Mister Goblin

Sam Goblin is here! I am stoked to bring this interview to your eyes and ears. Sam creates music under the moniker Mister Goblin. The project’s charming lyrics weave seamlessly into intimate and moving compositions. Their latest album ‘Four People In An Elevator And One Of Them Is The Devil’ drops on February 19, and I am beyond excited. In our latest interview, we chat with Sam about cookies, cartoons, and Brooklyn.

A self-portrait by Mister Goblin

Would you rater

only be able to talk in fortune cookies, or backward? Why?

I would say I'd rather talk in fortune cookies. Fortune cookie advice varies pretty extreme in terms of quality, but I think Twin Peaks ruined talking backward for me. Plus I've gotten at least a couple of pretty resonant fortune cookies in my life, so I'd be bound to stumble into saying something deep at some point or other.

Some questions with Mister Goblin

What was the creative drive behind your 2021 release ‘Four People In An Elevator And One Of Them Is The Devil’?

I think probably just the general good ol' human desire to express oneself, and aside from complaining to those close to me, this is the way I know how to do that. For whatever reason, I feel the compulsion to continue making songs, and sharing them hopefully affords me the opportunity to recoup expenses and be able to make more songs that are hopefully better than the songs I made previously, so on and so forth, rinse and repeat, etc. I guess for this one I wanted to do something held together by some sort of axis or theme and ended up settling on the movie "Devil" which is a pretty silly unifying factor, but here we are.

How do you feel about filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan?

I think he's wonderful, and the arc of his career is fascinating to me. I've been talking with friends about having an all-day M. Night marathon for a long time, hopefully, someday.

What was it like putting an album together during the pandemic?

For the purposes of this project, not that different than I imagine it would have been otherwise. I don't really sit down and write with other people for Mister Goblin, so in a way, the pandemic probably gave me more of an opportunity to focus on crafting the songs since I didn't have to worry about preparing for shows or anything like that. Of course, even though I personally got off pretty easily in terms of being impacted by the pandemic compared to many, marinating in the misery of it throughout the writing process for this album I'm sure had some effect on how it came out.

What is the best drinking game to play with people? (have you ever invented one?)

I don't drink, but if I did I would have everyone watch the show The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and drink every time someone drops to their knees and screams.

What are your hopes for the post-COVID-19 Brooklyn music scene?

I live in Indiana now, but I definitely spent a lot of time playing and hanging out in New York when I lived on the east coast. I hope they're able to build back up the network of DIY venues in the wake of the pandemic. It seemed like every dope spot was getting shuttered even before Covid hit, but hopefully shows being shut down for a while will galvanize some resourceful people to get some cool spots going again when everything picks back up if it ever does.

What narratives do you lean towards in your lyrical writing?

It's hard to say, I think the way I see my own writing and the way other people see my writing are very different. I've written a few expressly positive sort of lovey-dovey songs in my life, and if I send those to friends they're like "Oh my god dude, are you okay? This is dark stuff." Not totally sure what I'm doing wrong. I like to think there's a hopeful kind of thing undergirding all my writing, but other people might feel differently.

Which was better Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network? Why

I liked Nickelodeon more back in the day because I was a fan of the color orange and Hey Arnold had a dope theme song.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

I dunno, I guess this is where I say something cheeky like "Free Bobby" or whatever, but it doesn't seem like the moment for that. I guess I just hope everyone is doing reasonably okay and hanging in there. I do think Bobby should be freed, though.