Sam Morrow’s music has been described in any number of ways, with any number of words employed to explain his wide-ranging mix of influences and inspirations. A press release refers to his “groove-driven country-fried funky-tonk sound,” and Rolling Stone said that Morrow’s records “demand to be played loud at parties.”
Most artists hate it when they are asked to characterize their music, and that is understandable. But with a buildup like that, I have to. “Well, I try not to describe it,” Morrow answers politely. (Yep, I was right). “If someone asks me, I will typically just say, ‘Rock and roll, Southern rock, a little bit of country.’ I leave putting it in a box to the listener, I guess. I’m not really intentional with what kind of music it is. I like what I like, and I make what I make. I’m sort of selfish in that way, I think.”
Morrow’s new album, On the Ride Here, makes good on all that and a lot more. Multiple influences from a variety of genres make appearances, but the musical conjunctions are not awkward. On the contrary, everything hangs together naturally, making for a fun and easy listen.
Not surprisingly, Morrow is happy with the new record. “I think it represents everything that I’ve gathered in the last ten years I’ve been touring,” he says. “I’ve learned a lot about myself and about music in general. I try to make records that represent who I am and what I want to hear at that time. It just represents a conglomeration of where I’m at right now.”
As has been the case with most musicians, COVID threw a bit of a monkey wrench into Morrow’s artistic process. “During the pandemic, I thought, ‘Oh, cool, I can just stay home and play guitar and write songs.’ Then, after a month and a half or two months, I said, ‘Screw this, I want to play with people. I’m sick of just playing by myself.’”
“There’s no one right way to write a song. I didn’t know that for a long time. I thought that writing a song was sitting in your bedroom, it had to be nighttime, you have a candle lit, you have your guitar. I thought it had to be a very personal thing. And what I’ve learned is that that’s bullshit.”
One way of getting around the problem – and a method that Morrow continues to employ – is to have the drummer in his band send him recordings of various beats. “I really like going about writing like that,” Morrow says. “It helps me capture a style, and it also expands my mind to different melodies when I have different grooves. Otherwise, you’re just sitting there with an acoustic guitar, and sometimes it gets a little stagnant.
“Any writer should try different methods,” he continues. “There’s no one right way to write a song. I didn’t know that for a long time. I thought that writing a song was sitting in your bedroom, it had to be nighttime, you have a candle lit, you have your guitar. I thought it had to be a very personal thing. And what I’ve learned is that that’s bullshit. Often times, I’ll write a song in the shower.”
Morrow grew up in Champion Forest (he’s a graduate of Concordia Lutheran High School), but spent 12 years in Los Angeles building his music career. However, he moved back to the Houston area within the past year. “I’ve been trying to make my way back here for a while. I was sick of L.A. I was in a relationship, and that relationship ended, so it seemed like a good time to finally head back. I couldn’t be happier to be back here,” Morrow says, with an Astros cap atop his head.
There is a rock and roll tradition of musicians (e.g. the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Gram Parsons) spending time in the Joshua Tree area of California, communing with the desert under the influence of eleven herbs and spices. A standout track from On the Ride Here is “Searching for Paradise,” in which the narrator makes a Joshua Tree pilgrimage, described thusly: “Howlin’ like a coyote / Drinking 190 proof / I ate too much peyote / And threw up on my boots.”
Autobiographical?
“That’s sort of my story,” Morrow replies. “Vaguely, more or less. There are some exaggerations, artistic liberties taken. The real story is that I was sober by the time I got to California, but it sounds cooler for me to be running around California throwing up on my boots. There’s all these people doing ayahuasca retreats these days, and they tend to not tell you the nasty parts beforehand.”
Watching videos for some of Morrow’s songs (“Quick Fix,” “Money Ain’t a Thing”), it seems that Morrow has a bit of a winking, wiseass, subversive streak. “I have trouble taking anything seriously,” Morrow confirms. “I think it took me a while to figure that out, that everything’s not serious. My first record, three or four years after I got sober, it was just sad bastard folk music. And I like that kind of stuff, but that’s not who I am. When I’m making music, the things I like the most are the things that I laugh at. That’s what’s important to me. Not just in music, but in life. Not to take stuff so seriously. Because life sucks if you do!”
Sam Morrow will celebrate the release of his album On the Ride Here with a show on Friday, April 12, 8:30 p.m. at the Dosey Doe Big Barn, 25911 Interstate 45 in the Woodlands. For more information, call 281-367-3774 or visit DoseyDoeTickets.com. $24.
For more information on Sam Morrow, visit SamMorrowMusic.com.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
