My favourite interviews are with artists who aren’t afraid to embrace their vulnerability. From Bugs Bunny to heartache, speaking with Sam Roberts is always enlightening, even when we cover dark subjects.
He’s always open to any questions, and we never know where the conversation may go. Somehow, it always comes back to the music and what he calls ’embracing the magic’ of songwriting.
We spoke via Zoom a few days before the release of his 8th studio album, ‘The Adventures of Ben Blank.’ The title references a fictional character open to interpretation, like a blank slate.
‘It can be filled in as you, the listener, choose to fill it, in terms of what it means to you… also in my mind, the idea of wiping the slate clean,’ Sam Roberts explains.
The record starts off with a bang with the upbeat first track, ‘The Ballad of Ben Blank.’ Sam appears full of swagger and bravado, listing all the characteristics of a rock ‘n’ roll cowboy. But wait… is he the real deal?
The rest of the songs are melancholic and introspective. There is a deep feeling of loss as he approaches midlife and begins asking some difficult questions. ‘Can you tell me what I’m feeling? Can you show me something real?’ he asks in ‘Projection.’
In ‘Cascades,’ the poetic water imagery, from teardrops to shipwreck, conveys so much loneliness that when he sings the line, ‘Where did I go, where did I go wrong?’ you can see the window into his heart.
On the final track, ‘If Only,’ the stripped-down vocals in the first line, ‘I know you’re gone,’ had me asking the question: was this a breakup album?
I really appreciated Sam’s honesty and openness to explore his personal challenges. And I’m glad that no matter what life throws at him, he can always sing about it. Just don’t talk to him about the afterlife.
‘I’m still dancing with destiny. I’m gonna put up a fight when they say come to the light,’ he sings in ‘Afterlife.’
‘We live tethered to our past all the time. It’s just part of who we are. But how much of a role that plays in your future is a decision we make. It’s not necessarily written in stone. And I just sort of latched onto the idea that your past can be a meaningful thing to you, but it doesn’t have to determine every step you take as you walk into the future… leaving yourself open to reinvention. I mean, every album is an active reinvention in some way,’
Watch the full interview below:
