Singer-songwriter Samia releases her second full-length album, Bloodless, on April 25, 2025. Just a few weeks before the release, Samia visited The Current studio with some of her musical collaborators to perform four songs off the new album.

Afterwards, Samia sat down with The Current’s Jessica Paxton to talk about Bloodless and also to talk about what inspired her to move to Minneapolis from New York City.

Watch and listen to the performances above, and find video of the interview below. Beneath the interview video, you can read a full transcript of the interview.

Interview Transcript

Jessica Paxton: Hi, I'm Jessica Paxton. I'm afternoon host here on The Current, and I'm here with Samia. Thank you so much for being here. I have to say that set you guys just performed: exquisite. It was just absolutely beautiful. I got goose bumps. I'm getting goosebumps now just thinking about it again.

Samia: Thanks for having us. That was fun. It really was fun.

Jessica Paxton: Absolutely, and what a super group; I mean, members of Hippo Campus, HEYARLO, Lupin. I saw Raffaella running around. I mean, you're connected, you're friends with all the right people.

Samia: It's an honor to be in proximity to those people. 

Jessica Paxton: Indeed. Well, we're super happy to have you here. Your new album, Bloodless, out April 24, and you're headlining the first avenue main room June 6 — pinch me, pinch you — that's amazing.

Samia: We could pinch each other.

Jessica Paxton: OK, let's do it. We'll do that off camera, how's that sound? Awesome. And then you were at Electric Fetus just yesterday, doing a pre-order in store. Lots of fans, I'm sure, showing up, very excited. I feel like you're becoming a true Minnesotan. Right off the bat, I heard a rumor that you recently relocated.

Samia: Yeah.

Jessica Paxton: Is that true?

Samia: Yeah, I did in December.

Jessica Paxton: That's amazing. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that in just a bit, but I want to circle back — now that I know that it's actually not just a rumor.

Samia: Oh yeah.

Jessica Paxton: Fantastic. So we're just gonna jump right in. Bloodless, the name of the new album. "Bovine Excision," a song that's getting a lot of play here on The Current right now.

Samia: Thank you, The Current.

Jessica Paxton: A lot of folks [may wonder] what does it mean? Why such kind of a dark or troubling reference in a song title and song album or album title?

Samia: Do you know about this? Cattle mutilation?

Jessica Paxton: I do. That's why I'm asking you to explain it.

Samia: So, yeah, I got this. Since the '70s, farmers have been allegedly finding their cows dead, drained of blood — no blood, not a trace of blood at the scene — with their, I don't know if I can say this, with their mouths and genitals surgically mutilated, with surgical precision. And for some reason, this made me think about my experience with womanhood. The album ended up being about absence. So the idea of titling it around something that isn't there was apt, and it also ended up being about unsolved mysteries.

Jessica Paxton: As you can see, there's kind of an alien invasion component to that.

Samia: Yeah, it sort of starts and ends with that, the alien component sort of starts and ends with "Bovine Excision."

Jessica Paxton: Well, I know people have been like, "Bovine Excision," like, "Oooh!" Or even Bloodless, like, it's very dark, it's kind of troubling. But that sense of absence, that sense of loss, or something being taken away, or something even that you don't have control over, but you should, you should be empowered and have full autonomy over but don't.

Samia: Yeah, sometimes something that you expected to be there but isn't is more powerful than the thing that you expected to be there.

Jessica Paxton: Yeah.

Samia: The lack of it!

Jessica Paxton: Absolutely. There's a very strong literary component to your lyricism. I love that you use words like "onus" and "capitulate."

Samia: Thank you.

Jessica Paxton: Are you a big reader?

Samia: Yeah. My friends give me a hard time about "onus." It's a pretty funny word choice. 

Jessica Paxton: I don't know why I'm laughing. It's hilarious.

Samia: It's a funny-sounding word.

Jessica Paxton: It's fantastic. It is, but you notice it.

