Today we’d like to introduce you to Samuel Bemoan.
Samuel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
First of all, thank you for having me Miami. Very awesome to be here. Kiitos.
My story professionally has never moved in a straight line. It’s been more like one long crooked road movie.
Although in my youth I was busy between stealing cars and breaking into stores, I always had three books by the bedside waiting for me to come home to. I’ve always painted worlds with words since I can’t even draw a cat properly. It’s embarrassing.
Writing came first.
In my early youth I translated English lyrics into Finnish, wrote songs and poems, and one day started sending writings to local papers under the name Bemoan after realizing everything I created carried this aching romantic melancholy and longing to it. Like complaining to the universe. Bemoaning.
That’s where the name came from.
Visually it reminded me of my favorite decadent poet Baudelaire. Emotionally I was obsessed with people like Sam Shepard. Beauty, dirt, desperation, tenderness, neon-lit roadside motels.
A huge part of my creative process came from lacking equipment in the beginning. No proper guitar. No proper space. So I became very good at building things inside my head. Composing instruments, painting scenes, dialogues, visuals, entire universes.
People think I’m sleeping or going crazy sitting alone doing nothing. Meanwhile I’m directing worlds inside my skull. I’m constantly working. It’s basically my laptop since I don’t even own one or even a properly functioning phone.Hahaa
To this day I can be in a jail cell or a five-star hotel and something gets created. Give me coffee, a pen and enough floor space to do push-ups and I’m happy as a raccoon behind a gas station dumpster that I saw.Hahaa
I feel more like some unauthorized Americana documentarian than a rockstar.
In and out of bands and genres, eventually we became Disappointment #1.
The first major musical chapter.
A legendary duo of two Finnish misfits, now gone but definitely not forgotten, and the first and only band to record a live album in a functioning Christian brothel in Nevada.
We ended up living and working there, interviewing the people who lived inside and the surrounding townsfolk.
Real people and their dreams and desperation and absurdity of it all. Beauty and warmth of the soul inside rough forgotten places.
The hidden side of America.
That whole journey happened while dragging ourselves across America and Mexico chasing music with terrible odds and even worse plans. Hollywood. Las Vegas. New York. Border towns. Cockroach motels. Sleeping in cars, trains and streets. Kicking open doors trying to get heard and harassing musicians and labels for some kind of lifeline.
Somewhere along the road we crossed paths with people like Tom Morello, Brann Dailor, the guys from Jackass after a limousine full of them literally pulled up, Lloyd Kaufman and of course most importantly Lemmy, while somehow unknowingly becoming part of Americana mythology ourselves.
That journey eventually became the forthcoming punk-rock-country book/documentary THE CATHOUSE COWBOYS from Finland.
After I wrote a song called Desert Siren inspired by Nevada working dames, the girls from Angels Ladies, a brothel in Beatty, Nevada, started corresponding with us.One thing led to another and suddenly we were on our way, making music history with our final live performance before the place closed forever.
Now the album is even being reviewed by Guinness World Records as a possible cultural first while they figure out what category the damn thing even belongs in.
Eventually we split up and my solo identity BEMOAN became the main thing, born in New Orleans.
Musically it mixes roots music, electronic rock and all the romance and damage I’ve gathered along the road of life. A lot of the material was also filtered through the chance of working with my other hero Mark Lanegan by sending songs for him to sing before he unfortunately passed away.
But then life handed me another true story that changed everything again: I’ll Call You, Feather.
Basically The Notebook… if Ally was a stripper and Noah an ex-criminal.”but underneath it all it’s really about two wounded people recognizing themselves in each other. Feeling strangely at home inside the very scars they probably should’ve run from.
The story is close enough to my own experiences that I feel almost responsible for telling it properly and doing justice to it. That’s why it’s so close to my heart.
And that world exploded far beyond becoming just a book or screenplay. It evolved into soundtrack music, cinematic trailers, voice actors, visuals and this whole immersive universe around LOLA and VALENTINO.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Obstacles and struggles? Hahaa… my favorite topic.
Funny enough, what connects my life, Disappointment #1 and Feather is basically the same thread: tears and obstacles.
I don’t think my life or art was ever supposed to happen the smooth way.
Some people are built for stability. Some of us turn scars into gasoline and go even harder.
I’ve never really been interested in halfway things. In my head it’s always James Dean crashing his car, Thelma & Louise driving over the edge or Evel Knievel calling the press before jumping over Caesar’s Palace.
I’m very wired for extremes.
But also for decadence, which means I have to keep my routines intact too. Quiet mornings. Coffee. Pen. Sports. Otherwise the machine starts overheating.
Even later in life while chasing music and stories across America, it wasn’t exactly glamorous either.
