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 Amid the boom in Rock & Indie music sweeping Britain, Mr Semple seems to be swimming against the tide.
He is an artist who takes enormous pride in his art.
That’s the art of song writing.
At a time when pop tunes come and go faster than a Big Mac, Sam will consider each song a mini novel, a musical Bonsai that requires attention and love.
Not for him good sounding nonsensical lyrics!
There is a lot of talk about song crafting, the search for lyrical perfection and rewarding the listener.
I found Mr Sam Semple to be, justifiably, a very proud and passionate man, but read on and judge for yourselves...
Florence: You’ve got a residency in Stoke Newington, North London, the last sunday evening of every month, that seems to be doing very well.
Tell us more about it.
Sam: It’s something that I started in Clapham, South London, at the Bread & Roses pub, when the Workers’ beer Company asked me if I wanted to do a residency.
I set up a night, once a month, and it was a chance for me to play a long set of my own music and also to be able to invite my friends and fellow singer-songwriters. We had some really good nights but I wanted to take the whole thing to Stoke Newington, near where I live.
Florence: I guess that having a residency means that you have total control.
It’s a bit of a dream come true even if it’s on a small scale...
 Sam: It’s a very small room and it’s very relaxed but it’s mine!
It’s only £4 to get in but it’s a dedicated night to listening to song writing.
So far the night has been well attended and supported. I am quietly pleased at the way it’s going.
More importantly for me is the fact that I can invite other artists.
I’ve had Edwina Hayes, who travelled from York and is a trained in Nashville country singer. She’s a great songwriter and wants to do it again, next time bringing a friend of hers.
People who think they are great songwriters want to be part of this.
I want to give the night a reputation as the night where you are guaranteed to hear at least a couple of totally classic songs. I want people to walk away thinking they’ve heard some great stuff, no cheese!
Florence: Song writing as a craft seems to be the most important thing to you and something you pride yourself on, so what do you think of the current music scene?
Sam: Popular culture makes less and less demand on it’s audience.
Look at the mass market newspapers, look at television...everything is so explicitly geared to selling, more than ever.
I can feel the hand of business more and more in art.
Sometimes when I listen to music I can barely hear the music for the noise of the accountants’ spread sheets rustling...
There is nothing wrong with a simple song and easy to hum tune, something I aspire to do, but I feel that your heart can hear better than your ears can, and for me things have become a bit too simple, too unchallenging, too disposable.
Florence: Disposable is the key word.
Bands are mushrooming all over the country and it’s now a matter of quantity over quality, as far as the bands themselves are concerned and a lot of their material.
Sam: That’s a nice way of putting it.
Also I realise that I am setting myself up to be knocked down. Who am I to say what’s quality or not?
But I feel that the market makes so little demands....take for instance James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful....it’s melodically a very catchy song but lyrically it makes no sense, it’s pretty vacuous.
I understand that not everything has to be like Dostoevsky, but personally I would enjoy things to be a bit more challenging and maybe that’s coming from the kind of music that I don’t do.
Maybe there is substance in other genres like hip-hop and rap, music I don’t have much exposure to.
People like Burt Baccharach, Elvis Costello, Kris Kristofferson, all the guys who used to write Elvis Presley’s songs, Joni Mitchell, Carole King really inspire me. These are idols, and I aspire to write only 5% of the way these people can.
Guys like Neil Young or Bob Dylan....write something which has depth and repays the listener!
Another great British songwriter is Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera.
My friend and fellow artist Tom Baxter bought me a copy of his LP ‘Surf’ telling me :”you think you’re good, listen to this”. It really blew us away and you can feel that it wasn’t explicitly done for money.
Florence: Is the premise of financial gain getting in the way of quality song writing?
Song writing as an art and a means of expression.
Sam: I don’t have any money and I would love to make some for my music but it’s never been my motivation.
For me it’s always been about books and writers, Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Samuel Beckett, Dylan Thomas...these are people that I really love and I think to myself: “why can’t the same artistic sensibilities apply to writing new songs”.
A classic meeting of song and literature was Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’. It’s also getting better with time.
When I write a song I aspire to have the same attitude as if I was writing a novel. I try to have the same rigourous artistic feel about it.
When I have a song on the go I feel that I have a puzzle to solve and I am in a constant quest for lyrical perfection.
