Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

On Campus

Former professor on a rock star journey

By JAY CRIDLIN
Published July 6, 2004

It takes a second for Sam Beam to find the right word to describe his adopted hometown.

"Miami is very..." He pauses to consider the city's vibrant musical landscape. "Different."

The same could be said about Beam, the bearded, soft-spoken troubadour whose one-man folk band, Iron and Wine, has developed an enthusiastic fan base after just two pianissimo albums. This year, Iron and Wine has performed on Last Call with Carson Daly and had a song played on Fox's The O.C., a show with a burgeoning reputation as a musical taste-making machine.

It's all very different from Beam's previous life as a professor of film and cinematography at Miami International University of Art & Design, a 39-year-old art institute with more than 1,100 students in Miami. The South Carolina native carries a master's degree in fine arts from Florida State University and has taught dozens of film students how to write a screenplay, wield a camera and produce a movie.

This spring, the 29-year-old Beam retired from teaching to tour North America in support of Iron and Wine's second album, Our Endless Numbered Days. The tour wraps up at 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Orpheum in Ybor City. Tickets are $10-$12.

Last week, during a tour stop in Detroit, Beam spoke via cell phone with Times staff writer Jay Cridlin, reminiscing about his days as a college professor and his sudden rise to rock stardom.

Here are excerpts:

Spin magazine recently named you one of the top rock stars they'd least like to see eat soup. I guess it must be a beard thing.

Yeah. (laughs) I didn't see it, but yeah, that makes sense.

Do you hear a lot about your look from fans wondering, "Why the beard?"

More than I ever thought I would. It's just facial hair.

You've gotten a lot of critical acclaim. So why continue teaching up until recently? I mean, hadn't you sort of made it already?

I actually just quit. Honestly, it wouldn't take much money to equal my salary.

How did you fall into teaching in the first place?

That just sort of fell into my lap. I was doing production work for a long time. Once my kids came along, I decided to teach so I'd have more time to spend with them, really. A friend of mine was the dean of the film program over there, so I just called him up. It was sort of a means to an end. I never really intended to be a teacher. I was doing film work, so it only made sense for me to teach that.

Did you view your Miami gig as a day job?

I was definitely doing it to support my family. I never really considered pursuing being a musician until the record label called me. It was sort of more of a hobby. Given the opportunity to make a living doing your hobby, who wouldn't jump on that?

Did you get anything out of being at a smaller art school like Miami that you wouldn't get at, say, UCLA?

It's hard for me to say. I'm not sure what the classes are like at UCLA. We definitely had small class sizes, which was better for the students.

What kind of things did students do in your classes? What kind of homework assignments did they have?

It depended on what class I was teaching. If I was teaching a screenwriting class, they'd have to do a lot of writing. If I was teaching cinematography, they'd have a lot of reading to do, and a few projects. Doing production, they'd have a lot of paperwork to prepare.

Are you more interested in screenwriting and the creative side of film and TV production than the technical side?

I think to be a good filmmaker, you sort of have to know everything. It's such a multidisciplinary art form that the more you know, the better product you'll make. I've always been interested in photography and writing and all the things that film encompasses. That's sort of why I got into film.

You have a master's of fine arts from Florida State.

That's right. Film production.

I'm guessing you probably don't run into a lot of rock stars with master's degrees.

(Laughs) I don't know. I don't tour a whole lot, so I don't meet a whole lot of rock stars.

Does your academic background play a role in your music?

In my training and writing, definitely. It pops up now and then. In screenwriting, you learn how to limit yourself to description of action and dialogue, so it's a more visual style of writing. I think I've kind of adopted it. It's just something I've internalized.

Did your celebrity ever get in the way of your academic work?

I didn't really wave the flag too much. I didn't think it was the place. It was a little difficult trying to schedule touring and working, trying to schedule those things together. (Other faculty members) came to the shows. They enjoyed it.

Do you ever think you'll go back to teaching?

Not if I can help it. I enjoyed teaching. I definitely learned a lot, probably more so than when I went to school. You meet a lot of new friends every semester, that's for sure. But like I said, I taught just to put food on the table. Given the opportunity to make a living doing what I really enjoy doing, I'd definitely do that. I'm going to keep making music as long as people are interested.

It's from a protein supplement you can find in some old country stores, around the castor oil and home remedy things. It's called Beef-Iron and Wine. I thought it was an interesting coupling of words.

I heard that an Iron and Wine song recently got played on The O.C. How would you rate the artistic merits of that program?

Honestly, I've never seen the program. I guess some people like it, some people don't. I imagine it's kind of like all TV shows, right? They had to ask me (for permission). But whoever wants to use (the songs), I just say, fine.

As a former film professor, what's the best movie you've seen this year?

Oh man, that's tough. To be honest with you, I don't get to go to too many movies. I have kids, so I don't go out to the movies as much as I used to. I saw City of God, but I guess that came out last year. I thought that was amazing.

Did you see School of Rock?

I saw that. It was pretty funny.

What about The Punisher?

I didn't see that one, no.

Oh. Never mind.

[Last modified July 5, 2004, 23:26:10]