Full Band Show at The Robin 2 in May!

Got an awesome show coming up in May with The Revolt at The Robin 2 in Bilston. Tickets are cheap, the supports are awesome and it's going to be a great night. Get your tickets here, now!

2018 - a review

The time has come for another yearly update. 2018 has been a crazy year both on and off stage, probably more off than on, which I suppose is reflected in my gig count of 76. Its down on previous years, but it's still much higher than I expected, and averages at about 1.46 per week.

On stage I hit some major highs this year, the pinnacle being the 3 gigs I played in Dublin in March. It was my first time playing in Ireland, and the friends I made there will stay with me for a long time. I can't wait to go back (and neither can Kayla!)

Other highlights include 2 gigs at The Robin with The Revolt backing me, a trip to Salford to support The Thought Police for their single launch, the incredible experience of playing The Treehouse ouse Sessions and my gig at The Wakes in Oakengates. Plus I made returns to old favourites in The Jamhouse, Katie Fitzgerald's, Hurcutt Pools and Llangollen's Faery and Red Dragon festivals. All in all its been a year of fewer, but dare I say cooler gigs, which if I'm honest is probably a more sustainable gigging model going forward, both in terms of growing and maintaining a fanbase and getting my work-life balance right. I've always felt like I gig too much, mainly for free entry, to really be able to move towards ticketed gigs. Maybe this is the start of a shift. Maybe.

It's off stage where big things have happened. It's been a year of love, heartbreak and change for my friends and family, and I won't go into everything as this isn't the place. I lost a good friend earlier in the year to cancer, though his legacy lives on not only in the work he did to raise awareness on a grand, even global scale, but personally in the friends I have made through him and people he brought into my life. It feels somewhat disingenuous to 'name drop' him (as he is much more 'famous' than me!), because this tribute isn't about building my own profile, but remembering him. He wouldn't care, as it goes, but I still can't bring myself to do it.

I was lucky enough to attend his wedding a few short weeks before he died, and those memories will be with me forever.

At the complete opposite end of the personal emotional spectrum, my son Ezra Alfred Draisey was born on the 12th of December. I am, obviously, completely in love with him, and find myself with a newfound love and respect for both Kayla and Buddy, who have slipped into their new lives as mother-of-two and big brother respectively with equal love and grace. They are my heroes, all three of them.

I look forward to a 2019 filled with exciting adventure both on and off stage. I already have another full band show lined up and a sniff at a pretty major festival, which is mega exciting. I hope to see you out there.

Sam.

New Live Video!

The gig at The Robin was great! And what's more, I remembered to take, set up and press record on my camera this time, so I've got some live videos for you! I put up a video of our encore cover of Billy Bragg's 'All You Fascists Bound to Lose' last week, which you can check out on YouTube and on my Facebook page. But now, here's an original.

I've been trying to get a full band video of Don't Forget for a while. I have a few acoustic ones, and I really like them, but it's great to finally get the whole band version up for you to see. I love the dynamic changes the song has with the full band.

Thanks to everyone who came to the gig and to the guys in The Revolt for playing. Hopefully we get to do it all again soon.

Tomorrow!

I can't believe the full band gig at The Robin 2 is tomorrow! It's going to be ace, don't miss out!

Live in Salford

Lats weekend I made my first road trip for a while to The Old Pint Pot in Salford to support fellow political musos The Thought Police for the launch of their new single 'Holy Man' (out now on various platforms. They were ace, the gig was ace and here is a live video of 'The Worst Lie of All' to prove it.

Another new live video!

I'm trying to make an effort to record and upload more 'content' (Christ I hate that word). I doubt anyone would want to see a video of me just talking about my day and pretending a million exciting things are happening right now with my music, so it's taking the form of more live videos from cool gigs I'm playing this summer. Here's another from Banstock, a festival quite literally a stones throw from my house (if my aim was better).

