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Together Sami Akbari and Aaron Mort form the LA based band The Bad Years. The pair are a newly formed indie-rock duo that are making moves with fresh tunes that have been influenced by a wide array of musical genres from different eras.
GroundSounds recently caught up with the two for an exclusive interview about new music, inspirations and more, check it out below.
For those just discovering The Bad Years can you tell us about how you guys came together and started creating music?
We got started the old fashioned way: We fell in love, moved in together, and then started a band. That’s how everyone does it, right?
How did you guys come up with the name The Bad Years?
You know, it’s hard finding a band name that you like and it seemed as if pretty much every name we came up with that we liked had already been taken. Aaron was looking at some old books he had and one was called “How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years” and he offered “The Bad Years” as the name, and we went with it. Fun fact: It’s the book he’s holding in the “Common Mistake” promo pic.
Can you tell us about the creative and writing process for your track “Common Mistake?”
Sami: For most of the songs we’ve been writing recently, we have been finding inspiration in our influences or something heard that we were like “that’s cool!”, and then Aaron will play a riff or progression on the guitar and then we’ll both play with different melodies. The same went for “Common Mistake”; Aaron was playing around with a chord progression and I started singing along to it, and voila! A song was born. We figure out the structure and then we dive into the lyrics. A lot of people have been calling “Common Mistake” a break-up song, but we see it differently; for us it’s about being hopelessly in love but going through a period of frustration and doubt. You crave change but you’re just not feeling satisfied with the time it’s taking to get their, feelings of anxiousness, fear, and love combining…the eternal relationship struggle.
What do you guys enjoy most about Los Angeles and Thai Town?
Sami: Aaron came from San Francisco and I came from Brooklyn, both of which we miss very much, but LA has a lot more to offer than I think either of us expected. Who says LA has no culture? LACMA is amazing, the Getty is amazing (although, Aaron still needs to go), the farmers markets are lovely and plentiful and the swap meets/flea markets are fantastic. Hands down our favorite part of LA, especially Thai Town, is the food. It rivals NYC to me. We’ve had so much delicious, cheap food from so many different parts of the world just in our neighborhood. We have amazing taco trucks in a 5 block radius of our apartment. El Pastor has amazing pastor burritos (go figure) and we love the vegetarian burritos at El Matador. I could go on and on about the food!
What music are you guys currently drawing inspirations from?
We started out with this common love of T. Rex. But then we started digging deeper and found this thread of artists that we really felt were continuing Marc Bolan’s odyssey of playing sexy pop and rock n roll. INXS, The Kills, The Cardigans, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Echo & The Bunnymen…the list could go on. We just really bonded over this type of music, but we also love Robyn & Beyonce, so we aren’t attempting to pigeon hole ourselves, we really just love music.
As a newly formed duo what do you guys find most difficult in regards to getting started and getting your music out?
Sami: I think as a musician in general you have to depend so much on other people liking your music enough to talk about it so that maybe other people will listen to it as well, so that hopefully you can get your music in enough ears out there that you can actually make a living from it eventually. For me personally, it’s hard to be patient waiting to see how far it will go. With that being said, we’ve got a great manager who has been busting his ass getting our music out to as many people as possible, and so far we’ve gotten really great feed back, so we feel good about that!
What advice would you give to upcoming bands and musicians?
Sami: Hmm, that’s hard considering that we’re kinda just starting out ourselves even though we’ve individually been playing for years. I would say that, just learning from my own previous experiences, really mapping out what you want to do and making a plan of attack is really helpful. You want to continue to give people content, so you should have that content ready to go as you work on future stuff. That way, you won’t have a lag between the release of things whether it’s a single, a video, an EP or an album and you’ll (hopefully) continue to have people talking as you move along.
Can you tell us about the inspiration for the track “Didn’t Need To Know?”
Aaron: I guess it turned out to be a fairly big “fuck you” song, but not really at anyone in particular. It’s not about anyone really, I see it more as a personal struggle and a reflection on years past. I definitely feel like I was in a rut the past few years, I was in a band that was struggling internally and emotionally, wasn’t feeling satisfied artistically, moved from a city I had come to call home, I just had this recurring feeling that even in the best moments I never felt content, never felt like what I was doing was right. So, I guess I’m attempting to acknowledge that, while also admitting that even though I’m in a much happier and satisfied place that I’m still scared and searching for the dreams I had when I was younger.
Top Photo by: Monica Sotto
