Sam Thies, 23, is the drummer for Mad Wheel Starfish, performing at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Vaudeville Mews, 212 Fourth St.
Q: For someone who is not familiar with math rock, how would you describe it and what bands in the genre have influenced you?
When someone is not musically inclined, I tend to describe it more as really fast rock with a lot of changes. Both me and Fred (Wahl, guitarist) started out into Tera Melos, Maps & Atlases, but have gotten into hundreds of other smaller bands. People are making math rock all around the world. It’s really interesting.
Q: Mad Wheel Starfish has three albums out already, and a fourth out this week. Are you pretty prolific recorders?
Yeah, that’s kind of my deal. I like to record pretty much everything. We record it all so we can remember it later. I like to capture the sound as I wrote the song, and sometimes that comes across. Recording everything gives us something to give the public and serves our own needs, so there’s a dual purpose.
Q: Any big changes on the new record?
We added a bassist, Parker Waddell, and since there are three of us and we all do solo projects, we’re trying to break the monotony of the music being all guitar, drum and bass. We have interludes between each song with us doing our own thing before bringing it back to guitar, drum and bass. Everyone gets to be in the spotlight for a second before we break back in together.
