Sam Weber's storied exodus from his homeland of Canada to find new footing and opportunity in America resonates like a classic story of pain, loss, and rebirth. That narrative thread is woven throughout his new record, Get Free, offering a warm, intimate, and multidimensional portrait of the 28-year-old singer-songwriter. With this new collection of material, Weber reaches fresh emotional depths, commanding more expressive personal moments than ever before—at times within the margins of a single verse. This week, Weber gave fans an early look into Get Free ahead of its February 4th release with “Money,” a breezy, piano-meets-fuzz bass rocker seemingly about what it means to grow up and be faced with the need to leave Neverland—or at least the non-fictional equivalent of it. “Used to make time / Now we just make money,” sings Weber in the song’s refrain. Fans can hear “Money” now at this link and pre-order or pre-save Get Free ahead of its release right here. Last month, Weber shared with his fans a lyric video for album track “Here’s To The Future” which can be viewed here. He is currently on tour with Bahamas, see below for a full list of dates.
Following the success of 2019’s Everything Comes True—which was recorded live-off-the-floor in the iconic B room at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Studios—Weber ended up taking a necessarily-different route with Get Free. “I wrote most of this music before the lockdown happened,” he says. “We wanted to go into another beautiful L.A. studio with another super band to record these new songs, but when all the plugs got pulled, we were sort of left holding nothing but the material. My partner Mallory Hauser was keen to rally and share production duties with me to make the most of what we had, which was liberating somehow: to have this logistical ceiling on how we could record or approach these songs in our living room. We were forced to be as creative as possible with what we had. I think it was the best thing that could have happened to us.” Mallory Hauser is a solo artist in her own right, performing and releasing music under the name Mal. The two met in Los Angeles in 2018.
Coming face-to-face with the realities of record-making in the pandemic age, Sam and Mal called upon their friend Danny Austin-Manning to join their pod and the trio began meeting up weekly for recording sessions in their Hollywood apartment. “Danny would come over and the three of us would turn on the microphones and give these wild, unchained performances of the material,” Weber recalls. “The songs became as much about the experience and ritual of spending time together as the content in the lyrics. I called the record Get Free because each performance of each song was a moment of transcendence and an escape for us from an otherwise odd, restrictive time.”
And restrictions be damned, the trio emerged more than 14 recordings richer, and Sam and Mal set to curating and completing the 10-song collection, calling on friends near and far to contribute remotely through the power of technology. “I have a really tough time connecting to a performance or performing when I’m not in the room with the other musicians,” Weber admits. “But I think since we laid such a human foundation—me, Mal, and Dan—it gave each song a strong identity, and it became really clear what needed to happen and who we should ask to be involved remotely.”
Weber and Hauser tapped Grammy-nominated engineer Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas) to mix the album, having collaborated with him on the Juno-nominated Bahamas album Sad Hunk. “I really love [Get Free], don’t get me wrong…but it sort of sounds janky…in a good way! Because our only option was to make it in our house, it gave us permission to let it be what was going to be and not get wrapped up in the details, and in turn, I think that allowed the veil between the performances and the hearts of each song to be very thin. Robbie sort of saved the record fidelity-wise; we gave him some questionable rough mixes with the room mics cranked up so loud. What we got back sounded way rad.”
A particular sense of grandness is felt in certain songs across Weber’s recorded catalog. Moments that feel lofty, yet devoid of pretentiousness. With more of these moments present and tangible on Get Free than any other of his releases, the listener can effectively observe Sam’s emancipation. With this record, he assumes a creative identity unique to himself.
Catch Sam Weber On Tour:
Oct. 14 - Charlotte, NC - Visulite Theatre*
Oct. 15 - Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse*
Oct. 16 - Ponte Vedra, FL - Ponte Vedra Concert Hall*
Oct. 17 - Orlando, FL - The Social*
Oct. 18 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn*
Oct. 20 - St. Louis, MO - Delmar Hall*
Oct. 21 - Kansas City, MO - The Truman*
Oct. 22 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue*
Oct. 23 - Chicago, IL - The Vic Theatre*
Oct. 24 - Detroit, MI - Majestic Theatre*
* supporting Bahamas
