artists performing at Extravaganza, including any possible feeling of nervousness to play with explosively popular Hellogoodbye and headlining act Nas. “I never got that starstruck by anyone or anything like that,” Sorenson stated, “Hellogoodbye is doing really well right now and Nas is one of the biggest acts out there, so it’s a good fusion of rock and hip-hop.”

As their already extensive fan base grows, Saosin has been working hard on the early stages of their next album, due to be released on Capitol Records sometime in 2009. I received minimal details from the band, except a vague, “We’re writing right now,” from Sorenson. They also mentioned they plan to finalize the music before working with lyrics. During their performance, vocalist Cove Reber openly lamented about his inability to divulge any new material.

Being signed to renowned label Capitol Records, I felt obliged to ask Sorenson about the treacherous issue of creative control between artist and label. “[Without being on Capitol Records we would have] never realized that we are capable of doing things on our own terms. There’s definitely expectations and being on a major label, you kind of hold back. You can’t necessarily do everything you want, so you kind of have to be smart about it. At the end of the day, the label know the business aspect so you have to keep standard to that.”
When asked about his musical influences, Sorenson cited plenty of 90’s artists, such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Portishead.

Before letting them return to rehearsal, I asked Sorenson about the last album he bought.“It’s the Cat Power record, which I can’t remember the name, but it’s her record. The one that really sealed the deal in terms of being a straight songwriter.”

On that note, I ended my interview with an exchange of high fives and words of good will.