After 10 years of relentless touring with Skinny Lister, Sam Brace finally arrived home after his final international run supporting The Interrupters across Canada and North America in November 2019. There was one thought in his mind - it’s time to do something solo. But, how to do it? Little known to him, Covid 19 was about to strike and provide the perfect opportunity to begin experimenting. As lockdown 1 commenced, an old friend (Adam Tarry, who had been in bands with Sam at school), got in touch out of the blue with a video of himself playing a Longpigs track on guitar. Sam replied with a short vid of an old track they had written together years earlier and a conversation began that would lead to the bones of first single, ‘Panic’ being sent from Ad to Sam. After some days playing with the idea, the final song was built and a new songwriting partnership was born.

Over the following months, Sam and Adam continued to collaborate and a full 11 track album entitled Fever & Bones was released in 2022. Since then, the world changed again, Sam relocated to Thessaloniki, Greece and also went through some health struggles which has kept him from being as active as he would have liked since album 1 was released. But, he’s back and fitter than ever with a brand new 4-track EP and live band set for launch in Autumn 2024.

Sam’s new solo direction is a departure from the folk punk sound that Skinny Lister are known for – “We set up Skinny Lister after the death of our first serious guitar based indie band, The Alps. I’d been going to a folk club which was conveniently located next door to my house-share in Greenwich in a pub called The Cricketers. I’d been amazed at the feeling and power of a pub full of (mostly drunk) people all singing sea shanties together and was really keen to try and recreate the vibe in the music we were making at the time, from these drunken nights, Skinny Lister was born”. There’s also a pretty neat video on the Greenwich Greentrad session which you can find on YouTube here.

“Although I loved going to the folk club and getting involved with the music, it wasn’t my natural home, I’ve always loved rock n’ roll, indie and alternative rock music and this has never changed throughout my life. I grew up on David Bowie, Kate Bush, The Beatles, Queen and Guns N’ Roses, I’ve always been wanting to get back to doing music a little closer to my heart and I’m so stoked that we’ve finally managed to make it happen! And I’m indebted to my old friend, Ad for making me get off my arse and actually try to write something for the first time in years.”

Sam Brace has toured with Skinny Lister all over the world as a headline act and also supporting artists such as Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, Chuck Ragan and Boy George as well as playing major international music festivals such as Glastonbury, Warped Tour (USA), Asigiri Jam (Japan), Reeperbahn (Germany), Greenfield (Switzerland), Hurricane/Southside (Germany), Download (UK and France), Reading and Leeds (UK), Latitude (UK), Kendall Calling (UK), SXSW (USA), Bestival (UK) and many many more. 

Sam has done one US tour as a solo artist reinterpreting the first solo album for just acoustic guitar and vox which took place in February 2023 taking in 8 dates on the West Coast of the USA from San Francisco, California then down south through Las Vegas to Dallas, Texas. Since then, Sam has had to take a breather but he will be back, this time with a full band from Autumn 2024.

The forthcoming 4 tracks will be released digitally one at a time on Elusive Music forming an EP that will be released on Vinyl later in 2024. Sam feels that We Go High, Collide, Diesel and Graceless are the best tracks he has yet produced and is excited to take them (as well as album 1) out on the road in 2025. The new EP was also mixed and produced by Sam with mastering duties performed by album 1 producer, Ed Ripley at Rare Tone Studios in UK.