Sam Brown gives a career spanning interview on her highlights as a singer and songwriter. We cover her early years, success with ‘Stop!’, her personal approach to songwriting, the ‘Concert for George’, collaborating with Jools Holland and Jon Lord and overcoming the loss of her voice with new album ‘Number 8’.
Hello, nice to meet you Jason. You alright?
Hi Sam. It must be a really good period given what you’ve gone through. And a new chapter in a way.
Very much a new chapter. Yes, well it’s been 15 years since I last did a record. So yeah, it’s good, I’m really enjoying it, I’m surprised as anybody by the music. I’m not really quite sure how it happened. [laughs]
I’ve heard the album. The first track that’s been released is ‘Doll’. I was listening back to your solo albums and you have different sides and different ways of presenting your music. It’s very innovative and varied. This continues that path.
Yeah, I think it’s very much a departure in that I’ve never really gone down electronic routes. All the vocals are completely autotuned, so it kind of suited that. Using sequencers and not using real instruments seemed to suit that style of vocal, even though people say that it still sounds like me. But to me I don’t have anything like the vocal freedom that I used to have. I like that it all sounds a bit programmed and I’ve really enjoyed doing that.
But at times you’ve had electronics and rhythms in your music.
Yeah.
As a whole it might be new but actually there are elements that go back to your earlier solo albums.
Definitely. I think you’re right. I love sequenced stuff and I’ve certainly used that. There was a time, like the second and third album, where it was quite a heavy band and we did a lot of live work and that was rock, sort of bluesy rock. [laughs] It doesn’t sound terribly good does it, but we had good fun. But that was more a reflection of everyone who I was working with, rather than what I actually do myself which I think came later in ‘Of the Moment’ [Sam’s 2007 album]. And certainly, you’re absolutely right, there’s quite a lot of sequenced stuff on ‘Of the Moment’.
Those lyrics, especially from your later albums, remain very personal. For me that’s the thing that connects as a listener because you get to hear the true voice of the artist. ‘‘Tribe’ [from Sam’s new album ‘Number 8’]. “I’m reaching out, I’m reaching in”, so there’s lyrical elements where hopefully, as listeners, we will be able to connect again to you.
Yes, I think I’ve always had quite a dark side to what I do lyrically. But it seems that it’s particularly more acceptable now to have that darkness in the lyrics, which I love. In the past people would be “Well, it’s a bit miserable, isn’t it?”. But in the world now, people are very aware of mental health issues and so I think it’s okay to say actually this isn’t all right for me, this is a bit of shit. But I hope it’s not all like that. A lot of the lyrics on this album, rather than being personal and about myself, are about atmospheres that I’ve picked up just through living in today’s world.
One of the songs is ‘It’s Okay’, [says lyrics] “It’s okay to be broken.” But that’s how many people feel and then you get comfort in realising that you’re not alone. Following that acceptance of that particular feeling or status in your life, you can then move on and then the positivity comes through.
I think you’re right. I’ve always loved listening to music. But I didn’t really quite realise how important it was for people to be able to relate to lyrics until I lost my voice. If that makes sense? Because then I was listening to music and really hearing it in a different way almost, and really picking up on the lyrics. And I guess when you listen to a lyric that you love, you kind of apply it to yourself in your own life, don’t you, in a way. You live that feeling with the artist. So hopefully people will relate to it, there’s a lot of stuff in there. [laughs]
My favourite track from your album ‘Number 8’ is ‘Ghosts’. That really works as a very moving piece of music.
I’m really glad you like it. It’s the odd one out a bit in that it’s not up and dancey. It’s got a slightly French 70s filmic vibe to it. Certainly that was kind of how it started out. When you work on music it sometimes goes off into a different direction. But I like the idea of a ghost watching over their partner after they’ve gone. It’s quite nice. And the French cafe, I think it creates a picture which is hopefully a good one even though it’s talking about death. [laughs]
Did the COVID period give you the space to start crafting the music?
Definitely, I don’t think it wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for that time that I had at home. I was still busy because I’m self-employed so obviously you have to still make money somehow. But yeah I think having the head space was a really big thing. It was brilliant. We wrote every Tuesday, Danny [Schogger] and I. Literally like this, I say “I’ve got this idea” and plonk something on the keyboard and he’d go “Yeah, you could do this” and then he’d do a drum track. So I’ve never really worked remotely like that before and I’ve really enjoyed it. It was really good.
