He’s only 21 years old but Sam O’Connell sings with the soul and wisdom of someone three times his age. His debut EP Down The Line, released in 2016, is home to five songs written in his late teens and early 20s, heart-warming, knowing and incredibly involved. The maturity with which O’Connell performs and writes his intricate acoustic music is incredible for someone so young.
“I’ve had a lot of different experiences with different kinds of relationships and all the ways they can turn out. I guess I’m mature in that aspect,” he says.
“It’s not easy but I feel comfortable writing about those dark feelings, and the heartbreak people can shy away [from] without thinking about. I feel like one of my strong points with writing is painting a picture of that raw, emotional vulnerability.”
O’Connell is, for lack of a better term, a troubadour of realness. “I wear my heart on my sleeve,” he says. “None of this is bullshit, all of it is trying to justify and explain a situation, giving you a window of what I was feeling at the time. I poured my heart into that EP when I was in a pretty vulnerable spot.
“It’s quite heavy stuff for a [then] 17-year-old but I grew up pretty quickly emotionally after dealing with that. That’s probably where the mature aspect comes from, dealing with those experiences in whatever way.”
Life is definitely too short to beat around the bush and O’Connell’s music is not only wonderfully intricate in its structure and melodies, but it is also incredibly human. It’s human in the sense that its themes are strong narratives you wouldn’t expect.
“With the Down the Line EP, that turmoil and heartbreak is an underlying theme throughout all the songs but one,” O’Connell explains. “That underlying theme of battling through love and loss and heartbreak, I wanted to put a real perspective out there of just how difficult those times were for me.
“I’m a very openly emotional bloke. I never really shy away from talking about the difficult things like people do nowadays, especially blokes. For me it’s always been, I’m not going to muck around, take it as you will.”
Certainly, O’Connell has conviction, a trait to be admired. So solid is his mantra, his new single ‘Shanty’ sees the singer-songwriter veer toward the more upbeat, happy areas of his creativity, and focus on areas he enjoys.
“I’m trying to move forward to writing about other things,” he says. “There’s no underlying sadness which is a common thread with my music, it’s just happy, fun stuff.” ‘Shanty’ is written about pirate life in the Golden Age of Piracy and is heavily inspired by shanty culture, when ballads were sung by men on ships as they sailed to keep up morale. Listening to ‘Shanty’ with O’Connell, and you can’t help but become lost in its upbeat rhythms, uplifting guitar riffs and crisp harmonic layering. Nothing but good vibes here, and images of being near water.
“I wanted good vibes to be going on,” O’Connell says of the track. “Get the vibes and have a good time when you hit a shit spot.” There’s almost an undertone of longing, a forlorn way. It’s a love song, O’Connell painting the image of a character not in love with a person, but in love with life. “Lately I’ve been really finding beauty in everything,” he says. “The smallest thing, going to the beach and watching the waves crash, going to the city and looking at buildings. Landscapes: that’s been super inspiring lately.
“I’m really starting to have an appreciation for anything, even slightly beautiful, that appreciation is reflected in the single.”
Beautiful is the word for this single. You can hear a tranquil development in O’Connell’s imagination and a growth in his understanding compared with Down The Line. “With the EP, it was a starting point. I found it pretty comfortable writing about the heartbreak, but now I’m trying to write about things that really inspire me.”
