Amazing Talent, Weber’s Journey is Just Beginning

Victoria’s newest singer-songwriter, Sam Weber, will be debuting his new full-length album, Shadows in the Road with a West Coast tour stop in Moose Jaw on Tuesday, September 2nd at 23 Main Street. Weber has a great voice with a sort of haunting quality, gentle but confident in his presentation of emotive tunes and retrospective lyrics full of intense contrasts and emotional entanglement. Although some have referred to Weber’s music as infused with a folk influence, Weber doesn’t want his music to be put into any boxes but wants it to be an individual interpretation. All the music is written by Weber himself; sometimes he performs solo or with a larger five or six person band, most of the time he plays as a trio. Weber says his main focus is for the audience to connect with the music as he instinctively reads the feel of the room. “If I can make the audience feel something deeply, no matter what that emotion is, it’s a total win for me. As long as it isn’t a physically painful feeling or anything like that. As long as I can invoke emotion, that, to me, is what matters.” The young musician, now 20, began playing guitar at the age of 12. “I played so much that I used to even keep a guitar in the backseat of my parent’s car,” he says. “That way, if we had to run errands or stop at the store, I always had a guitar around that I could play.” Weber admits he played all the time, at school and with friends, starting bands, etc. “As I persisted to get better, the opportunities for me to play got more interesting, opportunities like playing alongside other great local musicians. “I really like playing bass and I write a lot of my songs on the piano – but guitar is definitely what’s most comfortable in my hands.” Weber’s inspirations for lyrics don’t come from any hard work. He says his best tunes are written effortlessly, sometimes based on experiences, a story he’s thought out in his head or inspired by a place or a feeling. “I’ll just let the story come out when it needs to – day or night.” His song Burn Out is a personal favourite. “It’s about feelings of pessimism and helplessness – something that we all feel at one time or another in life – but the mutual pessimism and mutual helplessness we all feel can ultimately bring us closer together. So, the song comes from a fairly helpless place but ends up being fairly positive in nature.”

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and Weber follows the beat of his own drummer, trading a musical scholarship at Berklee in Boston, “the supreme Shangri-la of musicial knowledge for nothing,” he says. “I think the idea of nothing or starting something from scratch on my own and making it as I went along was more valuable. I still covet any mystery I get to experience! “I believe that a big part of musical success is embracing that mystery and using it to drive you forward, to inspire your writing.” During his time playing guitar in the band, Jets Overhead, the band afforded Weber the opportunity to play some bigger stages like opening for the likes of Sam Roberts and The Tragically Hip, and to see what the industry holds at the next level. “Having that experience has been invaluable in showing me where I can get to on my own if I put in the hard work,” he says. Weber loves the road and sees himself touring for the next ten or so years…”There is nothing quite like being out on the road, meeting and interacting with great people and playing music with my best friends. If you ask me where I see myself in 30 years, I still see myself touring.” With amazing talent, Weber’s journey is just beginning. Hear him live at 23 Main Street on Tuesday, September 23rd.