You come from such a fantastic musical family. Was it obvious that you wanted to be involved in music from an early age or did that come in your teens?
I don’t know that my mum and dad were really paying attention to that. So I don’t know if it was obvious to them or not. But we had one of the first multi track recording studios when I was very little in the late 60s called The Grange and so I grew up with the recording process. Whilst my brother really is the engineer and producer in the family I’m very comfortable with that. Being in the studio is one of my happy places I suppose. But I always did music, I started writing when I was about 13. My mum played piano. It wasn’t sort of like the Cassidy’s where everybody was sitting around playing guitars. It was more, my mum and dad were never there so you could get on with what you liked. [laughs] It was obvious in a way although I came from the punk era so for me the biggest problem I had was the music I was writing was not like the music that everyone was listening to. So yeah, it was. I started working professionally with my mum when I started doing backing vocals. But I’d already started writing songs before then although I’ve got to say they were pretty shit to be honest with you Jason. [laughs]
I think you were on at least one of those late 1970s Small Faces albums, ‘In the Shade’. I can hear you and your mum in full voice.
[laughs] You can’t miss my mum’s voice, definitely.
Is that your dad’s song ‘Soldier Boy’ on that album?
Yeah, I don’t know if he co-wrote it but he definitely wrote it. It’s a shame really because my dad is a fantastic writer but he’s just got no confidence whatsoever. So in his 70 or 60 years, he’s done it as a performer. Recently I’ve been writing with him and he really is a great writer.
You came to the world’s attention with ‘Stop!’. I’ve read that part of that song came when you were in LA.
[laughs] Sounds dead fancy doesn’t it?
It does!
I’ll paint the picture for you. It was 1985 and I signed to a company called Rondor Music who were the sister company to A&M Records. The head of the publishing company Stuart Hornall, a Scottish bloke, said “I want to send you out to co-write with a load of people in LA”. So I said “Well okay”. I was 20 or something and I went out there with my spots and acne and dungarees. Not really being very show business at all but I did meet some fabulous people and I wrote with loads of people. So as a professional writer, you turn up and you do a morning session with someone or you’ll do a whole day and you’ll just try and knock out a couple of songs. I met Greg Sutton. I think the first thing that happened was I sang on one of his tracks and then I was going to be writing with him. I had the idea for ‘Stop!’ while I was driving along in the car and said “What do you think of this?”. That was it really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1tqnvY0dyA
When it was first released it was only a minor hit. Then it was re-released and became a huge hit. That’s quite a moment for an artist. You have that shift to being on Top of the Pops and up in front. Then you’ve also got the record company and potentially pressures there. How was that shift at the time for you?
Well first of all, I was never particularly ambitious. I signed a deal because I’d always written songs and I wanted to make an album. But I’d been around celebrity and success my whole life and I didn’t really like that side of it. So it was brilliant that it was a hit. They didn’t play it on the radio in the UK and it was only after it was a hit around Europe that they then revisited it and it went on the radio. Initially it was very exciting. But after about three years of just doing promotion, photo sessions and interviews (which I actually find really interesting), but not doing music was not a good way for me to live. I think that was the start of me thinking I’m not sure this is the way of life that I want. Because if you do have a hit record you have to maintain that popularity, and in order to do that you have to put music on the back burner. I just wasn’t prepared to do that.
You collaborated with so many great musicians at the time. ‘This Feeling’ featured David Gilmour. You were on backing vocals on his solo album ‘About Face’, and then famously one of the wonderful backing vocalists with Pink Floyd in the 90s Division Bell era. Was he someone that you and your family knew back in the 80s?
