When country roads and backyard stages blend, you get the heartfelt tales of Sam Grow. This episode takes you behind the curtains of Sam's acoustic tour that spun 87 shows out of pandemic restrictions, embracing the warmth of intimate fan encounters and sewing new threads into the fabric of his songwriting journey. Sam brings a piece of Maryland wherever he goes, but it's his candid reflections on shows past and the buzz for his upcoming gig at the Lost Horizon that showcase the true resilience of music in bringing joy through tough times.
Cruise with us down the memory lane of life's serendipitous turns, where a 2022 Ford Bronco on North Carolina's beaches and the transition from a van to a tour bus symbolize the milestones of musical evolution. Sam spills the beans on his dynamic partnership with his manager Brad, sharing how a bond forged in the independent scene became the cornerstone of his success. As we anticipate featuring Sam's tunes on 92.1 Inner Harbor Cast, we're reminded that ten years of grinding gears in the music industry can indeed lead to the limelight—and a mean plate of local chicken wings.
Thanks for listening! Follow us at youtube.com/c/skiphappens
When country roads and backyard stages blend, you get the heartfelt tales of Sam Grow. This episode takes you behind the curtains of Sam's acoustic tour that spun 87 shows out of pandemic restrictions, embracing the warmth of intimate fan encounters and sewing new threads into the fabric of his songwriting journey. Sam brings a piece of Maryland wherever he goes, but it's his candid reflections on shows past and the buzz for his upcoming gig at the Lost Horizon that showcase the true resilience of music in bringing joy through tough times.
Cruise with us down the memory lane of life's serendipitous turns, where a 2022 Ford Bronco on North Carolina's beaches and the transition from a van to a tour bus symbolize the milestones of musical evolution. Sam spills the beans on his dynamic partnership with his manager Brad, sharing how a bond forged in the independent scene became the cornerstone of his success. As we anticipate featuring Sam's tunes on 92.1 Inner Harbor Cast, we're reminded that ten years of grinding gears in the music industry can indeed lead to the limelight—and a mean plate of local chicken wings.
Thanks for listening! Follow us at youtube.com/c/skiphappens
Hello there everybody. It's Skip Clark. It is the Inner Harbor Cast 92.1, the Wolf. Thank you for tuning in and watching a great show. If you're watching this before the 6th of January, this is the guy you're going to see at the Lost Horizon. A lot of talk about Sam Grow and Sam thank you so much for joining us today. It's so good to see you, man. Man, good to see you too.
Sam Grow:Thank you for having me Skip. I appreciate you very, very much.
Skip Clark:Yeah, right back at you. Where is home for you? You say you're just outside Nashville, but before growing up you're from the Northeast right.
Sam Grow:Yeah, so I was born in Maryland and raised in a little town called Winfield, kansas, and then my dad. He took a job. My dad was a lineman. He worked on power lines across the country and when I was about 12, he Hurricane Isabel, came up the east coast and ripped up a bunch of power lines. So my dad retook a job in Maryland. So we moved back and I lived there for a little while and then I've been in Nashville for almost 10 years now.
Skip Clark:You know, they say it's a 10 year town. Yeah, this could be it, dude, from your lips to God. I love it. Hey. So have you been through there at Syracuse at all? Have you been through here?
Sam Grow:I have, I have and I love it. You know, the funny thing is, man is the first time I came to Syracuse and, like the upstate New York area, I was on tour with Kelly Pickler. I was terrified because I didn't think anybody in New York was going to be into country music at all. So I was riding, riding and they're going to hate me. For sure They'll like her because at least she's pretty.
Sam Grow:But you know, and and we got there and I had never seen more camo in my entire life and it's just some of the greatest people in upstate New York, so now we go there as much as we can.
Skip Clark:That's. That's so cool. We did a show with Kelly a while ago. I don't think you're on the bill, though a lot of years ago. I remember that very well. I'll have to look at my pictures when we get off here. But yeah, definitely some good stuff. So you're coming to town this weekend and you're going to be rocking out a place they call the Lost Horizon. Yeah, tell us, tell us a little bit about your show.
