Sam Johnson releases debut ‘Eastcote EP’ On November 1st through Made Records
Featuring singles ‘Medicine For My Brain’, ‘Stuck Under The Surface’ and ‘Trip On Gold’
Listen to ‘Eastcote EP’ on DSPs and Soundcloud
Sam Johnson releases his debut ‘Eastcote EP’ on November 1st through Made Records. The four-track EP, produced with multi-instrumentalist Elliot James is an accumulation of songs made to overcome the dark pits in life’s path with grand choruses and singalong truths.
Featuring previously released singles, 'Medicine For My Brain' - Track of the Month (August 2019) on BBC Introducing Shropshire - 'Trip On Gold' - co-written with the renowned Irish songwriter Iain Archer, most recent single ‘Stuck Under The Surface’ - as featured on New Music Friday UK - and brand new single ‘Lost In The Mail’. Sam’s music has also received support on BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music and Radio X as well as Spotify New Music Friday playlisting in Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Finland amongst many other playlists and Deezer’s Brand New UK, Radar Weekly.
Growing up near Oswestry on the Welsh border, he started writing songs at fourteen, shaped by what he calls “the inevitable loneliness and desire for companionship of being an only child”. Johnson, whose late father was an architect and whose mother comes from a family of actors, realised early on the importance of creating strong networks of friends. Those relationships, and the more fickle, undesirable kind, are explored in ‘Lost In The Mail’. A song perfect for gathering all your allies around you and wandering out into the world, shouldering what comes your way together - not alone. Listen HERE
Speaking about his debut EP release, Johnson comments, “The Eastcote EP means all sorts of things to me. It’s a product of love, work, and friendship from everyone involved in its creation to everyone I’ve met and bonded with since it’s been heard. Each individual song is a story taken from my life and indelibly thrown out in the world for all to hear. As a result, this EP carves a very personal notch in my wall as an artist and one that I will always have a soft spot for.”
It’s a potent combination: a voice as big as George Ezra, and a sense of emotional resonance that has more in common with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. Sam Johnson’s upcoming debut EP, is the product of a period rather more intense than most people go through in their early twenties: the end of a six year relationship, and the passing away of a beloved father. Far from being a record of sadness, his thoughtful, ebullient debut captures a young man’s growing sense of who he is, vulnerability and all.
And there has arguably been one stroke of luck in Johnson’s song-writing life so far: his accidental pedigree mentor, My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields. After his uncle married Shields’ sister Anne Marie, Sam became a regular at their large, family Christmases in Ireland, and the “super-cerebral” Kevin took him under his wing. “He was instrumental in founding any kind of confidence in me,” says Johnson; each year, the teenager would save up songs to play him on acoustic guitar, and one Christmas, when he was seventeen, Shields took him to the famous Grouse Lodge recording studios in County Westmeath to record a handful of early demos. The songs got traction via the BBC Introducing scheme, and Johnson had his first real sense of focus, “all because Kevin was so kind.”
Eastcote EP track list:
‘Lost In The Mail’
‘Medicine For My Brain’
‘Stuck Under The Surface’
‘Trip On Gold’
‘Eastcote EP’ out November 1st
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