I think it would have been around my mum’s 40th birthday. So that would have been, the early 80s. He was a friend of my mum and dad’s. We lived in Oxfordshire and a lot of musicians lived out there. Mick Ralphs, David Gilmour, Alvin Lee, George Harrison, the old set, my dad’s peers. They weren’t people I knew well but I did know them. Dave was brilliant and took a real interest in my writing and was very kind and helpful. He had a studio around the corner from where we lived so he did some of my first demos with me and I did ‘About Face’ with mum. Then after that he asked me to go on the road with Pink Floyd. I’d actually been asked three times before I was able to say yes because we have rules in our family which are that if you take a job on, you have to do it. So unfortunately when I was asked to do Pink Floyd I had other things in my diary. No matter how small they are, once you’ve agreed to do something you’ve got to do it. [laughs] So I was very happy to do the Division Bell tour.
‘Kissing Gate’ was a hit from your next album ‘April Moon’. Was that the period where relations with your record company were diverging do you think?
You sort of touched on it earlier. Very typically, I think they wanted to ‘Stop!’ Mark 2. They weren’t really interested in looking at any other aspect of what I did. What I did was, the word gets used a lot now, but it was very eclectic. It was a huge range of different musical styles and I think they found it very difficult to get their heads around that but that was just how it came out. I didn’t do it deliberately to be difficult. So I think they really wanted another soul ballad of which I wrote many. ‘Kissing Gate’ was a bit of a piss take because it’s the angst of this silly woman in ‘Stop!’, who’s like still going out with this bloke, who’s plainly not really particularly interested in her, and so it was “Wow is a word that’s not used, but that’s how I felt when I first met you”. ‘Kissing Gate’ was really a tongue-in-cheek look at that retro type of music but it was really good fun. The video to ‘Kissing Gate’ is hysterical. It’s very funny. It’s a bar room brawl and I had a double in it which was fascinating to meet someone who looks exactly like you.
Your next album ‘43 minutes’ is, for many, possibly your best. This was a shift in direction to that personal side. That was you going your own way and doing something which was beautiful and moving.
Sam: Thank you very much. Yes it was absolutely the turning point and reflected in the sales. ‘Stop!’ sold two million. ‘43 Minutes’ sold four thousand or something, I don’t know what it’s sold now. But my mum was very ill and then subsequently died of cancer and I wrote the album during that period. I’d written it as a whole piece of music and we demoed it very cheaply with some fantastic musicians, Herbie Flowers, Tony Newman, Jody Linscott and my brother. The record company managing director’s exact words were “Creatively it’s brilliant, commercially it’s a disaster”. He wanted me to record a cover or something to put on the end of it which I didn’t really want to do. So we parted company and I released it myself. I’m just much more comfortable being in control of what I do. I see music as art. If you had a fantastic artist you wouldn’t think of leaning over their shoulder and go “Well if you put a tree with balloons in it just there. People are going to like that painting a lot more”. You just get that feeling and if you want to make something, whatever it is, you have to have your own idea of what it is and what it’s going to be. You have to be free to follow that idea. That’s how I feel about music. I’m not doing it to make fortunes or to be famous, I’m not really interested in that. I understand that it’s part of it, but the freedom that you have when you do it yourself is just fantastic. To be able to say I don’t want it like that, I want it like this, is so important.
I wonder if it was a reflection of the music scene at the time. If it was released now it would have reached a much wider audience and in latter years it has hasn’t it?
It has and I think you’re absolutely right. In those days, maybe it was just my record company. I don’t know but they didn’t see me or sell me as a singer songwriter. They went completely with this pop angle and that’s probably what made it successful or part of it. But I’ve never really been promoted through a record company as a singer songwriter which is basically what I am. So ‘43 Minutes’ was a really good thing for me to have done and I absolutely have no regrets about that at all. I loved doing it and I loved touring it. It was cathartic for me. I think all music is therapy for the maker possibly.
There’s lots of highlights, ‘Sleep Like a Baby’ is a great example. It’s quite ornate. Was that a clarinet on it as well? It works wonderfully.
There’s clarinet and there’s whistle as well.
Covering some of the other highlights from your career, ‘Of the Moment’. Again very personal, ‘Do Right By Her’ you’ve got that honesty and openness that connects.
‘Of the Moment’, that’s my favourite album. I plucked up the courage to try and do things on my own a bit more. I love working with my brother, he’s brilliant, but he’s quite a strong personality and I’m not very confident. So if I’m working with somebody I tend to just go “Yeah, no that’s fine, that’s great, that’s brilliant” and usually it is brilliant. But when you have to do it yourself you’re kind of pushed into, I suppose, expressing yourself a bit more succinctly. ‘Of the Moment’ is a very personal album. I was having a nervous breakdown and I lost my voice just right at the very end of that. So I’m glad I made it. I’m proud of it as a record and equally I’m proud of this one. [laughs]
Were you independently releasing your music by then?