Samia: I'm obsessed with this idea that synonyms don't exist, and that there is an exact, perfect word for every sentiment. And I'm gonna probably spend the rest of my life trying to find the perfect words for every feeling, but it's almost impossible. There are so many.

Jessica Paxton: I love that. Well, that was the thing is, I thought, "It's like she reads the dictionary," because there's so many words that are there that don't get used that are incredible and beautiful, and we need to all, like, spruce up our vocabulary.

Samia: Wow, I do, too. I have, like, an incredible fear of malapropism. Isn't like, if I use a word wrong, it'll just be repeating in my head for weeks and weeks. So it's a bit of an obsession.

Jessica Paxton: No, I love it. I love it. So getting back to "Bovine Excision," there's so many lines in that song that I just love. First of all, I have to ask, are you a Diet Dr Pepper drinker?

Samia: I am, especially now, because when it came out, my friends all came over with like, buckets of Dr Pepper, of diet Dr Pepper. So I've been drinking Diet Dr Pepper more than water recently.

Jessica Paxton: Jill Riley, our Morning Show host extraordinaire, is a big Diet Dr Pepper fan, so I just had to ask that on her behalf. 

Samia: I’ve got to meet her! We have a lot to talk about.

Jessica Paxton: Absolutely. She was here a little bit earlier, so we'll make that happen. I also have to say I love the line, what is it? "I'm old, but not dead yet." Thank you. From me to you, I really appreciate that.

Samia: Thank you for noticing that.

Jessica Paxton: But again, it's really, it's such a powerful, insightful lyricism, but presented in such a beautiful way. I know you've talked about the dichotomy of your music, like the dichotomy of happy and sad, beautiful and ugly, dark and light. Sounds like that's intentional. Does that kind of dictate your music making and your songwriting?

Samia: Yeah, I find a lot of beauty in ugliness, and I always have. I think conventional beauty is — I just don't feel inclined to write about it. I'm not super inspired by, like, a beautiful flower and a tree blowing in the wind at dawn, you know? So I think, yeah, I'm just sort of drawn to, I think that's what I'm drawn to in people, too. What sets them apart from the rest.

Jessica Paxton: That reminds me of a Vic Chesnutt quote that, you know, some people, I'm probably not going to paraphrase this right, but "some people are drawn, you know, to the beauty and the whatever; I'm drawn to the pus and the gnats and the ugliness." 

Samia: Yeah, I love the pus and the gnats.

Jessica Paxton: Yeah.

Samia: I always have.

Jessica Paxton: Yeah. Well, and you had a great quote, too, where I think you said something like, "Optimism is the saddest word."

Samia: Oh, yeah, it's pathetic! Yeah, but you have to choose it anyway. You know, you understand that it's ridiculous. 

Jessica Paxton: Yeah, no, I have a lot of people say to me, like, I'm too negative, and I'm like, I'm the most optimistic pessimist I know.

Samia: We're the saddest of all. But it's beautiful.

Jessica Paxton: It's beautiful, exactly. So you grew up in an artistic household; your parents are actors. I saw that you have acted as well. What made you choose to pursue the beautiful world of making music? Not like acting's not a hard gig, but music, really?

Samia: I'm a really bad actor.

Jessica Paxton: Well, you're an incredible performer and singer and songwriter.

Samia: I can emote when it's truthful. So I can, I feel very confident to be emotional about my own experiences. But I can'tembody someone else's. I just don't have that skill. I tried.

Jessica Paxton: You tried; you're like, "I'm gonna go make music."

Samia: Yeah. 

Jessica Paxton: So did you have a lot of music in your household growing up? Your parents big music fans. Like, what did you listen to growing up?

Samia: They were really into Sondheim. They were really into musical theater soundtracks. So I grew up on that. And my mom loved Alanis Morissette and — what else does she love? — Bonnie Raitt. So there was a lot of that, but it really was musical theater, and specifically Sondheim, that started it for me.

