Superblood

Photo by Vivian Orrega of So Finch Photography

Becoming Superblood

Interview by Ken Morton – Photos by Vivian Ortega of So Finch Photography

Superblood is the audtory creation of Cam Rostami, originally from North Texas and now based in Los Angeles. Within the realm of pop punk and hyper pop, Superblood has released standout singles such as Happy O.D. and Selfslayer. In addtion, live appearance have included shows at The Whisky on the Sunset Strip and The Mint in Santa Monica. Highwire Daze recently conducted an interview and photoshoot day at Dystopian Studios deep in the heart of Downtown LA. and invited Superblood over to participate. Before the session with Vivian Ortega of So Finch Photography, Highwire Daze interviewed Cam Rostami to find out more about the process of becoming Superblood. Read on...

We’re here from Cam from Superblood. First of all, how did the Superblood project come about? I understand you came from a solo artist background.

In 2021, I was making solo music all the way up until November. And in December, my mom passed away like halfway through the month – it’s actually almost a oneyear anniversary on the 16th. So that was pretty earth shattering for me, because she was my number one supporter – pretty much always had my back. I didn’t really know what to do after that honestly, and I thought I kind of wanted to leave behind the old stuff and start something fresh – just in general – kind of as a coping mechanism. So, I kind of started making a ton of music. The one thing everybody knows about tragedy is that it’s great fodder for art. I tried to take that from it and make a bunch of music. And I’d always wanted to play with friends of mine, so I started reaching out and of them – Sam, who’s my drummer now – I’ve known his forever. He’s always been a talented drummer and he’s been a part of other projects – so I finally snagged him for this one. Honestly, I feel so lucky for that because he’s traveled all over the place with me. So yeah, that’s kind of how came about. We’ve only existed for about eight months. That’s pretty wild.

The first and second time I saw you play was at the Whisky on the Sunset Strip. What was it like playing the iconic Whisky A Go Go?

That was one of the coolest experiences ever. We got some epic footage from it, and we got to play with friends too, which was really cool. Friends we’d been trying to play shows with for ages. It was just a great experience and great exposure for us. We’re going to playing there again next year in March. So, if you’re out here, I hope to see you there.

Compare to music scene out here in LA to the one in North Texas.

The music scene in North Texas is a lot more underground. There’s not as many big venues. There’s so many more, but they’re all smaller. When I was in college, everything was house shows – people wouldn’t go to typical parties, they would go to house shows and that’s where all the bands would get their exposure – which was really cool at the time. But eventually you want to go beyond that, and there’s not much for that out there unfortunately. There’s more of that opportunity in Austin than North Texas, but that’s not totally to discount Dallas. People who know Dallas – like the Deep Ellum part of Texas are really cool. And you could just walk around downtown and find cool music.

Let’s talk about a few of the songs. Happy O.D. with Imfalls. Tell me about the inspiration behind that one as well as the collaboration?

That was actually one of the first songs I wrote when this new year started. I had just started on new medication as well – I was seeing a psychiatrist and they were putting me on so many medications that I didn’t think were necessary and I thought were making things worse for me. And I was thinking oh man, it would be nice – we’re having to worry about overdosing on actual chemicals, it would be nice to overdose on happy for once – (laughs) you know, for that to be a concern. So, I reached out to a bunch of people to collaborate, and Imfalls immediately hit me back. And I was surprised by that, because he doesn’t make music like that song – he makes completely different stuff – and that’s why I was so psyched to have him. I think it turned out way better because of him.

Selfslayer featuring Smrtdeath – tell me about that song and the collaboration.

That song is the definition of everything I love about creating music. Basically, I had this opportunity with Smrtdeath, and so I needed a song to send him. Selfslayer was just something I randomly had. I was thinking maybe Happy O.D. to send to him at the time, but thank God it ended up being Selfslayer, because it ended up turning out so great. His feature on that song is like my favorite thing that we’ve ever done. And we hope to collaborate

with him some more as well in the future, which would be amazing. He’s a dope artist.

Select any other Superblood song you’d like to talk about and the inspiration behind it.

Well, an easy one to talk about would be the first one we ever put out – Permission To Die – which is pretty obviously just about my mom. It was a stylistic change for me too, because I had never made anything like hyper pop before. And that genre has been very welcoming to me. People who listen to hyper pop – it’s a very young fan base. The artists that are at the top of the hyper pop genre are in their teens – it’s crazy – but they’re coming up with some crazy stuff and they’re very welcoming of new and strange things – so I hope to explore that more in the future for sure. It was really cathartic to do, and it’s always a blast to play live.

If Superblood could open for any band or artist either now or from the past, who would it be and why?

I have so many answers for this and they’re all fairly realistic, I think. Number one right now would be Royal And The Serpent because she’s just destroying it right now. Our circles barely overlap, so I’m trying to manifest this happening. Along the same vein, one of my friends is in Beauty School Dropout, and they’re fricking killing it right now, so I would love to open for them. Lip Candy – another So Cal band – they’re on the blow up and I would love to open for them too. My most listened to artists all year and pretty much all of them, which is Royal, Mod Sun, Bilmuri – shout out to Bilmuri – we would love to open for them. That’s just a few – I could go on all day.

Is acting something you would like to pursue again, and what acting have you done in the past?

So, I was a child actor – that’s what I grew up doing – and I was in a bunch of indie movies and commercials. In fact, probably one of the coolest experiences of my life was getting to work with The Coen Brothers – who were some of my heroes that made some of my favorite movies. And if I’m being honest, filmmaking is the pinnacle of art to me, because it encapsulates everything I love. It has music in there as well. In fact, when I first started making music, I was making soundtracks for movies that didn’t exist. They were mostly orchestral, no vocals at all kind of thing. So yeah, I would love to get back to that honestly. But the thing about movies – and the thing that I love about it is that it’s so collaborative – but that also creates a barrier. I can sit in my room and write crazy music and send it off to people and get collaboration. I can’t exactly just create a movie by myself – I have tried (laughs). I’m trying to get back into it in 2023, but for now, music is definitely the focus.

What do you hope the New Year brings for you and for Superblood?

We’re setting up a small tour right now – a self-funded indie tour – so it’s not going to be anything huge crazy. But it’s going to be Southwest US, and I’m really excited, because I’ve never toured on any project that I’ve done. So that’s very exciting. I hope to open for some of these crazy bands that I just mentioned this year and I am going to make that happen one way or the other. I told one of my friends that’s trying to move out here – we made a pact that if he’s not out here by next year and if I don’t hit a million streams just in general, we’re going to have to get a really embarrassing tattoo. So that’s another thing I’m going to have to do next year – and I think I’m going to make all of those things happen. I’m going to do it. I’m determined!

And now it’s gonna be in print!

Exactly. It’s out there. So, I have to do it now…

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