Blues rocker Samantha Fish is no stranger to Fort Wayne.

The Kansas City, Missouri, native performed at Sweetwater Performance Pavilion in 2019 and 2021, as well as last year with Jesse Dayton as they promoted their Death Wish Blues album.

This time around, Fish will be at The Clyde Theatre on Sunday, Aug. 18, with opening act Sgt. Splendor.

Along with being at a different venue, Fish said in a phone interview that her Bulletproof Tour is a change of pace for her.

“It will be the first time in my career where I haven’t had a new record to focus the tour on,” she said. “So, I’m kind of digging back into my old catalog, digging up some fun covers we used to play. Just trying to create the best show possible from the material I have. 

“I think the hardcore fans that know the old records are going to dig this show. Maybe we’ll play some of the stuff they’ve been screaming at me to play for years, that I’ve been stubborn about.”

And what might those songs be?

“I mean, I don’t know. I don’t want to give too much away,” she joked.

“It’s so fun. You look back at your old catalog, and I’m a totally different person from who I was when that second record came out. Sometimes I hear those songs, and I cringe. I’m like, ‘Who would ever want to hear this song?’ Then some of them I hear and say, ‘Oh, wow. I’ve actually lived this scenario in different ways now.’ It hits me in a different way because I was writing about something that I thought I knew about, but now I actually do. It kind of changes your perspective on it.”

Building on blues

Among some of the “cringe” songs Fish refers to might be from the short-lived record-label arranged trio, Girls With Guitars, that she was in with Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde on Ruf Records.

Four short months after Girls With Guitars’ lone album was released in 2011, Fish’s solo debut, Runaway, was released, with Black Wind Howlin’ coming out in 2013.

Fish has released seven solo albums, with the most recent being 2021’s Faster on Rounder Records, which saw her “showcasing her admiration for North Mississippi blues legends like R.L. Burnside and innovative mavericks like Prince,” according to her bio.

An established blues artist known for her fretwork, Faster surely ruffled the feathers of purists. Along with quintessential blues rock tracks like “Faster” and “All Ice No Whiskey,” the album also features the synthesizer-heavy “Twisted Ambition,” the poppy “Forever Together,” rocking “So-Called Lover,” and “Loud,” which features the popular hip-hop artist Tech N9ne.

However, for Fish, the blues are always the foundation.

“It’s heartfelt music,” she said of the genre. “There’s like two schools of thought on it. There’s people that want to see the genre evolve, then there’s the purists, where it’s ‘The blues can only be this type of thing.’ I really feel like if we take the wheels off and stop limiting it, and just get real about what the genre is, I think it’s going to allow more people to discover these great artists and these great acts. 

“For me, it’s how I discovered Muddy Waters. It’s how I found out about Howlin’ Wolf and Charlie Patton. It was finding them through these contemporary players.

“So long as there’s great people out there pushing great music with guitars and real instrumentation, it’s raw and it’s heartfelt, and it’s rooted — more power to them. I’m not sure where the genre is going, but I also don’t know where the music industry is going. We’re all on this roller coaster together.”

Road life

Following Faster, the roller-coaster ride took a big ascent with Death Wish Blues, which spent three weeks atop the blues chart. The album also garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album, which Larkin Poe won for Blood Harmony.

Along with celebrating a successful album, Fish has spent much of the past year on the road, recently finishing up a run on Slash’s touring S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival. The tour was a celebration of blues music and included the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist as well as Warren Haynes, Keb’ Mo’, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, ZZ Ward, Robert Randolph, Eric Gales, and Jackie Venson.

“It’s been a kind of crazy, but I had a little bit of a break (in June),” she said. 

Cutting her teeth

The busy schedule is something Fish has been looking for since picking up the guitar at 15 and hitting the club scene on blues-heavy Kansas City.

“Kansas City definitely helped to shape who I am — as a player, as a musician,” she said. 

“Going out in Kansas City, there was always a blues jam happening. There was something almost every night of the week.”

“So, if you wanted to cut your teeth and learn how to play with other people, you sort of had to learn something within the traditional form. I wanted to play with people, so it was, ‘I’ll learn some songs.’ One thing leads to another, and it kind of shapes you. There were a lot of great acts in Kansas City when I was 18-19 years old.”

Between open jams, Fish spent a lot of time calling up venues in hopes of getting on stage. In 2024, that might be a bit of a lost art, but playing live is something she stresses to aspiring musicians.

“It’s a different game today than it was when I was coming up,” she said. “My advice maybe would not fit someone today. Just seeing the people that have popped off from doing it in their bedrooms and putting music up on SoundCloud or Spotify. YouTube, the internet, all of that is great, and I think it’s such a good tool to get people out there. A lot of artists are developing it, putting their stuff on the internet before they even get the opportunity to really play gigs. 

“But I still encourage that one piece of the old school. You have to get out and play with people in real life, if you can. There’s something about that feel that you just can’t get (from posting online). There’s just something about being in the room with people and figuring out how to do it on stage in front of others. Don’t sell that short.”

And when you see her on stage, expect to walk away with an experience.

“It’s fun, dynamic, and exciting,” she said of her shows. “It’s kind of raw and in your face. I try to write the sets to go on a bit of a trip. We can’t just beat (the crowd) over the head all night. Of course we need to through in some dynamic numbers.

“I love when people dance. That’s like my favorite thing to see from the stage, to see people move. Then, it’s like, ‘OK, I’m doing my job.’ ”