No Vacation: 'Yam Yam'

The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.

Sab Mai, lead member of No Vacation, started the indie pop band in San Francisco back in 2014 when they were going to USF as a freshman. Mai wanted one thing and one thing only: a band.

“The very first class I found a founding member, and we started to write songs together,” said Mai, and soon after they were ready. “We were like, ‘let’s play some live shows.’”

Mai’s push to play live shows was motivated by watching artists perform at concerts. They liked the way artists were able to express themselves. It inspired Mai enough to put all their energy into the band while in school.

One song in particular has climbed to the top. No Vacation’s “Yam Yam” from the 2017 album Intermission has over 83 million streams on Spotify and is featured on several indie playlists for music streaming apps.

“I would say [Yam Yam] is a song about loving someone and not wanting to let them go,” Mai said. “But also like accepting whatever happens, happens — I think that acceptance allows you to have an openness.”

The song’s vibe is a mixture of a mellow, sad, nostalgic feel, which initially came out from a riff that the three members of the band were playing around with. In 2017, the band had relocated to New York and Mai was attending school there.

“We really didn’t think ‘Yam Yam’ would pop off in the way that it did,” said Mai. “We just want to write something good and somehow it just kind of went off and it got everyone’s attention.”

Mai understands that No Vacation’s music is a mixture of happiness with a tinge of sadness but that’s because it’s a universal feeling. They understand that a lot of their listeners tend to feel kind of sad but by being able to bond together over a mood, listeners are able to experience something beautiful.

Over the course of 10 years, No Vacation have released an album, several singles, EPs, had multiple tours across the United States and a brief hiatus from making music.

Mai says that all the band members of No Vacation have moved back to the Bay Area and are going at a slower pace.

“We’re all going through our life things but at the same time,” Mai said. “Everyone is still working on music.”

Accompanying Sab Mai on “Yam Yam” is Harrison Spencer on drums. Mai is working on some new music.

No Vacation will perform in San Francisco at the California Academy of Sciences on August 10 and at Outside Lands on August 12.