Features

Formed in 2019 by members of Stick to Your Guns, Samiam, and Joyce Manor, Ways Away recently released their third album 'I’m Not You,' their most dynamic album to date with songs like 'I Should Have Brought A Gun, 'Pace Car,' and even a surprising Type O Negative cover. We caught up with guitarist Sergie Loobkoff to talk DIY releases, avoiding the “supergroup” tag, and much more. If you want to pick up a copy of 'I'm Not You,' you can order your copy over at Coretex Records or Flight 13 (EU) and Devil Dog Distro (UK).

PRT: “I'm not you” is already the third Ways Away album in five years. That's not bad for something that started out as a side project. Do you guys still look at the band as a side project at this point?

Sergie: I don't look at it as a side project, but it definitely is. I gave up on wanting to make a living from music in the '90s. It's mostly graphic design for me. I was just in Montreal with Samiam, and this French guy asked if I do anything besides music. I always laugh when people ask me that because I barely do music! I mean, we make some money with Samiam, but not a lot.

But I told him that if you looked at my life in the '90s, back when Samiam was on a major label and we toured constantly, you might think that would’ve been one of the happiest times of my life. Especially since I was in my twenties, drinking, messing around, doing a lot of wild stuff. And sure, I had fun and I wouldn’t necessarily change anything. But looking back, those were actually some of the most anxious and “what am I doing with my life?” kind of years.

When life decided I was going to be a failure in the eyes of the music industry, it actually did me a favor. It turned music back into a hobby, something I could do without pressure. And when I hear about the stress Jesse and Jared deal with trying to make a living off music while constantly touring, I don't envy it.

Jesse obviously has Stick To Your Guns, and even at that level, they need to tour ten months out of the year just to pay rent. Jared plays with anyone who’ll pay him and fits as many bands into his schedule as possible.

So to answer your question: not all of us are equally committed to Ways Away. Some of us try to do as much as possible, emotionally and practically. But even Stevie Wonder could see it’s taken on side project status. We can’t tour constantly because when one guy’s home, the other one’s out. And sometimes Chad and I are away with Samiam. We recently got offered a show with the Descendents and of course it was the same weekend Samiam was playing. Couldn’t have been the week before or after. So then I’m the asshole. Usually, it’s Jesse or Jared. This time, it was me.

PRT: That was actually my next question… with all of you playing in other bands as well, how much of a juggling act is it to find time to write and record?

Sergie: The writing is actually a very solitary kind of thing for us. I write most of the music and I do that on my couch and then on my computer and Jesse will write the lyrics driving to the studio. But it is a total challenge to play live with this band.

PRT: You already mentioned some of them, but all of you have played or are playing in some amazing bands: Samiam, Racquet Club,  BoySetsFire, Stick to Your Gun to name but a few. Yet you haven’t played that out. Is that because you want Ways Away to be its own thing or because you don't feel comfortable with the term super group?

Sergie: I don’t feel comfortable with the “supergroup” label. I think it turns people off. Especially in our case: Jesse’s the popular guy, and if someone likes Stick To Your Guns, they’re probably wondering what happened to the breakdowns, the metal guitars, and the screaming. That doesn’t really help the “supergroup” image. And on the Samiam or Racquet Club side, those fans might wish the vocals were less gravelly.

Funny thing is, when Samiam started 30-something years ago, people called that a supergroup too. Which was ridiculous, we all came from bands that couldn’t draw more than 200 people. But in our little Gilman Street scene, it was about the combination more than the fame. Now that term has crept back up with Ways Away. Stick To Your Guns is a big band, but not that big. And as for Samiam, 99.9999% of people have never heard of us. It’s not like Bruno Mars starting a band with Phil Collins and Taylor Swift.

PRT: You released the first two albums on Jesse's own label, Other People Records, but not the new one? 

Sergie: Yeah. We were on Other People Records at first, but then we had a problem with them not paying us any royalties. So we left, and Jesse—who started the label—quit. I don’t know exactly what happened, but we own all our songs now and have nothing to do with the label anymore.

We thought about asking Epitaph or Pure Noise, but decided to just do it ourselves. It’s 2025… what’s the value of being on a label for a band that can't tour a lot? Stick To Your Guns’ manager runs a big merch company, Merch Connection, and he paid for the recording and pressing of the LPs. Once he’s recouped, we’re free to do future pressings with anyone else or pay for them ourselves. So it’s kind of like being on a label without actually being on one.

Unless you’re in a big band, I honestly don’t know what you get out of being on a label these days. And I think it’s fitting for a band like Ways Away, which can’t operate like a full-time band, to just go DIY. And with Jesse being on tour all the time, it’s basically been me figuring out how to do things I didn’t know how to do, like writing cold-call emails to distribution companies in Japan, France, Germany, trying to get pre-orders up.

It’s great that people like you want to do interviews. Most magazines and websites only cover you if you pay for advertising. And I don’t want to spend $200 just to get a review. Am I that desperate for people to listen to the dumb songs I wrote? No. I'd rather spend that money on an expensive meal than a podcast appearance.

PRT: I really like how all three albums sound so cohesive, even if there is quite a lot of variety in the songs. Especially on the new album.  

Sergie: Thanks. Like I said before, I write most of the music and Jesse writes the lyrics. So the cohesion comes from that division—one person shaping the music, another the vocals. I think we were more successful at trying different things on this new one, and we avoided the usual move of putting the mellow song last. We stuck it fourth instead but, being the chickenshits we are, we put a more aggressive song before it, and maybe our punkiest one after.