Sam Grow:You know. So we started doing this thing in 2020. When they tried to take our jobs away, I stayed at home. I was a good boy. I stayed at home and listened for about the 45 day measure that they first put out, and I shot every gun I owned and caught every fish that I wanted to catch in my pond. It was glorious while there, and then I got super bored.
Sam Grow:So in 2020, I looked up all the state regulations and even in like the really strict northeast states, you could still have 10 people over in your backyard to hang out. So I called my manager and I was like hey, man, I'm going to go and play at people's houses. And he laughed and he was like you just got, we just got off of our bus tour and all that. And he goes, you're going to pull your tour bus up to people's houses. And I was like, no, that would look ridiculous. I'd look like I like I'm remodeling homes or something. I said I'm just going to drive my truck. I don't think anybody is going to want to book that, he said, but if they do, I'm happy to help you. And so I did what any grown man would do and posted a Facebook status and posted the status and within four hours I had 33 shows in 17 states and he asked how many I wanted to book and I said all of them.
Sam Grow:So in 2020, we played 87 shows from California all the way back across the east coast, all acoustic, all in people's backyards, and it was one of like the most enjoyable times I've had in my career. So then, when things started to open back up the people, it's a waiting list and we would sell out, thank you, lord. And so when people wouldn't be able to have us come and play acoustic at their house, they were like will you please just bring in play a few public shows? So then in 2021, we started doing these acoustic public shows and selling them out. People wanted to come and see that kind of vibe. So now every year at the first of the year, it's just me and my guitar player and we travel around and play acoustic. I tell all the stories of the songs and play the songs intimate and really create a connection with.
Skip Clark:You know what? You proved them wrong by going to the, you know, doing that tour and hitting up the backyards. And you're not the only artist that has done that, and they said they loved every bit of it. We had Just throw a name on Drew Baldridge Very good friend, he, he did the same thing, he goes. We had him here for a show about a month ago a couple of months ago now and he was like you know, I've been here before. I played in a town called Tully. I played in backyards. I'm good, are you kidding me? Because now I've been all through here? He did the exact same thing.
Sam Grow:Yeah, it's an amazing experience and it it does create Different kind of friendship and connection with the people who already listened to your music. I mean, we're already blessed and the fact that people allow our music to be in their life, every day life and then to be able to be welcomed into their actual homes and Learn about their family and meet their friends and learn all their stories. It as a songwriter, it's amazing because we get to kind of I get to draw inspiration from all that and then the, the travel and just the reconnecture. I really feel like I have Hundreds of friends across the country now that you know. I know on a personal level.
Skip Clark:So you write all of your songs correct. I do that you perform is something that Sam grow is written.
Sam Grow:Yes, I do have some outside two outside cuts that I've in my career and it was my very, very good friends that pitched it, and the current song that we're working right now is called Loretta and that by my my buddy, johnny Gates. He read it by himself and the minute I heard the hook I was Personally attached to it and I was lucky enough he let me record it.
Skip Clark:Yeah now, that's a tribute to Loretta Lynn, if I'm not mistaken.
Sam Grow:Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I definitely tip of the hat to her. And yeah, never heard anybody describe heartbreak like that before you know. Johnny's hook in the song you know was I miss you, like the radio misses Loretta Lynn, and I thought, wow, what a beautiful way to describe sadness. You know so I love. Now, luckily it gets to be a part of my career and I can play it every night so selfishly. I'm really pumped that he let me cut that song.
Skip Clark:You've got a new project.
Sam Grow:You're gonna drop it pretty quick here, right and next couple of weeks, january 19th, the brand new album called Avalon Avenue.
Skip Clark:Avalon Avenue. I saw it posted. I'm gonna this is gonna be really good and I was listening to some of the tunes before we went out with the cameras and all that today and it's like wow. He said, why isn't this guy on the radio? But then again I think, well, look at the success that you're having. You're selling out these venues. Why do you think that is Sam?
Sam Grow:I've been so blessed that we live in a World now where people are more curious about new music than I've ever been and there's so many different avenues for people to discover new artists and music and then they become extremely passionate, right that and and that's been my story. You know, people find me by listening to somebody else, you know, and then they find my music and they feel like they've got this little secret, you know, and they share it with their friends and it's just turned into this, this little niche of a club of people who listen to my music. And I've been so blessed to get other opportunities to, you know, go and play, you know, with other artists that again give me an opportunity to share the stage with them and then their friends leave that show, you know, and it's been a, you know, just a little Grind of a club. You know just the underground thing.