Yes, the last record company I worked with was Mud Hut, that was ‘Reboot’.
It’s definitely worth asking about your collaboration with Jools Holland, co-writing some wonderful tracks with him. They’ve had quite a lot of success. One of those is ‘Valentine Moon’ and it’s like a standard in a way. It’s got that timeless appeal. Was that something that you both aimed for, or was that something that Jools brought out?
‘Stop!’ is similar in that way. ‘Stop!’ feels like an old blues song doesn’t it? Nobody thought I’d written it but I did with Greg. And ‘Valentine Moon’; we thought we’d like to write a waltz and we wanted it to have an old romantic feel to it. So ‘Valentine Moon’ was born. I love the song. I loved working with Jools. It was one of the best parts of my career, singing with that band and having him as a friend. He’s such a fantastic person. He opens the world of art up to everyone who’s near to him. He has a really strong work ethic which I do as well. He loves touring, he loves doing music. I’m exactly the same. I’d rather be doing that than anything else. So we get on very well and we did get on very well and we toured a lot together. So writing was a nice thing to do. We worked very well together.
When did your paths cross originally?
I think it was 1989. He was doing a pilot for a show called The Happening. I think it was probably the predecessor to Later. It was in a theatre and I sang on it a couple of times. Then he said “Do you want to come and do some gigs?”. So I went and did a couple of gigs with him and then I started touring with him. It was all very relaxed. It was like “If you want to come along” and I remember the first tour I did with him. I literally had a list of the cities and they just said “Look. These are the gigs. Come to any you want.”. So I’d literally go “I’m going to go and do this one today, it’s in Halifax.” So I’d just go to Halifax and look for the posters. I didn’t even have the address of the place. So it was great. They’re lovely people. I was treated very differently in that band. I’d always been kind of on my own or worked with my family. For the first time I felt really good about what I was doing. I got a bit of confidence perhaps through that situation.
‘Kiss of Love’ is another one of the great songs from that period. You sang it with Nick Cave. What was the songwriting process with Jools?
Well, ‘Kiss of Love’, I think I started on the ukulele and it was a waltz. Then I played it to him, I hadn’t finished it. Every year Jools tours in Europe. He goes out to Amsterdam and he’s tried to build a following there. It would usually be a pared down band because it’s quite expensive to take that big band over. So we’d go over, usually in February or March. He’d have a piano in his hotel room and we just stay on for a couple of days and go to a couple of art galleries and write some songs. One or two of us would come up with an idea and just work on it really.
So it was the Jools connection with the Concert For George. Your performance on ‘Horse to Water’ was one of the standouts. Amazing. But the original version was with George Harrison before he passed away and you were on backing vocals.
I’d known George, Olivia and Dhani through my mum and dad. Jools obviously knew him as well. He was quite unwell when we did the vocal on it and Jools and I went out and recorded it. But the thing about George is that he was a really fantastic person. I’m sure a lot of people will think that’s all very well and he was very lucky. I’m sure that he was very lucky but he was very down to earth, he was very straightforward. He didn’t mince his words and he was a really lovely man. So to be able to be involved in the Concert For George has to be definitely right up there in my life. I don’t like saying my career because it’s not my career, it’s my life. To sound check, it was amazing. You’ve got Eric Clapton, all these wonderful people there just all being very nice and friendly. “Hi. How are you doing? How’s your dad? Oh yeah, he’ll be along later. Where’s the tea kept? Do you want a cup of tea?”. So it was very comfortable, very relaxed and everybody was very respectful. I loved it and the whole day was amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOrt63xcnpU
Having your dad closing the show as well.
He did, yeah. I’m sure people do know but at the end of ‘See You In My Dreams’, Olivia had arranged to have rose petals falling down into the Albert Hall. It was absolutely incredible. They transformed the Albert Hall, there were purple and gold hangings, pictures and incense. It smelt completely different to how it normally smells. It was an amazing experience.