Sleeping on rooftops, under bridges, in cars, cockroach motels, dragging gear while the soles of my boots literally fell apart.
Most of the time there was no applause waiting on the other side. Just uncertainty.
A lot of that mindset ended up inside my solo BEMOAN song Hearse Horse:
“When your turn never comes
When no one answers your calls
When no one opens the door
I guess I’ll keep knocking on
I guess I’ll try one more time
I guess I’ll try with my guns…”
That song is basically my personality in musical form.
If someone ignores my 27th respectful email, there’s a realistic chance I’ll eventually show up at the door asking in person instead. Hahaa.
Which has literally happened.
Two Finnish bad boys barging into places in Mississippi asking record labels to listen to our music.
“No” is fine. Being ignored completely? Not happening.
But the external struggles were never the hardest part.
The hardest thing has always been emotional truth.
Writing honestly means reopening doors most people spend their entire lives trying to keep shut. Sit with the shit as I often say.
Especially with I’ll Call You, Feather. This isn’t some cartoon fairytale. We’re dealing with real people, real emotions and real demons, so it requires a lot of emotional understanding and fine tuning to handle their story with respect.
That balance matters deeply to me.
People often romanticize damaged relationships without understanding what’s actually happening underneath them: the need to be accepted exactly as you are.
I once sat talking with someone convicted of murder and the strange thing is the core human need underneath him wasn’t different from a newborn baby.
To be seen. To be loved as they are.
That doesn’t necessarily fix anything.
Like I say in the book: “Love doesn’t fix shit.”
Sometimes love gives warmth. Sometimes love gives meaning. Sometimes it simply gives two damaged people one beautiful place to rest their heads for a while before life tears through it again.
And maybe that’s still worth something.
But what do I know.
I’m just a guy with a big pen.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As for the work itself, at the center of everything right now is I’ll Call You, Feather. A book and screenplay.Based on a true story
I don’t even know what category it belongs in anymore, so don’t ask haha. That’s probably a good sign.
The easiest way to describe it would be: a cinematic dark love story for people who have ever felt too empty or too intense for this world.
People compare it to Sin City or Euphoria, and there’s already been interest and conversations from the video game side of things as well, but I don’t know… to me it’s still closest to Leaving Las Vegas, which has always been one of my favorite books and films anyway.
The story is drawn from real letters, journals, voice recordings, photographs, postcards and artifacts.
At the center of it are stripper LOLA and ex-criminal VALENTINO.
LOLA, broken by someone closest to her, is a woman built from masks. Desired, magnetic, adored… but terrified of what happens if the performance ever stops. Deep down she can’t believe someone could truly accept her emptiness, her shame, or the things she’s done to cope.
VALENTINO immediately sees through all of it. He was the only one who truly saw her for what she was.
He has lived through enough darkness that he recognizes her brokenness instantly. He can handle her emotions, her emptiness, even the ugliest parts of her, because they feel strangely familiar to him.
Like home.
Her hunger for validation and endless attention is the air she needs.
On the other side, Valentino is trying to bury and leave behind a past life that paid him for being dangerous, never wanting Lola becoming part of it in the first place. But secrecy, even with good intentions, has a way of poisoning things too.
He could destroy scumbags with merciless hands, then come back and hold her like the softest thing in the world.
“After nights like these I used to bury my head into her softness like a fucking ostrich. Her skin was the only place where my demons could sleep.”
One moment they’re feeding each other marshmallows at amusement parks, winning teddy bears and laughing like any couple in love. The next she’s moaning with a gun in her mouth.
Him spending his whole life feeling too much, too early.
Her spending hers trying to feel anything at all.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, his soft little pet name for her “Feather” eventually became her safe word too.
People connect to them through the contradictions.
There’s a moment where Lola whispers: “You could get someone better.”
And Valentino answers: “I don’t want better. Better wouldn’t understand.”
And if none of this resonates with you, there’s also Maisie the cat; furry little jerk witnessing everything and maybe slightly judging everyone.Hahaa
What makes Feather different from a normal novel is that it exists almost like an immersive memory archive.
People don’t just read about LOLA and VALENTINO, they can step inside the emotional atmosphere around them like a time capsule.
The website contains cinematic trailers with voice actors, soundtrack music, real photographs from the actual photo albums that started everything, audio pieces, artifacts and letters.
On the store people can even order personalized ‘Feather letters’ made with the same paper and lipstick marks used in the real letters between LOLA and VALENTINO, alongside scents based on how they actually smelled according to the notes and history left behind.
A recent Florida radio host told me the whole thing reminded him of old comic universes where the music, visuals, mythology and stories all supported each other as one living world.