Even though I love songs whose lyrics I don’t listen to, I myself need to use words that have a meaning and will have an effect.
Words that in different circumstances could have been written as a poem or book.
That’s my passion really, the crafting of songs.
However the great flaw is that you can’t dance to my music and also I know that my singing is not the best but it’s coming from my heart.
Florence: If you were not writing songs would you be writing books?
Sam: No! My short attention span makes me feel that sadly I could never write a novel, I can’t envisage such a big world. I do feel frustrated about that but for me, my songs are like Bonsai novels. I can really see them.
I have been waiting for something to happen in me that might graduate away from song writing and into something else...but it hasn’t happened yet.
Florence: You’ve got a large Bonsai collection already, haven’t you?
Sam: I guess so!
I’ve recorded two EPs and one album, ‘Female Astronaut’, but obviously I have written much more than that.
Florence: During your Sunday nights, do you delve into material that hasn’t been pressed yet?
Do you treat yourself and your audience to songs they can’t get on CD.
Sam: Last Sunday I sang two numbers that haven’t been recorded and 5 people asked if these songs were on the CD.
But as they weren’t they didn’t buy any album....
Florence: It means that you need to prepare another EP.
Sam: ‘Female Astronaut’ only came out late 2005 and I am still promoting it.
Florence: ‘College Girl’, which isn’t on ‘Female Astronaut’, is a beautiful song and I’m sure you’ve had very positive feedback on it.
Sam: Yes, people seem to like that one. That song was an experiment.
It’s a very simple tune for a very simple story.
There is a guy and a girl. The girl goes away to college to better herself and inevitably their lives are going to change. He’s at home expressing the hope that when she comes back things are going to stay the same.
With this song I wanted to not explain that things are gonna go terribly wrong, I wanted to just imply it. I didn’t want to paint the dark cloud so you could see it, I wanted the listener to sense it instead.
I think that ‘College Girl’ really works.
Sometimes, you can create more meaning by not quite saying something.
Sometimes by shining a direct light on something you can totally obliterate it.
Florence: How much do you draw from your own life experiences?
Sam: I spend so much time writing songs that I don’t have a life to write about!
Literature is the biggest influence for me, life in general and nature....
My search is to give myself a feeling of dignity and meaning. being aware that my life will be short. I believe that this is heaven. I believe that you are an angel, and I am an angel. I want to use this special time on earth in a way that is special. A lot of the time I feel very unspecial and I am aware of the valuable time I have wasted, at the pub, smoking...
I also feel that occasionally I would like to be able to rise above my lazy, slothful human self and try and create little moments of magic.
Just to recognise how beautiful and amazing it is to be alive.
Our life is like a match, it burns brightly for a few seconds and it’s gone, and it will not be struck in the same way again.
This is something I think about a lot and I am worried and conflicted about wasting time and time I have wasted.
I also write a lot about greed and the obsession with money that’s everywhere. It’s even reflected in the language. There is an impatience in the language...adverts have a very unhealthy imperative: ‘Buy this, go there, eat that....’, well fuck you!
Our language has become so impoverished.
Look at the language that George W Bush used to justify the war in Iraq. It’s got blood all over it.
I think it’s important that people think about this, not just lucky, fortunate, rich intellectuals but everybody else....
Florence: What are your current projects?
Sam: Tom Baxter, who produced my second EP, and I have a very good project on the go.
Florence: Tom Baxter is a very talented singer songwriter himself.
Did you approach him as a producer or a writer?
Sam: I first saw Tom years ago and I was so impressed with his song writing that I really wanted to be his friend.
Tom has a yearning in his heart you can really hear and he really moved me.
We’ve got to know each other and one day he volunteered to record me.
He himself put out his brilliant debut album ‘Feather and Stone’ but we always talked about having a writing partnership.
Our aim is to write an album of ‘classic’ songs together.
Also I am involved with duo Eugene Machine. They make electro-pop and are a thousand times cooler and more fashionable than me, but we’re writing together right now a house music track!!!!
They’re doing all the production, the rhythms and exciting stuff...I’ll write the words and the melodies....
Florence: You’re clearly very busy and before I let you go, what would be your message to the world?
Sam: Consider that life is short. Don’t make enemies and don’t be too greedy.
Words: Florence ACHERY.
www.samsemple.com
www.myspace.com/samsemple |
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