We’ve covered Jools Holland but another amazing artist that you’ve collaborated with is Jon Lord. A lot of great tracks there, many of which are almost hymnal.
So again, Jon was a really lovely, lovely man. I knew him through my parents. My mum worked with John and then I worked with him as well. Jon said “Can you write some lyrics for this tune?” and he sent it over and I was like bloody hell, this is going to be hard. You’ve got bars and bars, because it’s classical music. It’s not like [sings] “I went down the shop and I bought some food, unfortunately when I got home it wasn’t very good”. It hasn’t got that kind of metre. It’s got this [sings musical bars] and the melody goes on and on. So you have to make sense of that lyrically so it was quite a fascinating process for me. I just loved doing it and obviously it was very relaxing because it’s such beautiful music. I loved working with Jon. I’m very proud of those songs.
There’s ‘One From The Meadow’ which is a highlight. So for that album ‘Beyond The Notes’ you were his primary lyricist.
I think so. I don’t know if Miller Anderson did or not. But most of the pieces were instrumental anyway.
You also got to sing live.
We did a few things. We did the 30th anniversary gig at the Albert Hall for Deep Purple for the Concerto and he played a few of his songs on that, so that was good. There was a lovely thing that I did which was ‘Wait Awhile’ which was at the Albert Hall and that was part of that concert. And ‘One For The Meadow’, I toured with Jon. We went out to Germany and did a few gigs out there with a small chamber orchestra. That was a lovely thing to do as well.
There’s an EP of yours, ‘Ukulele and Voice’, versions of songs that you’ve recorded like ‘Over the Moon’ which work really well. The ukulele as an instrument, you’ve got a huge affection.
[laughs]
An involvement!
An involvement, oh yeah! I’ve got a relationship with the bloody ukulele! Well that EP, I’d written those songs on the ukulele. So I wanted to present them in their barest form so it was literally just an afternoon and I recorded them pretty much live. One of the reasons I like that EP is because I’d been doing a lot of voice training and so I felt very comfortable with my singing voice at that point. I’m quite proud of it from the point of view of my singing on it. Quite a lot of the time when people think of me they think of this sort of blues shouter but there’s, if I may say so, quite a lot of other aspects to my voice apart from that. So I was pleased with it from that point of view. And the uke, I started playing it in about 2000. My first instrument’s piano and I’m rubbish on the guitar. I thought I’d never be able to play a stringed instrument. I loved playing the uke and it was so easy, so I started writing. I didn’t know what I was doing. Now I’ve been teaching ukulele for 11 or 12 years and I teach about 150/200 people a week which is bloody hard work and you don’t get paid as well as doing gigs. But it’s great fun, it’s a completely different thing. It has immersed me into the normal world. [laughs] So I have to consider car parking and things like that I hadn’t thought about before. So I love the uke, it’s great. Writing on a uke is a lovely thing to do because it’s just so portable and easy to play.
We started discussing ‘Number 8’ so it’d be good to close with that. Other than some of the tracks that we’ve covered ‘Ghosts’ are there any other songs that you are particularly fond of from that album?
‘Doll’ is the lead track on the album. Everyone latches onto it really quickly so I wanted something that’s quite instant. I like them all and I like that you can dance to the album. But my two favourites are ‘Tribe’ and also ‘The Story’. ‘The Story’, it’s not rapping I don’t know, is it rapping? I’m not quite sure, but it’s got spoken word in it. The whole musical style of this album is so completely different. My abilities are very different. I just wanted to try everything that I could so I really like ‘The Story’ . I like the words and I like ‘Tribe’ as well. I like the atmosphere of ‘Tribe’, it’s quite dark.
You’ve continued that thread of opening your heart, opening yourself to people.
Misery! [laughs]
No! I find great comfort and ultimately I think it ends in a positive outcome as we discussed at the start. What makes great art is when people connect with the emotions and feelings of the music from the artist. Your album and your music more generally do that. So just thank you so much for your time today. I wish you all the continued success with ‘Number 8’.
Aw, thank you Jason, it’s been lovely to meet you.
Further information
A podcast of this interview will be available on Friday 20 January (the day Number 8 is released). In addition to this website, it will be on on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all usual platforms.