Hope you like it :)

(Disclaimer: It's not that I'm not doing anything with music, quite the opposite, I just get a bit jaded by supposed 'music industry experts' constantly pushing that you need to be doing Facebook Live videos every time you cook your tea or pack up your car for a gig. I'm busy with gigs, with merchandise making for myself and other people and general musical work. I post about it on various social media platforms on a semi regular basis. I'm just not going to video everything I do for the internet.)

New Live Video

Check out the new live video of 'Used to be my Hero' live from Lechlade festival  (25/5/18). It's a cool festival and you should check it out :)

Halfway through this song Buddy ran up to the stage and stole my drink! I'm being forever upstaged by him nowadays!

Another cool fact; because the headliner for the stage I was playing on never showed up, I technically headlined my first ever music festival stage on Friday night. It's a technicality, but it's still cool!

Another new live video :)

Here it is, another new live video from Codfest last year. Check it out :)



Don't forget to get your tickets for the full band gig at The Robin 2 on the 22nd of February. It's going to be awesome!

2017 in review

So here it is, another year over, another end of year blog. But it has been a pretty good one, if I'm being totally honest.

I played 94 solo gigs this year. That's an average of 1.8 per week, which is a little off the pace for me compared to previous years *checks old blog posts*. There are a couple of possible reasons I can think of for this;

Firstly, For the first 9 months of this year I was working a school job. I know I've been working other jobs before while gigging more, but I can't say it doesn't have an impact on both having time to actually find and book gigs as well as being awake enough to play them!

Secondly, all of my recurring gigs have now stopped. I was running the songwriter's sessions at The Crown Joules for the first half of the year, but they decided to take their live music output in a 'different' direction. The gigs there were great while they lasted, but sadly, last they did not. I've also finished playing at Village Coffee in Codsall after many years. I'm not aware that they have any live music on there regularly now.

However, a lower gig output is somewhat outweighed by the fact that I finally finished and released my newest album, 'As I Live and Breathe' in 2017. It was a long time coming, and I'm incredibly proud of the way it came out. People seem to like it too! Massive thanks must be given to Dickie Davis, Dan Hart and my wife Kayla who all appeared on the album.

Stemming from the album launching, I've played my first ever gigs with a full and this year too, and they were great fun. I've got another one at The Robin 2 coming up in February, for which tickets are available here. It's going to be a great show, so come down and get involved :)

On to my highlights of 2017. Other than the obvious launching of the album, I also did a mini tour at the beginning on November which was a success. One of my favourite gigs was playing at Rough Trade Records in Nottingham for a multiple union event to talk about young people's pay. Tour aside, I also had a great time at Strummer Jam, as well as discovering cool new venues like The Windsor Theatre in Birmingham and Tom O' The Wood in Warwick.

Away from the stage, I've finally taken the plunge and gone full time with music as my solo job. It's going alright so far, but I'm sure I'm about to feel the January pinch!

In 2018 I hope to have a real go at making full time musicianhood work, as well as finding a new venue for the songwriter's sessions and generally looking to book more cool gigs. I've got some cool ideas for stuff to do at home too, but they need some refining yet so I'll keep them close to my chest for now.

See you out there,

Sam.

Nan's Song on Spotify

A few years ago I wrote this song for the charity christmas album. For the uninitiated, it was an album I released once a year with the musicians who played at my various open mic nights and sold for charity. I think this is probably my favourite of all the Christmas songs I've written.

This year seemed like a good time to release it online for stream and download. Check it out if you get a few minutes :)

Tour write up

So yesterday I finished my November tour. I've really enjoyed the whole experience and I thought I would write some of my thoughts and stats about the tour down here, just in case you're interested.

In total I travelled over 800 miles during the three weeks I was on tour. I played 10 gigs (11 if you count a private party) and sold 35 copies of my new album. Though I've not costed it exactly, I'm pretty sure I about broke even, which is cool for a first outing, especially as most of the gigs were unpaid.

