Ever since he first formed a rock ’n’ roll band with his father and brother at age 12, Canadian-born and Los Angeles-based guitarist and singer-songwriter Sam Weber has found community in music.
Now 28 years old, Weber is already a well-worn traveler who regularly performed extensive tours before the pandemic took him off the road. This month, Weber returns to touring life with a West Coast trek in support of his new album, Get Free.
Weber plays an outdoor show with his trio on Sunday, Feb. 6, at Smiley’s Saloon in Bolinas, and is scheduled to play Santa Rosa venue The Lost Church on Feb. 13.
“I tend to write a lot on tour and like to play those new songs at shows,” Weber says. “A lot of the songs are very travel-oriented, I realized.”
Weber wrote most of the songs on Get Free that way, before Covid-19 rendered touring dormant in early 2020. He was actually in the process of booking studio space when the pandemic forced him to go in-house to record the album with partner Mallory Hauser and friend Danny Austin-Manning in his living room.
“There was a period of the pandemic where it was hard to get people together in the same room,” Weber says. “When we did get around to playing music together, it was really joyous. It wasn’t at all our reality, the travel songs; that was far from our reality at that moment, but it was almost like we were celebrating that joy and celebrating the joy of being together.”
The result of that joyous experience is an intimate recording of emotionally-stirring songs that find inspiration from an eclectic blend of folk, Americana and jazz.
“I’ve never made any record the same way twice, but this was the farthest cry from any other way we’ve made it,” Weber says. “I’m always surprised how creativity can really kill technology. You listen to old recordings with one mic in a room and there’s such life in it. It was humbling to get to experience that effect in what we were doing, in a modest way.”
Get Free comes out on Feb. 4, and Weber is more than ready to return to the road this month.
“I’m looking forward to the whole ritual of touring,” Weber says. “I love traveling by car, seeing new things and, of course, playing music with my friends is unlike anything else.”