Jessica Paxton: That's fantastic. So I want to circle back now to Minnesota and becoming part of the Minnesota music scene. I know you've collaborated with papa mbye. You know you've got members in your band now from here in the Twin Cities, Raffaella we talked about as well. Why did you choose to locate here? If that's OK to ask.

Samia: Because of exactly that, the people. My closest friends live here, and closest collaborators, everyone that I feel comfortable making music with, and I feel inspired by artistically lives here. So it was always a dream, sort of in the back of my mind, and I didn't find it to be plausible until recently, and yeah, it's just amazing to live here. I feel like you always hear stories of people coming back, going and trying something else and returning, and I see why.

Jessica Paxton: Well, I think it's a testament to the Minnesota music scene and community. I mean, there's a lot of talent here. There's that sense of collaboration and supporting each other. I mean, obviously we're here on Minnesota Public Radio and The Current, we're really dedicated to supporting local musicians, the local music community, the local music scene. And when I say "local," you know, that's throughout Minnesota. But for me as a music fan and a host here on The Current, to know that there are, you know, national artists that could live anywhere and choose to come here and be a part of this close-knit music community, I think, is just a testament to something that we maybe sometimes take for granted, because we don't realize that this doesn't happen everywhere. And so when I, you know, heard the news that you had moved here, it was like, and I remember when Raffaella moved here, it was like, "Wow, we are pretty cool."

Samia: Oh, yeah.

Jessica Paxton: And there is a, there is a really powerful music scene here, which is incredible.

Samia: Yeah, you can feel everybody thinks so, everybody says so. I feel, yeah, I'm just honored to be a part of it. I feel like I haven't earned my place here yet, but hopefully someday.

Jessica Paxton: No, it's absolutely amazing. I also just want to ask you quick, you know, we talked about, like, optimism being a really sad word. I'm also really inspired by ways you've spoken about being a feminist or having your music described as feminist. But also talking about how or acknowledging that labeling someone as a feminist, or labeling something as feminist can be such a stereotype and almost dismisses it, or can take away from the power there. Is that like an intentional thing in your songwriting and storytelling as well?

Samia: Totally. I don't understand how anyone isn't a feminist, because I think it is a more simple concept than people understand it to be. And I think just existing as a woman, having experiences as a woman, and wanting to feel heard and understood makes you a feminist, and believing that women have that right makes you a feminist as well. 

Jessica Paxton: The fact that it has to be a right is kind of mind boggling.

Samia: Yeah. You would think.

Jessica Paxton: You would think.

Samia: A lot of people don't feel that way.

Jessica Paxton: One would think. Well, as a fellow feminist and as someone who's been on this planet for, I'm guessing, longer than you, I really appreciate what you're doing.

Samia: Oh, my goodness.

Jessica Paxton: Thank you.

Samia: Thank you.

Jessica Paxton: It means a lot. It's kind of ridiculous that we still have to have conversations like that or like this, but please know how valuable that is. So thank you.

Samia: That's so nice to hear. Thank you.

Jessica Paxton: Well, congratulations on the new album. It's amazing. Super excited to catch you at the Mainroom on June 6. Again, we've been talking with Samia. Check out the set with she and the band, and kudos on more to come.

Samia: Thanks for having me.

Jessica Paxton: Absolutely.

Songs Performed

00:00:00 Bovine Excision
00:02:54 Hole In A Frame
00:06:00 Dare
00:09:25 Lizard

All songs from Samia’s 2025 album, Bloodless, available on Grand Jury Music.

Musicians

Samia Finnerty – vocals
Sam Rosenstone – keyboards, vocals
Jake Luppen – electric guitar, vocals
Nathan Stocker – six- and 12-string guitar, vocals

Credits

Guest – Samia
Host – Jessica Paxton
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Audio – Evan Clark
Video – Ruben Schneiderman
Camera Operators – Derek Ramirez, Ruben Schneiderman
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Samia – official website