Hailing from Kent, Sam Violet, better known as MISFIT, shreds his way through the South East of England as the guitarist of modern rock band TEDDYYBEARR and indie heartthrobs The Polygons.

From sneaking his way into festivals, to possibly having the chance to play one himself, Sam’s odyssey in the music scene has contributed to an intricate tapestry of experience in both song-writing and performing.

Sam discusses how a diverse music taste embellishes his song-writing, bands you have to see live in 2024, and how social media has been a tool of success for local musicians.

Who are your musical influences?

How long do you have? So, unfortunately, I am that person that says they like all music and actually likes all music. But, my earliest influence that stands out is McFly – when I was six years old they were the first band I was ever obsessed with. I would watch their music videos on YouTube and one day it auto-played to American Idiot by Green Day and I probably watched that music video about 40 times in one day to the point where my dad begged me to get off the computer because he was fed up of hearing the song.

I saw Prince when I was nine at the Hop Farm, me and my parents snuck in for free. We didn’t have a lot of money so we just thought we’d sneak in. That performance was honestly incredible and became a massive live influence for me and I just think his song writing is unmatched.

But when it comes to writing, at the forefront I’m a guitar player and then secondary I’m a singer, with guitar playing most of my roots are in grunge music. I was very heavily influenced by Nirvana, I played their music exclusively for two years from the ages of twelve to fourteen – pretty much all the songs I wrote were Nirvana rip-off songs. My influence was also rooted in a lot of punk, heavy metal and hardcore music because it was fun to play… and LOUD. Even in The Polygons, when I write a guitar solo we have to tone it down a bit. I’ll just play this ridiculous punk solo and our producer is like “Sam-” and I’m like “Yeah I know…” Haha. So a lot of my solos we have to rewrite in favour of a simple melody line.

Obviously, band like My Chemical Romance and Poison the Well, had a really really big influence, and a band called Superheaven which is reflected in a lot of my rhythm playing. Listening to their music was the first time that I realised you could do more than play open chords and power chords.

But I also really like country music; their lyricism bangs and it’s really fun. Also a lot of comedy music – I don’t write funny songs but when I contribute lyrics to The Polygons it’s more upbeat. We have lyrics talking about Austin Powers and “She’s flown the nest like her middle name is Boeing 747” – Like dumb stuff like that which does have a meaning but is more light-hearted.

Honestly, huge credit to film score influences. Danny Elfman, who does The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack as well as the Spiderman stuff, I just think he’s an absolute genius.

That’s so interesting about the film scores! Is there one film in particular that you think has the best soundtrack?

That is a question… The first times a film score genuinely affected me as a kid was Star Wars and Back To The Future. The Back To The Future soundtrack was actually my ringtone for ages. It stood out to me how they incorporated popular music into that.

You’ve also got The Dark Knight Rises, that trilogy has a banging score and I will fight anyone who tries to disagree. Also the original Spiderman soundtrack… every Tim Burton movie…

If you had the opportunity to write the soundtrack for a film what would it be?

This film does, technically, already have a soundtrack, but I would love to work on a film like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It’s one of my favourite films regardless of the pixie dream girl debacle, I just think it’s so smart and really fun. I’m a comic book nerd at heart, I’ve gone to Comicon fourteen times so I love all that kind of stuff. I’d love to do a comic book-esque film but have it be more light-hearted. The reason I think I gravitate toward Scott Pilgrim is because they play in a punk band, so I’d love to score a soundtrack that’s more rock-y and raw. Like, a teen movie but the soundtrack is rock and punk music.

But on the other side, I love orchestral music. I used to play in an orchestra and it’s such an incredible experience, you really do appreciate all these other musicians. So to score a film in a fun casual way whilst also being able to explore the orchestral side would be a mad opportunity.

What’s your writing process?

So, it really depends. Our writing processes are very different between each band and when I write on my own. So, for TEDDYYBEARR, it’s the case where Nath is the musical brain behind the song and he’ll come to me with half the instrumentals done and a lyrical idea, and then I’ll offer some input on harmonies and breakdowns and stuff, and then I’ll just lie on the floor for four hours while we talk through lyrics. There is a song we’ve got coming out that super collaborative and we’ve honestly gone 50/50 on the input.

With The Polygons, our writing process used to be one of us coming in with a song idea and some of us would work on it. But moving forward with all the songs we’re planning on releasing, starting with ‘middle name (she knows)’, we’ve all contributed to them in a room together from start ‘til finish. ‘middle name (she knows)’ is a slight variation on that; Will and Josh wrote part of the song together as a joke and sent it to us and then we ended up actually really liking how fun it was. It’s essentially just all four of us in a room at Keelan’s house just writing for two hours every week. I think that’s why the songs are just getting better because we do write our best songs when we’re all together. ‘Sunset Smiles’ was written together from start to finish and ‘Madrid’ we wrote in a music room when we were in sixth form. Obviously writing together you do get in your little arguments but we just have a pint and get over it.

