Nicotine Dolls singer Sam Cieri appeared on “America’s Got Talent” in the summer of 2022 and made an immediate impression.
Judge Sofia Vergara’s jaw literally dropped as Cieri started singing, and fellow judge Heidi Klum described his voice as “if Rod Stewart and John Mayer had a baby.” But, after advancing to the next round, he walked away from the show.
“The show wanted a solo act to sing covers, and I refused to do the show under my own name and without a guarantee that I could sing one of our own songs and, if the audition went well, the full band would join in on the live shows,” Cieri said. “They agreed then proceeded to do the opposite. They kept trying to force me into doing a cover and ditching the band. That’s insane and not something I’m interested in at all.
“So we fought the whole way through the process. They didn’t expect the audition to do so well, and, when it did, all of a sudden they wanted the band. But I didn’t trust they wouldn’t pull something sketchy with us on the live show, so we said no to being a part of the show beyond that audition.”
Formed in 2017, Nicotine Dolls — Cieri, guitarist John Hays, bassist John Merritt and drummer Abel Tabares — have been releasing singles and EPs since 2019. So appearing on the talent show seemed to be a shot worth taking.
“None of us come from wealthy families or have any connections in the business. That puts us in the majority of bands waiting for that one-in-a-million break that happens to maybe 0.5% of artists,” he said. “We had already built a solid fan base, but we needed that bigger moment. And, when ‘AGT’ reached out, it felt like a risk (there’s a stigma to be taken seriously after being on a talent show) but a risk we needed to take to give us that possibility of a moment that could propel us up to that next rung, which it very much did.
“It didn’t teach, more remind, me that everyone in this business has an agenda. The show wanted a different thing from this band than we were comfortable giving.”
Nicotine Dolls will hit the Pittsburgh area Wednesday night for a sold-out show at Crafthouse Stage & Grill in Whitehall, with New York’s Abbie Roper opening the show. Since the “America’s Got Talent” appearance, they’ve had a song appear on ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” and their latest single, “Slip,” came out in September.
In an email interview — due to being placed on vocal rest earlier in the week — Cieri reflected on a few of the band’s songs, the band’s name, terrible jobs and Indiana Jones:
