“Demonic, Ethereal, Fun”: Seven Minutes Backstage With Sasami

FRIDAY 5:22 PM MARCH 7, 2025 MIDTOWN

SASAMI, like all us, is entering a new golden age of pop. The classically-trained musician turned indie darling is kicking off her North American tour in support of her latest album, Blood on the Silver Screen, a cinematic odyssey of love and heartbreak, featuring Clairo and a show-stopping flourish of French horns. “Growing up, I didn’t feel like pop necessarily reflected me,” the singer-songwriter revealed when we joined her in the backrooms of Rough Trade Records before her NYC show. “It almost felt punk for me to dive deep into pop later in life.” Before the took the stage, the New York native delved into the beautiful chaos of her scribbling songwriting ideas in her Notes app and the dynamic persona at the core of this most recent pop project: think Bruce Springsteen meets alien huntress.

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JULIETTE JEFFERS: Is this technically your first stop on tour?

SASAMI: L.A. is my first stop. I better double-check the dates or my team will be upset with me. It starts May 5th.

JEFFERS: Amazing. I went to one of your shows in L.A. in 2019, actually.

SASAMI: Oh, really? Cool. Was that at the Echo maybe?

JEFFERS: Yeah. And I was like, who is this ethereal woman screaming?

SASAMI: I know. And that was before Squeeze, my second album, which was very metal-inspired. Touring one album always influences the next vibe. The first one was so introspective and quiet that, by the end, I craved screaming and aggressive catharsis. Then after touring Squeeze and being on tour with a metal band, screaming every night, I realized I missed just singing a normal song. So that really led me towards Blood On the Silver Screen.

JEFFERS: That makes so much sense. So you’ve entered this pop era. What led to that, besides the experience of going through all that expression of rage and screaming? What else drew you to pop?

SASAMI: Growing up, I didn’t feel like pop necessarily reflected me, so it almost felt punk for me to dive deep into pop later in life. It’s like I have this thing, which probably isn’t good for capitalism, but whenever someone expects something from me, it makes me want to go in the opposite direction.

JEFFERS: It’s good to have something to rebel against.

SASAMI: You only have one life. I hate the thought of leaving a legacy of only having done one thing. And with art, sometimes your work doesn’t get discovered until long after you’re gone. You never know which album or which vibe will speak to generations to come. So I’m like, give them everything.

JEFFERS: I think that’s really true. I feel like we’re also in a golden age of pop right now.

SASAMI: Totally.

JEFFERS: Pop music right now is really good.

SASAMI: It’s super good. And I think, because of playlisting and stuff, people are much more open to different genres. They’re less like, “This genre defines me and I refuse to listen to anything else.” So it’s conducive to experimentation.

JEFFERS: Definitely. Do you have any other plans while you’re here?

SASAMI: I was doing a couple of magazine shoots, which is always really fun. I get to be glam and campy because I feel like my background’s in classical music, so whether it’s post-punk, metal, or pop, it’s all kind of cosplay for me. There’s a drag performance artiness to it in general, so it’s fun to do a photo shoot, get all dolled up, and have cool makeup done.

JEFFERS: What’s on the mood board for this tour?

SASAMI: It’s very Bruce Springsteen, stadium rock, denim, big, curly 80s hair vibe, but with a little bit of Rococo classical lace thrown in there.

JEFFERS: Love it. Tunnel of Love.

SASAMI: Exactly.

JEFFERS: Where are you most excited to perform?

SASAMI: I’m actually going to Korea in a week or two for the first time.

JEFFERS: Oh my gosh.

SASAMI: I’m Korean, so I’ve been there before, but I’ve never performed there. So I’m really excited to go to Korea. Obviously I was born in New York, so there’s part of me that’s like, “Maybe I’m a New Yorker a little bit inside.” New York is always an incredible show. The live scene in New York is amazing and I feel like the crowd is always epic.

JEFFERS: Yeah, totally. From this album, what songs are you most excited to perform? What gets the craziest response onstage?

SASAMI: I mean, this is the first album where I’m touring with my French horn—

JEFFERS: I know, I was going to say, is the French horn coming out?

SASAMI: Yes, the French horn is coming out.

JEFFERS: Hell yeah.

SASAMI: I’ve done some road testing on opening tours last year, and the French horn is a show-stopping kind of moment. It leads into the theatrical camp of the show because I’m still playing some of the metal stuff. I really love “Nothing But a Sad Face On,” which is the song that the horn leads into because it just has an ethereal vibe. It’s like, demonic, ethereal, fun—it hits all the notes.

JEFFERS: That’s amazing. How do you prepare to get on stage? Do you have rituals?

SASAMI: Yeah, I’m really into doing my makeup. Again, I’m really into the performance of it all. It helps me to get into character, especially when you have a project that’s your name, that’s so much of your job and the craft that’s tied into your identity. So it’s kind of fun and lighthearted for me to make some space by really being like, this is the character for this era. And then getting into character before the show starts.

JEFFERS: Who’s SASAMI the character inspired by, then?

SASAMI: For this album cycle?

JEFFERS: Yes.

SASAMI: It’s inspired by a long, curly-haired, denim-clad Asian woman alien who’s sent to earth to track down, fight, and kill her nemesis, which is the personification of love. But in doing so, she also falls in love with this character. Love is shape-shifting into all these different genres of relationship types and film genres. And I’m chasing them down almost like Everything Everywhere All At Once-style. They’re shape-shifting, and I’m following them into these different dimensions. It’s sci-fi, but the character hops out of the screen and steals popcorn from your tub.

JEFFERS: Okay. One last fun question: As far as your songwriting process for this album, what’s your Notes app like?

SASAMI: Oh my gosh, my Notes app is hectic. And my voice memos are even more hectic because it’ll be three seconds of the start of a song and then five seconds of the pre-chorus, then just ADHD brain going around until I can finally construct all the quilt pieces of a song together. And the Notes app is just really random words that I’ll think of or funny jokes that I’ll come up with while I’m driving, probably misspelled and Siri auto-corrected to the wrong things. And then I have to decode it later like it’s its own language.

JEFFERS: Do the jokes make it into the songs?

SASAMI: Some of them definitely do. And some of them, I don’t know if they land. There are a lot of metalhead dad jokes that I thought were kind of funny like “I’ve been running with the devil,” which is like a Van Halen character. But again, I’m always antagonizing old white men, so that’s always part of the lore, no matter what.

JEFFERS: Of course. Thank you so much.