What is your favourite release from both The Polygons and TEDDYYBEARR?

With The Polygons, our most recent release ‘middle name (she knows)’ is the most proud I’ve ever been for a release that I’ve done with any band. We put so much effort into it and it sounds really good. We worked our asses off and it was a very very collaborative project.

With TEDDYYBEARR, the most pride I’ve felt with a release was ‘Irrelevant’ because I wrote the instrumental for that when I was fifteen/sixteen and I’d pitched it to Nath (TEDDYYBEARR) and he was like ‘This is cool!’ but because TEDDYYBEARR is his creation, he, and rightfully so, doesn’t want to sing something that doesn’t mean something to him personally.

So we kinda sat on Irrelevant for a year because I already had lyrics to it. It wasn’t until the COVID-19 lockdown when Boris came out with all that ‘Rethink, Reskill, Reboot’ stuff with people in the arts and Nath said ‘You know that song Irrelevant? That needs to be a political song’. So we re-wrote it, re-recorded it, filmed a music video and released it all within a month. It was the most fun I’ve had because it was pure inspiration and drive the whole time and it was cool to see this riff I’d written as a teenager become a staple in our live set. Even when TEDDYYBEARR supported LOU in Manchester, I couldn’t make the gig so they had a stand in guitarist, and Nath took Irrelevant off the setlist because he didn’t think it was right to play it without me there.

Don’t get me wrong, all the new stuff TEDDYYBEARR is coming out with is just getting better. It’s TEDDYYBEARR next level. And, again, I’ve been recording guitars for these new songs and there’s one we’re releasing that’s, lyrically, so close to home and I’ve had a big involvement in. But Irrelevant was the first song where I thought ‘Holy shit we can make this work’.

The genres between The Polygons and TEDDYYBEAR are very different, how do you adapt to each band and what carries over in the performing?

I think it helps that I like all genres of music. For example, Arctic Monkeys’ first studio album is my fifth top album of all time next to ‘Are You Satisfied?’ by Soft Play which is a punk album and ‘Jar’ by Superheaven which is more grunge. So, with me as a person, it doesn’t transfer over – I’ve got red and black hair and tattoos in both bands and they’ve just got to deal with it haha. It suits TEDDYYBEARR more but with The Polygons they just say I add a pop of colour. You know in boybands there’s like a ‘bad boy’ trope? That’s me aesthetically in The Polygons.

Really, though, if you look at my Spotify playlists it goes indie, death metal, country, girly-pop. I’m surrounding myself with different music all the time, and because I practice with both bands so regularly it’s not too hard to switch. Music is subjective. Heavy metal music is basically classical music with distortion but if you asked a metalhead what their least favourite genre was they’d probably say classical and if you asked a classical fan what their least favourite genre was they’d probably say heavy metal. I can translate lots of things over and I think that’s what makes my contributions to each band interesting; I can bring that different perspective.

The Polygons went on a 10-mile Tour last year. Any highlights?

The story behind the 10-mile Tour, and this is a very local-band thing to do, is we had booked a bunch of gigs in a short space of time because we were coming back and we were coming back strong. It was honestly just a coincidence, all the dates were just within 10 miles of each other.

We played a really cool gig on that tour headlining Camden Assembly with Hotvox and that really reminded us how much fun and rewarding performing was. Even though, on the way to that gig I got pulled over by the police because I had my hand out the window? But other than that, it was a really cool day of just playing originals.

Another contender for the best show on that tour, though, was The John Brunt in Paddock Wood. Big up The John Brunt. We did some originals, some covers, but that pub is like a hometown show. It used to be our local when we were in school. We’re trying to stay away from pub gigs now but we will always find the time to play at The John Brunt because it’s just the whole of Paddock Wood and everyone that have supported us since we were teenagers having a good time.

The Polygons are shortlisted in a competition to earn a slot at Isle of Wight Festival. Congratulations! How did you get involved in the competition and what would getting that spot mean to you guys?

So we got approached by this London-based promotion team called Hotvox and they’ve helped us get headline gigs and support slots in London. And our promoter, who’s a lovely guy – his name is Guy – he was like ‘You guys needs to enter this!’. So we did and we got through to the quarter finals which we’ll be playing Saturday 24th of February at The Macbeth in London. I think we’ve got a good chance.

I mean, it’s a double-edged sword, but we used to get told that we’re a really good live band but our recordings are sh*t, but now people have said the quality of ‘middle name (she knows)’ matches our live production.

