Today we’d like to introduce you to Sammy Kidd.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Well, I had written a few songs that I was excited about and found an old friend to fill in on drums. So it started as a kind of 2 piece. Guitar/vocals & drums. We signed up for an open mic night that was popular at the time in downtown FW. Our now bassist/sound engineer happened to be in the crowd and liked what he heard. So, he offered to play bass for us. And its been a nonstop journey ever since.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Id say we got off to a pretty amazing start. We were very lucky and just happened to be in the right place at the right time for the kind of music we wanted to play. So before we knew it things started moving pretty quickly. The challenges didnt really come until much later. Starting in early 2015. Once covid happened in 2019. It kind of put things on halt. We had to cancel quite a few sxsw shows that year. Venues started closing and the environment of the industry started to change pretty rapidly. But we adapted and moved on. Just had to change our strategy a bit. We were doing our first tour by 2017 and our first west coast tour by 2018. Putting out our first LP on Dirty Water Records in 2017. Our last Vinyl release was 2019, but with our new strategy our goals have shifted more towards releasing singles every month or two. Weve had members come and go, but we found our footing again fairly quickly. So not much of an issue there.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We started MMS in 2015. Immediately it took off and its been a wild ride ever since. We specialize in making noise, its what we love doing. Finding a great team of people who can agree on what we’revtrying to accomplish is the harf part. Making noise is one thing, but making noise people want to and will even pay to see and listen to, something with real meaning behind it. Something that resonates with people from all sorts of age ranges. Joe from Cloudland records/tracks us, I (Sammy) write the music. Mike takes care of the business side of things (merch sales, finances). Weve worked with lots of great bands and people over the years who wanted to be apart of what we do. Coffee Pot Films made several videos for us. The Darts gave us our first distribution deal for Vinyl and had us open for them on the west coast in 2017-2018. Since then we’ve started wanting to have more creative control in our videos (before we’d write a script and let Anthony and his team organize the overall picture. But lately we are working on a new video completely on our own. With the vibe and story and delivery we wanted. We release our own music entirely ourselves now. Weve had some limited prints from Wacky Souvenir for Slacker/Wastoid. But we want to start putting out our own singles again on vinyl. I feel like we are a very authentic group that cares greatly for the quality and intensity we produce. Both on and off stage. We dont like to put ourselves in a box so we just put out what feels right in the moment. Currently most proud of our new single Sick Sick Six and the next one currently in the works “Serial Chiller”. I make all the artwork for Tshirts and Joe helps with fliers. Weve had some great opportunities to open for some of our favorite bands (Black Lips, Teen Mortgage, The Darts, Jesus Lizard, Flipper, etc..) and meet some of our biggest influences. Which we never expected to happen. It’s been an amazing ride and we look forward to continue putting out only our absolute best work. We’re known for our live performances really more than anything. We like to really put it all out there, in the most honest way possible..
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Authenticity. I think we all have different more specific ideas of what success means, but in a general sense, to us it means being true to our vision and having so many people resonate with that all over DFW and beyond for so many years is a special feeling. We love making art, writing stories/playing music. Just the chance to continue that after all these years and watch each new generation come into our world has been a great experience. Always love hearing when a young kid approaches us after the show to let me know our band is the reason he started a band or picked up a guitar or started to express themselves artistically. .
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.meanmotorscootertx.com
- Instagram: @Mean.motor.scooter
- Facebook: Meanmotorscooter
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCSn8ssjrI6PP1W9i7vGPp2w
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2YfpFIEkAgVdy3JC5d57F4?si=xq99Fu1pQcWfumJPqEFyfQ
Image Credits
Neuhen
John Erwin
Jessica Waffles
