Interview with Sammy J.
You have released a CD called “Sticky Digits”. Can regular audiences expect a ‘best of’ or will it feature new material?
A little bit of both! I’m moving away from the piano in my festival shows at the moment so I was keen to put all my songs onto an album, just in case I get hit by a bus some day soon. A few songs of mine like “Duets” and “The Fingering Song” have always been well received live, but this is the first time I’ve recorded them. So it’s nice to have an archive of all the quaint little ditties I’ve been writing over the last few years, wrapped up in a sexy cardboard sleeve.
You have enjoyed great success with your previous shows. Do you feel an expectation now when you do a show because of that?
Not overly, it’s just exciting that a few more people might know my name and be interested in seeing what I’m up to. Obviously I would like to keep improving but part of that is taking risks, so I’m prepared for some ideas not to work along the way. It would have probably been more commercially sensible to do a sequel to “The Forest of Dreams” with Heath McIvor this year, but we’ve both tried to challenge ourselves by doing solo shows and I’m sure we’ll end up better comedians as a result.
Your real name is Sam McMillan. Why did you choose to adopt a stage name and where did it come from?
Around Year 8, when I was trying to manufacture a bit of popularity, I decided I needed a nickname and rather uncreatively condensed my full name – Samuel Jonathan McMillan – to “Sammy J”. My family and friends were reluctant to adopt it but I pushed and pushed, using it at every opportunity, and eventually started using it on stage. It’s taken twelve years but at last my filthy little plan appears to have worked!
What can audiences expect from “Sammy J – 1999”?
Hopefully something a little different! It’s a one-man musical, where I play myself as a 15 year-old and illustrate my life at the dawning of the new millennium. Part of that life is the presence of a bully, who pushes me a little too far, and things take a bit of a twist at the halfway point. I’ve been performing the show at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the audiences have been a little shocked at how dark the show is, though I didn’t intend that to be the case. I’ve still got jokes about boners and fingering in there, after all. And at the end of the day, I tried to write the funniest show I could – it just happens to have songs, costumes, and a set as part of the jokes.
For full booking details go to Sammy J