There are few things we understand less in this life than minimalists. Like, ew, gross. What fun, joy or camp theatrics can be found in minimalism?! None! No, Loverboy is all about that maximalist lifestyle, we want everything, everywhere, all at once. Absolutely no chill.

And so it is that we absolutely fuck with Samantha Urbani who embraces all kinds of maximalism on her long-awaited debut album, Showing Up – out today. A collection of songs tackling love, life, death and capitalism, with the production serving New Wave funk, think Tom-Tom-Club-meets-The-Time, imagine Men At Work hailing from Minneapolis. Showing Up even features contributions from Sade’s sax player. Come on! Only the coolest of references with Urbani’s cool girl, pouty, peak Gwen Stefani vocals layered on top.

Having experienced breakout success with her band, Friends, Showing Up is ten years worth of material and our girl has a lot to say. Loverboy catches up with her at her Mum’s house to discuss Mystic Pizza, masturbation and yes, Mariah.

So, Samantha, tell us, where are you zooming us from today?
Myy family home in Mystic, South-Eastern Connecticut. Mystic Pizza is about the town I grew up in. When I was a kid I thought it was some corny, rom-com from the 80s.’ Then I grew up, watched it again and was like, ‘This shit is deep. This shit is about my life!’

Haha…one of the realest rom-coms. A favourite for sure. Showing Up is out now! Congratulations! Will you be celebrating?
It depends. If it’s going to be any kind of celebration I want it to be over the top or nothing at all. I’m kind of that way.

Totally relatable. We really love the sounds you’re playing with on this album. The transition between ‘Guiding Star’ and ‘Isolation’ is just chef’s kiss.
Oh my God! My friends have said that too but as far as interviewers go, you are the first and I appreciate that so much. We did our best to make it really Daft Punk, Italo…
My very good friend Sasha Desiree (DRUGDEALER, Silk Rhodes), joined me and my producer, Nick Weiss to write something from scratch. ‘Guiding Star’ was about a relationship dynamic that I was going through at that time. It was like this crazy therapy, writing how I was feeling, singing it, then writing from the other person’s perspective and have Sasha sing it.
Then Nick was working on a crazy synthline at the end and almost as a joke, gets this crazy guitar four-to-the-floor beat in there. We all just screamed. I was like, ‘No, no, no, that’s the next song now, I don’t give a fuck,’ and then the lyrics at the end of ‘Isolation’ are wild.

Tell us. 
Pre-Covid I went through a severe period of my own isolation. It was heartbreak through break-ups, through losing my very close friend to suicide, there was a sense of getting back into my own body. When you are physically intimate with one person for a long time and then break up, there is a process of being comfortable with yourself as a singular body again. ‘Isolation’ is literally about me jerking off. I think there is a total sacred quality of self-love.

Oh for sure. And so we move from love…to hate! Haha…tell me about ‘Showing Up.’ I get some very very subtle anger vibes.
Oh very subtle! Haha…well, it’s funny talking about Mystic Pizza actually because that song is about class differences, privilege differences and power dynamics. Socio-political stuff is just such a reality, right? Off-balance hierarchical systems and I think that within personal relationships there is that stuff too. The song is about being fed up with being taken for granted. When somebody is drawn to your ability to be supportive but continue to lean on you even when things are going well for them and it’s you who could use a bit of that in return. I wrote this song a long time after a relationship ended. I still felt so sad.

Will this ex know the song is about them?
Probably not because a lot of straight men are that way. Haha…They’re probably all going to be like, ‘Is that about me??!’ The reason I named my album Showing Up is because I haven’t put out music in a minute and I thought it was a cute way to be a little cheeky and deep at the same time. A few people that have heard the song have put their head in their hands because they feel like they were asked to show up themselves.

On first listen it was the maximalism of the production that grabbed us, but getting into it, we realised the lyrics are low-key maximalist too! You are giving us stories in these songs!
Thank you for noticing that! Lyrics are also really important to me. Sometimes I’ll bring a song to somebody to play bass on and they’ll be like, ‘Oh damn, you’ve got bars.’ I don’t know if that’s a compliment or they are just telling me I wrote too many lyrics. Haha…I often have to reduce the number of lyrics just because it’s a fucking lot, you know? I grew up listening to Hip Hop, where it’s like the different sounds that words make become part of the track. 

In terms of your image you’ve spoken about feeling more androgynous.
There are conversations around gender right now that I have always found to be important since I was a kid. I’ve never related to the societal imprint of male or female. It’s funny that there have been these blueprints created, completely out of our control and out of our timeframe, totally antiquated, never made sense to begin with, just passed down from systems of oppression and conflicting power structures. I’m very much a queer person in all ways. I just think that there should be no rules and that people should express themselves however they want.

Finally we are named after the biggest-selling single of 2001 and always ask what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
Mariah is like my patron saint of music. There are literally videos of me singing ‘Someday’ by Mariah when I’m three years old. My Mum always tells me that’s the first shit I danced to. I can’t sing like her but I have inflections, even ad-libs and stuff from her and I just know that they got into my brain in such a deep way.
But my favourite is ‘Underneath the stars.’ The production of ‘Underneath the stars’ has always been that beautiful bassline and she is such a queen of ad-libbing. It’s crazy because the ad-libs in that song actually become the lead. That’s definitely something I have been schooled in as I love to arrange and produce vocals. It doesn’t matter how edgy or punky something I’m making is, if there are some harmonies on there I want them fucking right in your ears in a super euphoric way. Very Mariah.

The album Showing Up is out now via Lucky Number.
Main image: Catherine LoMedico