X Ambassadors know a thing or two about rewinding the tape. Formed in Ithaca, New York in 2009 when brothers Sam and Casey Harris began playing music with their childhood friend Noah Feldshuh, drummer Adam Levin joined soon after, and the four have been together for more than sixteen years.

What started as a college project quickly grew into a national act once the band signed with KidinaKORNER and Interscope.Their debut album VHS dropped in 2015, producing the hit singles “Renegades” and “Unsteady” that appeared in commercials and film helping the record move over a million units.

Sam Nelson Harris handles lead vocals, guitar, bass, saxophone, and percussion. His brother Casey, who has been blind since birth, rocks the piano, keyboards, and synthesizers. Levin delivers the beat, while Feldshuh contributed guitar and backing vocals before taking a hiatus in 2016.

The band later released Orion in 2019, The Beautiful Liar in 2021, and Townie in 2024.

This year X Ambassadors marks the tenth anniversary of VHS with VHS(X), a complete rerecording of the album, which is why Sam stopped by the Setlist studio to chat it up with Bree Wilde to discuss what he hears when he looks back at that breakthrough debut, and artists that have influenced him.

Revisiting VHS and making VHS(X)

Bree Wilde: Talk to me a little bit about the 10th anniversary of your debut album.

Sam Nelson Harris: God, it's just blown by. It's so insane. I can't believe it's been 10 years. I was talking to somebody about this the other day. A combination of the pandemic and then also entering my 30s in the pandemic, my sense of time now... I think in your 30s, time starts to work in a very weird way, where all of a sudden, things move very quickly and then, yet, they also... You start to get that sense of Groundhog's Day a little bit like, "God, I'm still here? I'm still around?"

Yeah, 10 years feels like a blink of an eye, but we're celebrating 10 years of the first record for the band, which changed our lives.

Yeah. To be honest, it's been a mixed bag, going back to it. I think now, on the precipice of going on tour and with this new reimagined re-recorded version of the album finished and ready to come out, I'm excited, but I've gone through waves of being like, "Oh, my God. What is this?"

I remember the day before we started the re-record process for this record, and the decision to do this had already been made and we were like, "I think this is going to be a better way to honor this moment than just repackage it, but purple."

We wanted to do something really special for our fans, for people that had come up to us after shows on this last tour for our last record, Townie, and told us again and again how much VHS meant to them. To do something special for them.

But the night before we started recording, I took a walk and I listened to that first record again, and I was like, "I fucking hate this. I hate every single song on this. I hate myself, I'm a terrible songwriter. I can't believe anybody ever bought this," or, "I am such a fraud and such a phony." It was just awful, existential.

Then the next day, got together with everybody and we just started doing it. I was able to slowly start to see that 26-year-old kid who made that record and give him a little bit of a hug and be like, "Hey, hey, listen. I see this earnest young man. You're all right," and that was nice -- so it's been up and down.

Arcade Fire, Cafeteria at Cornell University, 2004

Sam Nelson Harris: I was dating this girl in high school, and she and I were fighting about something. I think she was hanging out with this older dude and she was like, "We're just friends, stop being so jealous," and we got into a fight.

I knew she was hanging out with him that night... she's like a cool freshman and I was like, "Whatever, I don't care."

I'm sulking, I'm wandering around the college town in Ithaca, New York, just smoking cigarettes, and I'm like an angsty 16-year-old kid, and I run into my friend who's this gorgeous girl, and she's a punk rocker chick. She was like, "What are you doing?"

I'm just like, "I'm just hanging out. What are you up to?"

She's like, "I'm going to this show." I'm like, "is it a show at Cornell in a cafeteria?"

She was like, "Yeah, it's this band called Arcade Fire," and I didn't know the band.

I was like, "I'm free," and she was like, "You want to come?" She gave me a Sharpie, she was like, "X your hand," because I didn't have tickets, so I just Xed my hands and walked right in, didn't pay for a ticket.