As always, some gigs were more enjoyable than others, though I think I enjoyed all of them in their own ways. Heading into the tour I was least optimistic about the two nights that were open mic rather than booked shows, but they actually turned out to be some of the best of the tour. It helps that both Worley's in Stourport and The Market Vaults in Stafford are great venues that really try hard to support original music, and also that they have both promised me booked gigs going forward. Worley's also stream all of their gigs and open mic acts on Facebook Live, which is something I see a lot but hadn't experienced before. The video of my set there has been watched over 1100 times since then, which is crazy but really cool. I think the live streaming thing is something I definitely need to look into more in the future.

It was great to get the opportunity to play with some old friends too, and the beauty of booking your own tour through your friends is that they can come and play too! Massive thanks to Tone Tanner, Huffy, Dan Hartland, Bleeding Hearts, Dave Busby and The Pale Aliens for sorting gigs for me and playing. It's always a pleasure to see all of you play and spend some time with you. Thanks also to Roots Music, The Musician's Union and Pistol Pete Wearn for booking gigs for me too. I promise I'll come back to The Market Vaults when you're actually there to host Pete!

So to round up, I think the whole thing was a success. Yes I drove a lot (though the podcast 'I Only Listen to The Mountain Goats' has helped with that a lot), I did get woefully lost in Nottingham - huge thanks to Ben Benson from the MU for rescuing me - and I did only just break even, but as an exercise is playing to new people further afield I think it was worthwhile. After all, there are now 35 more people that have listened (I hope) to my new album, and if they tell all their friends about it then they will soon be flying out the door!

I wait patiently by the post box ;)

See you soon (like in Leicester next weekend, for a tour never really ends does it?)

Sam.

November tour!

I'm delighted to announce that in just over a week's time I'll be heading out on tour! Check out the dates below, it would be great to see some friendly faces :)

 

I'm really looking forward to getting out there :)

1000 shows!

So I just updated the past gigs page of my website and it seems I have passed the 1000 show mark! Part of me sort of wishes that I'd made a bigger deal of it, but I'm not really one for ceremony and it's still a nice achievement to look back at now. Plus it turns out the 1000th show was Strummerjam, which is really cool as it's a gig I really enjoyed, I really like everything that the gig and the charity stand for and I kinda hope that Joe would approve of what I'm doing.

Here's a video from that gig;

'So I take a breath and steel myself for the next one thousand shows...' Frank Turner - The Road.

New review

Here's another review of my new album. I think it's the first since the album actually came out! They did get a quote wrong, but I can forgive that seeing as they seemed to like the album! It's really nive to get a postive review not just from a more national entity like Folking.com, but also one that is so impartial. Check it out here or read it below :)

'“I’m the last of the protest song heroes” sings Sam Draisey in ‘Five Years Later’. That in itself is unusual because many writers of protest songs deny that’s what they are. Furthermore, ‘Five Years Later’ is a very good protest song and it comes on the back of ‘The Worst Lie Of All’, which you might consider to be even better. Sam is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Wolverhampton and As I Live And Breathe is something like his fifth album. Like others before him he’s turned his back on the first two and re-issued some of the songs on Anthology. This album has been a long time in the making and the polish that Sam acquired in recent years is self-evident.
As I Live And Breathe is, in many ways, autobiographical but often in an oblique way. ‘Used To Be My Hero’ is an attack on an un-named musician and my mind immediately turned to Bob Dylan but Sam is too young to have that sort of attachment to Bob. He says that “punk’s not dead” so that alters the time frame and opens up the field a bit. To confuse things further he follows that with ‘Let’s Not Grow Old’ heavily inspired by Johnny Cash.
Sam is a whole band all by himself but he has back-up from Dickie Davis on drums and Daniel Hart on second electric guitar plus his wife Kayla, who co-wrote some of the songs, providing vocals on ‘Turning You Down’. Sam has a distinctive voice that sounds younger than his years and he’s mixed himself well up front even when the band is rocking – oh yes, he did all the recording, mixing and mastering himself, too. And now I’ll tell you that Sam has only one arm and I discovered that fact only when I’d got to the end of the record which is when you learn it. Sam is someone who has proved what can be overcome.'
Dai Jeffries

NEW ALBUM

It's finally here! After years of stopping, starting, re-starting and stalling, I finally launched my new album 'As I Live and Breathe' last night at The Crown Joules in Codsall. The gig was ace, the supports (Brains for Breakfast and David Young & The Midnight Chorus) were brilliant as always and the guys that supported me in the band played a blinder! I couldn't be more happy with the way the night went.