I don’t want to write the same style over and over. And we’re lucky to have a singer like Jesse, who can scream like he does in Stick To Your Guns, sing in a gravelly Chuck Ragan style, and then turn around and do this wispy, Elliott Smith kind of thing. I honestly don’t know how he does it live. One second he’s screaming his lungs out, then he’ll go on a 10-minute tirade about what’s happening in Palestine, and then hit this sweet melodic chorus in the next song. It’s kind of unbelievable.

PRT: You just mentioned Chuck Reagan who sings on ‘Pace Car’, but I was wondering how Ingo from Donots ended up singing on a surprising cover of Type O Negative’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Me’? 

I’ve never really been a Type O Negative fan, but I stumbled across ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Me’ on Spotify. Lyrically and conceptually, it’s very much a Type O Negative song, but musically it’s an anomaly, this Ramones-y, anthemic rock song. I immediately loved it, listened to it 15 times in a row and then called the others to ask if we should cover it. Turns out they all knew the song and were into it. I was late to the party.

As for Ingo, I’ve known him for 27 years. He’s always supportive and he plays our stuff on his radio show, posts about it. He’s an uncommonly sweet guy. Even though he’s kind of a star, he immediately said he’d be honored to sing on the record.

There’s a gothy synth part in the original that I didn’t know how to replicate, so we wanted to replace it with a Ramones-style “hey hey hey” part. He tried that, but didn’t think it sounded right. So he pretty much ignored what I asked him to do and ended up singing the part that made the album instead.

PRT: When you write music, do you already write with a band in mind? Or do you look at it afterwards and then decide if it’s best suited for Samiam or Ways Away?

Sergie: Samiam and Ways Away are kind of similar. But ever since Ways Away started, I’ve mostly written with this band in mind. The other guys in Samiam are talking about doing another record, and when that happens, they can pick from whatever songs are up for grabs. Creatively though, Samiam has become more about Jason and Sean.

I’ve done some good stuff on the last few albums, but we have very different attitudes about the band. We love each other and are great friends outside of it, but in the band setting, we don’t mesh that well anymore.

Samiam has been a big part of my adult life, but it feels like a legacy act now. When we play live, it makes sense to focus on older songs that people want to hear and maybe a couple from recent records. It’s like seeing Metallica: I don’t want to hear anything written after 1989. But Sean doesn’t like playing songs from before he joined, which was around Astray. It’s always a fight. And whenever there is a conflict Jason usually leans towards Sean's side.

No one ever does, but if you look at the credits on the last three albums, there’s always more of Sean’s music. The sound has shifted more toward what he and Jason want to do, and less what Samiam used to be.

With Ways Away, they just let me do my thing. So when I write music now, it’s almost always with Ways Away in mind.

PRT: After what happened with Solea and Racquet Club, were you ever worried about starting another band?

Sergie: Racquet Club was kind of a surprise, and it was great while it lasted. I was bummed when Blair said he felt overwhelmed and couldn’t keep going. We’d already demoed songs for a new record that I thought would’ve been really good. But after that, I didn’t feel a strong urge to start something new. It’s hard to find the right singer to stand behind and take that subservient creative role that I usually play.

When I started jamming with the bass player and drummer in Ways Away, we didn’t have a singer. And the whole time I was just thinking like, well, this isn't going to go anywhere. Look how old I am compared to these guys. But then, through fate, we found another really talented, like-minded singer. These songs mean a lot—to me, to him, and to some people out in the world. It’s one of the most unlikely things, and I didn’t think it would happen again.

PRT: You’re always the first to downplay how good your music is. You’ve done that a few times during this interview already. Where does that come from?

Sergie: It’s just my personality. When someone compliments me, I tend to play it down. So when people say I’m their favorite guitar player, I don’t take it seriously. But also, it’s simply not true. I’m not that good at the instrument. My rhythm’s not that good, I’m not fast, and I don’t know a lot about music theory.

PRT: But you basically have your own sound. Not because it all sounds the same, but because you put a lot of feeling into your playing.  

Sergie: That’s the goal: to convey emotion through this little piece of wood I can barely play. Sometimes I think it’s because I’m left-handed. Maybe I could fucking shred if I learned how to play left-handed? It’s the weirdest thing because when I play air guitar, I play a left-handed guitar. Yet I can't even play Louie Louie that way.

I think I just play with my own interpretation of time. I drift in and out, which makes it flowy and fluid in an interesting way. But for a producer, it’s a nightmare. We’ve worked with Beau Burchell on all three Ways Away albums. He’s into technical perfection. There was this one part Jesse played, but it didn’t feel right. So I did it instead. Jesse said, “Yeah, that’s great. I can’t play like that,” and Beau goes, “Yeah… I see it. It’s sloppy as fuck and out of time.”

PRT: You're coming over to Europe later this year for the Common Thread Tour. What else is happening for Ways Away?

Sergie: Our booking agent’s already looking into another European tour for next year’s festival season, which I think is great. We’ve also got two shows in Nashville and Atlanta coming up, squeezed in between Stick To Your Guns being in Europe. Jesse’s flying in to meet us for those two shows, and then he goes right back out for a six-and-a-half-week tour with Stick To Your Guns on the East Coast.

That’s just how it is with Ways Away. It’s all about squeezing things in whenever we can.