Alt rock band X Ambassadors’ lead singer and Ithaca, N.Y., native Sam Nelson Harris is no stranger to the ‘Burgh.
“My brother-in-law went to Carnegie Mellon, so I was there a lot when he was in school,” Harris said ahead of his band’s upcoming show Tuesday at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale. “We’ve been to Primanti’s, I feel like I’ve been to every location.”
Harris says Pittsburgh and Ithaca share a lot of similar qualities. “You’ve got the colleges there, I’m a college town kid,” he said.
A good chunk of X Ambassadors’ new album “Townie,” which released April 5, is about Harris’ experience growing up in his hometown.
“I love this new record. We worked so hard on it. It’s a very personal one,” Harris said.
Harris has been musically inclined since birth, basically. “My mom’s a singer, I’m sure that had a huge impact on me.”
She just recently sent him a video of him as a child, rapping along to the “Men in Black” theme song.
He said that the first albums he owned as a kid were by Will Smith, Matchbox Twenty, Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The latter had a profound effect on his concept of an ideal music group. “I just loved the familial nature of that band. I was fixated on finding something like that,” he said.
“They also don’t take themselves too seriously. I take myself so seriously sometimes and I hate it. … I was a very serious kid and I think the attraction to a band like that was because of how playful they were,” he added.
Finding his musical and songwriting voice was an early project for Harris. “I think there’s a thing with a lot of musicians — myself included — where I loved music so much, it did something to me, it inspired me, it moved me, it fascinated me. I listened to so many types of music and I somehow got fixated on that there was a mysterious combination, somewhere out there was an album or song that combined all of my favorite things.
“I had to figure out what that was. And I think I kind of set myself to the task of figuring that out. That’s when you start writing music, that’s when you start playing music with a band,” he said.
In high school, Harris played in various bands with his best-friend-since-kindergarten, Noah Feldshuh, and his brother, Casey Harris. After graduating, Harris and Feldshuh moved to New York City and met X Ambassadors percussionist Adam Levin at the New School dorms. A year later, Casey Harris joined them. “We got a rehearsal space and started cutting our teeth and writing songs and rehearsing and getting tighter and tighter. … That was the beginning of things,” Harris said.
The band released their debut full album, “VHS,” in 2015 and immediately had a hit with “Renegades,” The album also spawned the single “Unsteady,” which peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I feel like we really deserved it,” Harris said of the band’s big break. “We’d been … toiling away in obscurity for so long. It was a bit of a relief when that happened.”
But just as the band was hitting its peak, things were tumultuous within. Feldshuh and Harris ran into some difficulties and Feldshuh left the band in 2018, taking an indefinite hiatus in 2016. “That was a big blow, a founding member of the band and one of my oldest friends,” Harris said.
He learned some valuable lessons from that time in the spotlight — first and foremost, to enjoy experiences as they come. “I think that because things were so painful for me, I just was unable to be in the present moment. I was so stressed out, so scared of losing this thing I wanted my whole life.
“If we ever get lucky enough to have another moment in the sun like that,” he said, “I will be sure to try and appreciate it, and I think I’ve got some tools in my toolkit now.”
“Townie,” X Ambassadors’ new album, is heavily about reflecting on the past and moving on from it. “I was at a point in my life where I felt like I had no road map forward,” Harris said. He used the process of this album to explore some of his past repeated patterns and discover a new sense of self.
“I wrote a lot about what it was like growing up in Ithaca,” he said. It’s also about looking back on why he was in such a rush to grow up, even when he was 11.
“The record is me reckoning with a lot of these things. It’s been cathartic, but it’s also been kind of nice to move on from it.”
“I’m happy to be playing these songs and getting them out in the world,” he said.
He’s been encouraged and humbled by the positive fan response to X Ambassadors, even after all these years.
“We put this record out, and I’m really proud of it, and I’m happy with the work that I’ve done,” he said. “I feel like I spoke my truth on this record.”
Alexis Papalia is a TribLive staff writer. She can be reached at apapalia@triblive.com.