So now's your chance to get the album! If CDs are you thing, you can order one from my online store by clicking the link here, or you can get it on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon Music (and probably more, who knows. Send me a message if you find it somewhere else!)

So that's it. It's been a long road, and now an even longer one begins. Good job I've got my walking boots on!

Ryan's Gig Guide review

My first review of the new album is in, and I'm very pleased with it! Chuffed actually.

'As I Live and Breathe' has been named as Ryan's Gig Guide's 'Acoustic Album of the Month'. This is a major honour for me and I'm really pleased that they liked the album as much as I do!

You can read the full review by Nick J. Townsend below, or there is a link to the publication here.

‘Wolverhampton singer/songwriter Sam Draisey releases the ‘As I Live and Breathe’ album. Fifteen songs strong, a long time coming but very worthwhile and tunes like ‘Five Years Later’ totally explain what Sam stands for. If you are expecting traditional folk then be careful what you wish for, as you’ve not only got that sound but imagine the voice of a hardened Paul Simon blended with Damien Rice roasted in the political attitude or lyrical magnetism of artists like Billy Bragg. Highlights are ‘The Worst Lie of All’ for its observations of equality, ‘Used to be my Hero’ with its superb character assassination and grit, the delicate ‘The Day That I Was Meant to Die’ which with a title like that isn’t quite what you expect to hear as it’s beautiful, there’s ‘Let’s Not Grow Old’ a wonderful nostalgic mind road trip and ‘Turning You Down’ with its attention and personal insight into missing someone mixed with a little anger. Hey, this is a real passionate guy, sometimes he shouts, sometimes he whispers but this is deep and absolutely mesmerising from start to finish.’

Album Launch!

I'm so VERY excited to announce that my new album 'As I Live and Breathe' is being launched on the 23rd of July, and I've got an awesome gig lined up to kick it all off! Supported by two of my favourite acts (and some of my favourite people!), I'll be playing at The Crown Joules in Codsall as part of my ongoing songwriter's nights there. There is even talk of me having a band with me, so it should be a very special night indeed!

I hope to see you there, but if you can't make it, the album will be available on many online retailers and streaming sites (iTunes, Spotify etc.) from the day afterwards. You will also be able to buy a CD copy directly from my website.

It's finished!

I'm delighted to announce that my new album is finished and will be called 'As I Live and Breathe'. I'll be releasing the track list soon for you to check out :)

What do you think of the artwork?

How long is too long?

I'm about 3 songs away from having my album mixed, and I'm really happy with the way it's going so far. The only thing is, it's around the 45 minute mark already. It won't quite get there, but it will be up close to an hour by the time it's done.

Is that too long? Would you listen to an hour of music by one artist?

I'm also aware that it's been a long time since I've released anything, and keeping all the tracks on there feels like a good way to repay people's patience. Plus, if I hold tracks back for my 'next release', there is a decent chance that when I get around to that, I'll either forget about the songs I left back or won't want old stuff on a new record, so they will never come out at all. Plus different people will like different tunes, so more songs gives me more chance of having something someone will like.

What do you think?

It's finally happened!

I can't quite believe it. After what seems like an eternity of recording, leaving, moving studios around, forgetting, re-recording and agonising over minute details, I've finally finished tracking my album! The computer tells me that it's a total of 1,128 takes! I guess I am a perfectionist after all!

Now it's on to the task of editing, fine tuning, mixing and mastering. Then I can start thinking about fun things like pressing CDs and launch parties. Who am I kidding, it's all fun really!