Winning would mean a lot. We played a very local festival called Local & Live in Tunbridge Wells and got listed as ‘Stand-out band of the weekend’ and that was crazy, we were in the local newspaper and it was a bit surreal. It was the largest audience we had ever played to, about 2,500 people, which was really cool. We just had such an amazing reception.

I’ve gone to festivals since I was seventeen and I love music festivals; day festivals, weekend festivals, camping – I even travelled to Malta for a festival. So it would mean a lot because it would be our first step in to that festival world which The Polygons would really thrive in. Our songs are basically just there to have a bit of fun and sing along to which is very Isle of Wight. The vibe is Scouting for Girls and McFly, I know they’ve got banging headliners this year like The Prodigy, Pet Shop Boys and Green Day! Talk about my childhood musical influences!

The Polygons social media is a personal favourite of mine – I might be your biggest fan on TikTok. What’s the importance of social media promotion and how do you come up with the content?

Social media promotion is annoyingly important. And I say annoyingly only because I’ve taken it upon myself to do all the social media; I edit for a minimum of three hours a day, every day, on top of my full time job. We’ve realised with the release of ‘middle name (she knows)’ just how important it is. We didn’t put as much social media effort into our other releases, and the streams do reflect that. We really realised when our TikToks started getting views which translated to listens. Now we have people coming to our gigs who aren’t just family and friends. People turn up and say hi like ‘We’re local and we’ve heard some of your songs online! They’re really good!’ and we’re just like ‘Oh my god I don’t know you, that’s never happened before… wanna buy a T-Shirt?’.

With coming up with our content, we’re lucky because it’s so easy for it to come naturally to us. When we film and make content we just film ourselves hanging out and there’s just so much B-Roll that is so funny. Most of our videos are honestly just us four having a laugh. Someone commented ‘this is giving Inbetweeners’ and they’re completely right. We’re just best buds making music and I think you can see that in our social media content. I’m currently editing through nine hours of footage of us in the studio because it’s so funny, we’re all just pissing about – literally getting thousands of views on us doing impressions of cars.

I couldn’t ask you to choose to avoid any of your band mates… so, Keelan, Josh, Will: Kiss, Marry, Swap lives.

I would… Kiss Will because I think his girlfriend would be the least angry about it. And he’s got a moustache so I think that would be funny.

I would marry Keelan because he’s a big family person and he’s very ride or die. He’s also got a large Irish family which is super lovely, and we go and practice at Keelan’s house twice a week so God bless his family. They let us build a soundproof room in their home.

And then I would swap lives with Josh because we both have very different guitar playing techniques. He also has two very cute dogs and I would like them to be mine.

What up-and-coming bands are you really into at the moment?

There’s a band called Leave Quietly who are a really cool grungy, rocky vibe – proper singalongs, lovely guys.

There’s a song called ‘smile.’ by a band called Hell Hotel that is just stuck in my head at the moment.

But proper big shoutout to this band called Slime City. They are a Scottish punk band and they have some BANGERS like ‘Dial-Up Internet Is The Purest Internet’ and ‘NASA T-Shirt’. ‘NASA T-Shirt’ is essentially a song taking the piss out of the people who say “Oh cool band T-shirt, can you name three songs?”. The songs like “I can see you’re wearing your GAP T-Shirt, can you name three big holes?” – it’s just like… so funny. But their songs and their production is brilliant. Their album that they’ve just put out in 2023 is one I listen to on the weekly.. I want to go to Scotland just to see these dudes perform live.

This is not an up-and-coming band but if people haven’t checked out Joey Valence & Brae, they’re doing something wrong with their life. They were my top artist of last year; they make funny songs that are well executed and their dynamic as mates is just unbeaten. Nath and I went to see them live and it was easily one of the top three live shows I saw in 2023 an probably top ten I’ve ever been to. If you get a chance to see them live, even if you don’t really like their music, just go. I promise you it will be good.

Is there anything you’re working on right now?

Both bands are constantly working on stuff. This whole year is going to be unbelievably busy.

With TEDDYYBEARR, we’re trying to release music as often as possible. I don’t want to be too optimistic but we’ve got four songs that are basically done and another ten in the bank. And we’re still writing.

With The Polygons, we’re in the studio this month to record some new songs and possibly re-polish some old favourites.

I’m also at a point now where I’m doing such drastically different things with TEDDYYBEARR and The Polygons. So I’ve decided to start up The MISFIT Project and actually use this name instead of just having a stage name. I’ve been writing a lot of music to hopefully release as me, taking some heavier influences and flexing my guitar playing. My goal is to play at least on ‘MISFIT’ show this year. I’m ready to put on a red suit and rock your socks off.