Samuel Wilbur is a thoughtful musician and natural teacher who brings life lessons to song with great humor and a fantastic sound. His latest album, The Age, will release January 12 and the release show is January 18 at The Icehouse.
Please tell us more about you and your music. You are prolific and each album as a distinct sound.
My name is Samuel Wilbur, I’m a high school Social Studies and Journalism teacher at North High School in Minneapolis (Go Polars!) I am addicted to writing music, it’s my favorite thing in the world to do. There is something so magical about creating something new, and when an idea or melody clicks, it is so satisfying to try and figure out the rest of the puzzle required to finish the song. Each year I record and release a new full length album and try to do/say something different each time. The Age is my 9th full length release, and it is definitely my most intimate and stripped down. With many of my previous albums, songs were more electronic and electric, and I wanted to write an album where every song could also stand alone with just an acoustic guitar. I am very inspired by Wilco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis, so this year I leaned more heavily into the indie folk/indie country more than I ever had before, and it was really fun to play around with a new genre and all the color palettes that come with it.
With all my albums, I write and record everything, playing all the instruments in my little home office/studio. This album I was lucky enough to get Bob Beahen and Sam Hall to come in and record drums because drumming is a language I just can’t really speak. The sound of this album turned out so great because Matt Patrick at the Library Recording Studio in Minneapolis mixed and mastered it, and he is such a talent at knowing what a song needs, and really helped me shape how each song fits into place. For me, writing music is a super therapeutic exercise, and helps me process what is going on in my life and in the world. It’s always exciting when the message or the theme of the song reveals itself when I’m in kind of in a flow state and just singing whatever words come out of my mouth. As far as prolific goes, I just put in my time, it’s my complete passion, so I work at it like a full time job, and when I pick up a guitar or sit down at the piano, some germination of some new idea eventually comes out if you’re patient enough, and that’s all you need to hit the ground running on the next song. I’ve already got more than enough songs for the next two albums recorded, and I can’t wait for people to hear the next chapters!
The Age is a reflective album – thinking about what’s happened and what’s ahead. What was the inspiration for reflection or have you been storing up observations and thoughts?
I think we go through stages where we feel “old” during different parts of our life. I remember being 25 and feeling “old” because the college days were over and my peers were getting real jobs, it felt like a transitional time into adulthood. I am 38 now and this last year was another time where I felt “old” as many of my friends were having their 2nd and 3rd kids while at the same time some of the people I had grown up with had tragically passed away. It made me reflect on how fragile and meaningful our existence truly is. “The Age” is a reference to the modern age that we are living in and the age at which I am living through it. I I tend to get most inspired by things that frustrate me, Living in a world with so much wealth inequality and political/corporate corruption and greed, it feels like we are living in a world designed to keep us down, so I feel a lot of angst at the powers that be, because our world has enough resources to take care of everyone, yet the rich keep getting richer at every living thing’s expense, including our planet. Many of the songs are about our climate crisis that goes largely ignored, our never ending funding of the military industrial complex, while funds for social safety nets are constantly cut. Sometimes it can be too much to look at all the negative and cruel things happening in our world, so in a song like South Carolina, I have to remind myself to keep my head up, don’t let the world take away one ounce of your hope, because we need hope to live in this world. And there is a lot of hope on the Album, I got married this last June and A Promise and Home are all about meeting my wife and the concept of starting a life together with someone new. And then sometimes you just get inspired by the weather, the song Seasons is all about the magical feeling you get in Minnesota when the first nice weather day happens as spring approaches. The snow melts, the streets flood, there is a feeling in the air that has so much hope of things to come, especially after a long Minnesota winter.
Karen is a great song with a video that makes it even better. Did you have anyone or any particular incident in mind when you wrote it? How fun was it to make the video?
I had definitely seen some viral Karen videos this year that really blew me away. I think Review culture like Yelp, really made some people feel absolutely entitled, like they were owed to be treated as if they were at a 5 star resort everywhere they go. So often in the videos the “Karen” seems to be a suburban Mom yelling at someone who is probably one of their own child’s age, but they are completely divorced from the humanity it takes to see anyone in the service industry as a human being. Also, I just thought a “Karen” was such a great villain for a song, because I think everyone knows someone who might have their “Karen” moments. The video shoot was a lot of fun, I bought a “Karen” wig online, and my wife had a lot of fun trying to tap into her inner “Karen.” As soon as she put on the wig, she transformed lol.
Another great video/song is Good on Paper. You fit so many good lines, transmit so much information couched in great music. Seems like a perfect alignment of teaching and song writing. How often do those worlds collide for you – in song or in the classroom?
Good on Paper was a really fun song to write. Each verse addresses a different issue our world is facing, the climate crisis, corporate greed, the ineptitude of our politicians, while the Chorus talks about finding happiness with someone and “trying to mitigate harm” basically, finding happiness when their can be so much sadness all around us, and at the very least, we can all try not to cause harm, because it feels like we have so little control of how to fix these issues, at the very least I want to make sure I am not doing anything to cause greater harm. The Director of the video, Will Prescott, came up with the idea for the scene in the classroom and I think it fits so well, because when you’re a kid you also feel like you don’t have much control or autonomy of what you experience, and what you can do about it, and the concept of young love is such a hopeful feeling that I think it resonates so great with the message of the song.
Please tell us about your upcoming show at the Icehouse.
January 18th is going to be an incredible night of live music in Minneapolis! I am so lucky to play with such an allstar band filled with talent: On Guitar Nate Knutson (The Gated Community), Matt Patrick on Bass (Fathom Lane), Hope Hooks on Violin (Fairy Boat), an incredible singer/songwriter, Bryn Battani on Keys, and Bob Beahen (the touring drum tech for Jenny Lewis) on drums. We will be playing the whole album top to bottom joined by all the special guests who lent their voices to the project. Plus we’ll be joined by my two favorite Minnesota Bands, Kiernan and full catholic, who put on such a powerful and intimate live show. Plus, the Icehouse is my absolute favorite place in the twin cities to see live music. Music starts at 8pm and tickets are on sale now on the Icehouse Website.
Mostly Minnesota 