After completing his first headlining tour in May, singer-songwriter Sam MacPherson now brings his authentic lyrics and soothing sound as an opener for Jeremy Zucker’s Is Nothing Sacred? Tour. Ahead of his Oct. 26 show at Emo’s Austin, The Daily Texan sat down with MacPherson to talk about his recent EP Powerlines and upcoming shows.
The Daily Texan: Having recently toured and now opening for Jeremy Zucker, what is your favorite part of performing for so many different audiences?
Sam MacPherson: The fact that every show is different is really exciting and going into each night and feeling like it’s a brand new experience that you can’t fully prepare yourself for until you’re on stage.
DT: In your song “Play Dumb,” you talk about knowing the end of love is coming yet wanting to ignore it. Can you talk about the dichotomy that inspired this song?
SM: It’s a strange place to be in a relationship where you can kind of see the expiration date already. That song is really about seeing how long you can go without addressing the reality in front of you, which is pertinent to love and relationships but also to life and hard choices that we have to make.
DT: Is there a song off your latest EP Powerlines you identify with the most right now?
SM: There’s a song called “Stretch” because it’s about stepping outside of your comfort zone. Either consciously or unknowingly (it’s about) arriving at a new point in your life and being in awe of what is possible in terms of my own capacity, my own relationship to other people (and) my career. It’s a fun idea of “How nice would it be if this went better than I even thought was possible?”
DT: Your songs are very personal and honest to your experiences. During the writing process, how do you balance personal and relatable elements in your lyrics?
SM: I’m very cognizant of if a song lyric relates to the greater mission statement of the song. As long as it checks the box that it’s, one, true to me and, two, serves the song then that’s how I go about vetting lyrics.
DT: You often post acoustic versions of your songs to your YouTube channel. What inspires these versions?
SM: I’m very rarely on a stage without a guitar or an instrument. It’s very natural to me. It’s how the songs were born. I really appreciate the behind-the-curtain look at a song or the most visceral, from the heart performance of a song with just an acoustic guitar. I try to also give songs that I write a chance to live in that world as well.
DT: What can listeners expect from you in the future? What are some stories you’re excited to tell?
SM: I’m working on my first full-length album, which will be exciting. I’m interested right now in balancing any type of darkness and heaviness that might be involved in any of the songs with a type of hopefulness. There are a lot of classic songs that I love that are not all the way dark and are not all the way light, but they kind of touch on every corner of the room.