I felt that might’ve been one of the coolest compliments I’ve ever received.
Because that’s exactly what it accidentally grew into.
Not just entertainment.
A place where your hurt is seen.
That idea eventually expanded into another upcoming thing called Little Fucked Up But I Know You’re Too.
Basically a late-night YouTube confession booth for wounded people.
Like sitting in a bar with some stranger admitting that life gets pretty heavy sometimes,you know .
People will be able to send letters about heartbreak, abuse, fear, addiction, loneliness or whatever they carry around silently.
It’s not about pretending to fix people, but more about sitting in the darkness together for a moment and realizing somebody else has walked through similar hell too.
I’ve noticed a lot of people are desperate to be seen and heard.
I’ve lived through nightmares myself to know what certain kinds of silence, violence and abuse feel like. That’s why people tend to open up to me. Not because I have perfect answers, but because they can probably sense I’m not speaking from theory.
Trying to create places where people feel a little less alone inside themselves.
Eventually everything grew large enough that I had to build one umbrella for it all: WOUNDMATES.
And when this gets adapted into film, I already hear Drab Majesty’s “Cold Souls” rolling over the end credits… so yeah guys, I’m coming after you haha.
That song and one particular classic photograph of L and V against a bathroom wall started this whole thing.
How crazy is that?
But I guess that says something about the power music and image.
Yeah… there’s a lot more, but your brains are probably already overheating already. Welcome to mine.
The soundtrack single, WOUNDINITY, is out now, on all music streaming platforms,
and the first part of the story, Cashmere Nites, is available now as well on Amazon or
www.lolaYvalentinoNYC.com
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up? Hahaa… probably way too intense for my own good.
The streets of Wallila, Helsinki back then weren’t exactly some peaceful fairytale postcard. We had territorial fights, homemade weapons, people disappearing into prison or the graveyard before they properly became adults.
Across from our school stood the prison built from the same red bricks as the school itself. Some kids had fathers working there as guards, some had fathers inside, some had no fathers at all. Didn’t really know which one was supposed to be the lucky option.
Childhood itself was pretty horrific.
Abuse, violence, fear, experimenting with things way too early… too many feelings way too young. I remember wishing I was dead when I was four while hiding in the dark.
Eventually that kind of life either crushes you or makes you frighteningly independent. I became the type of person who would rather crawl through broken glass than ask for help. The kind of person who instinctively carries everything alone.
Still learning out of that one slowly. Hahaa.
One lucky thing was that we had cable TV, which was rare in Finland back then. MTV became my favorite babysitter. Colorful 80’s music, glitter and glam and became an escape for me.
Every day after school I watched the silent car chase scene from Bullitt on a borrowed VCR. If I had trouble in life, I genuinely asked myself: “What would Evel Knievel or Steve McQueen do?”
Later came.Lemmy
Those three became my guiding spirits. Years later I even got to drink beer with one of them, which still feels completely surreal.
By thirteen I had already experienced things many adults are still dabbling with or too ashamed to admit.
Between stealing cars, robbing stores, dealing dope and fighting, I still always came home to three books beside my bed. I wrote diaries, lyrics, poems. I loved translating songs, observing people, writing thoughts down.
and of course the music but weirdly I never wanted to rehearse other people’s songs except my own. I thought maybe I’d lose whatever strange thing was naturally forming inside me.
And like I said earlier, I became very good at building things internally first.
I can spend hours visualizing scenes, songs, dialogue and entire worlds without touching anything physical. But I don’t think that was escapism. I think it was my way of bending reality before it existed yet.
A few years ago I finally released a song I originally wrote 25 years ago, so I guess I’ve always had endless patience with my vision. It might not happen linearly, but eventually it happens.
I think all of that also made me notice things in people very early. What they’re hiding. What they’re really saying when they’re not saying anything at all.
Maybe that’s also why people open up to me now.
Whether it’s random conversations on trains in Helsinki, bars in New Orleans or Vegas, or strangers online, people tend to tell me the real things very quickly.
That probably explains most of my work.
At the same time, despite everything, I’ve always had a very romantic side underneath all the rough edges. Romantic about people, but also adventure itself.
You read about Huckleberry Finn as a kid, then two decades later you suddenly find yourself living beside the Mississippi River in New Orleans.
That kind of thing still blows my mind a little.
Maybe that contrast is the whole thing.
Darkness and tenderness sitting at the same table together.
These days I still carry the miles and scars, but with more awareness about where I’m steering all that energy now.
And luckily… still dumb enough to dream big.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lolaYvalentinoNYC.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woundmatesl8l
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CLxkuL1NofQ
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0W8jayGZrqarv5YiVhK35N