I was just there with my friend to make my girlfriend jealous. I see her in the crowd and she's like, "What are you doing here?" I'm like, "I didn't know that this is the show you're going to, so I want to have a night too with my friend," and then the show starts.

I remember the band was just like... It was winter, so their gear had gotten snowed on and they were trying to get this Rhodes to work, and it wasn't working and they were setting up and it took them so long, and I was like, "Whatever."

I didn't care at all about the show. Then they started playing and I'm full body chills just thinking about it right now. It was like transcendent. I was at church. It was crazy. The way that this tiny group of people in this cafeteria were singing along to every single word, and this guttural singing just blew my mind. There were 12 people on this tiny little stage, sweaty and just writhing around.

I think that was maybe one of the pivotal moments of my life of, "I want to do that and I want to have that effect on a room full of people."

It was amazing. Amazing.

Bree Wilde: Have you seen them anywhere besides this cafeteria?

Sam Nelson Harris: Nope, that was it. That was the first and the last time I ever saw them play live, and I feel like to have experienced a stadium-level show performed inside of a tiny little cafeteria, I don't want to ever see them on a bigger stage.

Bree Wilde: Have X Ambassadors ever played somewhere strange like a cafeteria?

Sam Nelson Harris: Oh, yeah. We played cafeterias, we played water parks, we've played pizza parlors.

Eagles of Death Metal, One Eyed Jacks, New Orleans

Bree Wilde: All right, let's go ahead and move on to Eagles of Death Metal, New Orleans. We looked it up, One Eyed Jacks.

Sam Nelson Harris: One Eyed Jacks, yes. At the time, I was already in a band, in my band, the early iteration of X Ambassadors, me and my brother and our drummer Adam and my friend Noah, who we also started X Ambassadors with. We were called something else at the time, but I was already getting privy to venues around the country that were theater-sized that, one day, I would want to play.

Bree Wilde: Making a bucket list.

Sam Nelson Harris: Yeah. I was in New Orleans, my dad was working there and I was there visiting him, and I was wandering around, as I loved to do. Whatever city my dad was working in at the time, I would just walk around and explore on my own.

I looked up at this venue, I was like, "What are the rock clubs in New Orleans?" Because I know it's a lot of jazz, I know it's a lot of that stuff, but I wanted a rock club. I found this one and I saw the Eagles of Death Metal were playing there, and I was a huge Eagles of Death Metal fan.

That first record: Peace, Love, and Death Metal I think is the name of the album. Josh Homme played drums on it. So good. Anyways, I was obsessed with them. I saw they were playing and I was like, "I just want to go down and maybe I'll catch a glimpse of the band loading in or something."

I'm outside and Jesse, the lead singer, is hanging outside the venue, smoking a cigarette, and I muster up the courage and I walk up to him and I'm like, "Hey, man, I just wanted to say I'm a big fan. I'm a huge fan. I love you guys' music."

He was so friendly. He was like, "Thank you, brother, you're coming to the show later?"

I was like, "No, I don't have any tickets," and he was like, "I'll put you on the list."

Coolest I've ever felt in my entire life, and I showed up later. I was like, "Dad, I'm going to the show, I'm on the list for the Eagles of Death Metal."

He was just like, "I have no idea who that is, but have fun."

I show up, give my name of the door, say I'm on the list for the band name... I'm on the list for the band, I gave him my name, and let me right in. I watched that whole set and just mesmerized. They put on such an electrifying show. So crazy, so crazy.

Catch X Ambassadors on tour as they travel around the US and Canada this month. Tickets on sale on their website.

9/17 Toronto, ON The Danforth Music Hall
9/19 Ithaca, NY The VHS(X) North American Tour
9/20 Ithaca, NY The VHS(X) North American Tour
9/22 Boston, MA Citizens House of Blues
9/23 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Steel
9/24 Washington, DC Lincoln Theatre
9/26 Raleigh, NC The Ritz
9/27 Atlanta, GA Tabernacle