Introducing #207 - Sam Brace
Let us introduce you to Sam Brace, guitarist of folk band Skinny Lister and singer-songwriter in his own right, he recently released his latest single ‘Brave’. Sam took a minute to talk us through his music.
Hey there Sam, how are you? So you have a new track called ‘Brave’ - can you tell us what it is about?
I’m good ta! It feels great to finally be getting some tracks out the door and seeing the reactions. We’re so stoked by the feedback so far and can’t wait to get the full album out in summer. Brave has a few themes running through it but the song is mostly about the questions we should ask ourselves before trying to bring about change in another person's life, Ad (co-writer) doesn’t like to say much more than that about it, but I think it’s also about facing the future and pushing on no matter how dangerous life circumstances might seem or how insecure you might feel. I tried to inject a bit of this kind of vibe when I was shaping the energy and feel of the song itself.
You are based in London, what are your favourite things to do in the city? Where do you go for music adventures?
I was based in London until Covid hit, then my partner Eva (who happens to be Greek) suggested we escape lockdown by moving to Greece for a few months, we were definitely only going to stay for 3 months over summer 2020 but as covid dragged on, we stayed, and it’s going to be 2 years in Thessaloniki by summer 2022. I have many trips back to UK planed for festivals with Skinny and a few tour commitments over the next months so it’ll be a bit like living in between countries which sounds like fun to me!
As for musical adventures, going out just for the hell of it kind of stopped about 5 years ago as we had so many show commitments with Skinny, it took over my whole social life, but I’m not complaining, we’ve had some incredible nights out all over the world and long may that continue! My favourite thing to do if I was at home in between tours was go to mates shows and hang out without the pressure of actually doing a gig. My last favourite night out pre covid was hanging out with Frank Turner, Jess Guise and our pal Scott Keys backstage at a Dropkick Murphys show at Alexandra Palace just before lock down 1. We’re usually so busy at gigs we can’t sit down for 5 mins to actually have a chat so to get a couple of hours of quality drinking time with those guys was golden.
Other than that, I used to love simply hanging out in the city on weekends with Eva, just enjoying hanging out together in cafés and bars all over town but mostly in and around Deptford and close to Clerkenwell. It’s a bit different in Thessaloniki but the walking around thing and going to café bars is very similar, just with a Greek flavour…
What are your main influences with your music?
Music has been an all-encompassing feature of my life since my earliest memories of childhood, my Mum and Dad spun Beatles and Neil Young records as well as listening to a lot of 80’s pop so I feel like I had a fairly good quality introduction to rock n roll. Then growing up in the 90’s was probably the best-ever moment to absorb guitar music. I feel almost like I was spoiled by the likes of having Nirvana and Suede, Blur and Radiohead kicking out some of the best guitar based music ever written, I feel like no decade since has got even close to the quality of songs that came out in that time. This period of my life has really inspired the sound direction of the album and you can hopefully hear a bit of that in the first two tracks that we’ve released so far.
What are your earliest childhood memories when it comes to music?
My Mum was a concert pianist as a younger woman although she didn’t become professional, she continued to play her whole life so a lot of my early memories are of her playing Beethoven or occasionally some Boogie Woogie jams if she’d had a glass or two of wine. My Dad used to play as well, but he wasn’t a proper pianist, he used to sit there and just make up random stuff which should have sounded awful, and sometimes it did, but somehow, he always seemed to have a thread running through whatever sound he was making. I wish I’d recorded some of that stuff.
My earliest memories of performing were at local music festivals in Hastings where I was forced to play piano in public. These were terrifying moments for me, I remember feeling so nervous, probably stage fright in fact, but I always got some kind of toy or something after so it was worth it. I stopped playing piano properly when I was 10 and then didn’t do anything playing wise until I picked up electric guitar when I was 14 and that was that, I already had a strong feeling, but the moment I held a real Fender guitar in my hands for the first time, I knew it was going to be the thing I had to do with the rest of my life.
