Brass Mash Member Deep Dive: Sam Franklin
Sam, probably circular breathing in the Green Day breakdown or something
Welcome to a Brass Mash member deep dive with Sam Franklin, the bari saxophonist of Brass Mash. With his unparalleled technical prowess and razor-sharp musical humor, Sam’s improvisations really take us places. All kinds of places. Places that make us on stage turn to our neighbors and laugh incredulously at the absurdity of what is even happening. “…Was that Popeye?”
Enjoy our conversation as we reflect on Liquid Gravity crowds, first gigs and favorite mashups!
Year joined Brass Mash: 2018 [After much searching and corroborating with digital evidence]
Current favorite mashup: The Cher one has a soft spot for me lately. [“Believe Like Dreams”] I think my favorite one is Love Shack [“My Girl Killed the Radio Shack Love Groove Train”]. I remember the first time we played it and I really felt the crowd going off. It was at a Liquid Gravity show, of course, and I was like, “Oh yeah, this song is going to be a hit.”
How did you come to join Brass Mash?
I was a sub. I’d known about Brass Mash for awhile, and I’d talked to Colin before. Of all the people in the band, the only one I knew was Brett Malta [tuba player]. I’d known Brett for a long time because we played in big bands randomly together - we’d never actually hung out - but he had my number and texted me about filling in. We played at Venteux Winery and then Stone Soup Festival the next day, so I was subbing on bari for those two gigs. From there, it took off because the bari player that I was subbing for was kind of in and out of the band, and ended up moving away. There were actually a few gigs where we had double bari!
Tell us about your first gig.
It was at Venteux Winery. I think I only knew about it a few days in advance, filling in at the last minute. I didn’t even have a bari at the time! Colin borrowed one of the baris from his school and he let me play it. I broke the screw on the neck before the gig even started. For some reason, I did it too tight and the screw just popped out and snapped off. So the bari neck was all floppy! It was ridiculous but Colin was like “No worries man!”
It went pretty well, and then I had Stone Soup the very next day. So, two Brass Mash gigs in 24 hours! I got to see Tim in his lederhosen, a rare sight.
Share one core Brass Mash experience.
Liquid Gravity has gotta be it! They all kind of run together. If it’s a memorable night, it’s really just because the crowd was going off or we were really tight or something. Like at the most recent Liquid Gravity show - I don’t think I’d ever seen someone crowd surf at one of our shows before! We had like 4 or 5 people by the end.
Another Liquid Gravity memory - this happens every once in awhile. Back when Ben [trumpet player] was in the band, and we had that really big Cal Poly following with his cousins, they got the biggest conga line going! Every once in awhile they try to get one started, but this time it was massive. It just kept going and going and going.