Sam Grow:And I've never, I never did music to be Like famous. I never did it to for the glitter. I've always just wanted. My goal, always, my prayer has always been just to be able to make music For a living job. So I've just been happy living in this you know Area now, being able to write songs, put them out and make a great living at it, you know.
Skip Clark:Got a little bit. What are you sitting in right now? Is that a?
Sam Grow:yeah, this is, this is actually my Chevy's in the driveway, but and it's funny because that's the truck I do my backyards and bonfires in but Wives Ford, bronco right now. It's what year? This is a 2022? Sweet. Yeah, it's a nice ride, man. It's the outer banks version and we have said, yes, that the Going to North Carolina every year for a family vacation and we've actually got to test out the sand mode that this thing does and it's, it's pretty sweet, it's pretty yeah, we've done that.
Skip Clark:You get down on the outer banks and you go. You could go up to was the Corolla, yeah, where there's all these homes and the fire department is there and there's humongous beautiful homes, but, yeah, biggest sand and the wild horses and yeah, yeah, that's cool you.
Sam Grow:Normally, if you're just riding in something normal, you have to let a little bit of the air out of the tires to ride out beach. But luckily in this thing you don't. You just pop it in sand mode and it's ready to go, which is pretty sweet, it is sweet.
Skip Clark:You graduated from the I remember the van to the tour bus and that happened a few years ago, which is pretty cool. Now you don't have to worry about taking you know the vehicles on the road or anything like that you got and do you have, like the? Well, is it just you and the tour bus or do you have your guitar player, the rest of the van, my?
Sam Grow:so when we tour acoustics just me and my guitar player and Brad comes along. He, he does. You know he's my my manager, but when we do the acoustic stuff he loves to come out on the road with us and explore Just a lot more freedom. When you're just traveling with a few guys and doing acoustic stuff, you know.
Skip Clark:I've known. I've known Brad for quite a few years and and I'm really high of you as well. Yeah, he's definitely a good guy, a radio guy, and I feel when I talk to artists like you Me being on the other side of it, on the radio side and and I hear of artists that have brought on board I shouldn't say like seasoned radio professionals they get it, they know, they know where to take you, they know what to do, they know how to handle radio because they've been there, as opposed to the opposite.
Sam Grow:So oh man, honestly, that was the most organic relationship that I've ever had in my career. Brad, he he found me on YouTube and playing me, and this was back when I first moved to town, like 2017. He found my music, ripped it off of YouTube, started playing it and I was an independent artist charting in the top 50 because I ranked station and put me in full rotation. So he just took a chance on me when he didn't even know me and we became really good buddies. And then, when the time came that I needed a manager, they were kind of shopping me around to some of the big management in town. Now I was like I don't know these people and you know like yeah.
Sam Grow:If they're picking a phone call, choosing between me or Bradley Gilbert, I sure hope they're gonna pick the phone up for Bradley. They're not. So I know a fence, I love that, but I'd like it to be somebody that you know is kind of a champion, and luckily Brad was. You know, video has had such a shake-up man and he was leaving the station and he was about to go to Boise, idaho. Cuz Brad's kind of one of those guys that whenever stations were doing bad they hire him and then he makes them number one.
Skip Clark:Yeah, yeah, that's what they do.
Sam Grow:So he was getting ready to go and I called him and I was like, Do you really want to go to Boise, Idaho? And he was like no. And I said, and he goes, I don't know anything about management. I was like, sure, just pretend I'm one of your like terrible radio stations and you know, act like that. You know like, Take those terrible stations, figure out a way to make them number one, help me do the same thing. And so he sold his house and he moved down to Tennessee and we've been partners ever since.
Skip Clark:There you go. It's average average Joe's if I'm not mistaken. Correct Back in the day was Montgomery Gentry on average Joe's? I think they were, and I think low cash might have been on average.
Sam Grow:Joe's Yep With Tony Morial behind us. Yes, that's it Tony. Yes, I love Tony too. Everybody loves Tony, good guy.
Skip Clark:Good guy. Sam, how would you describe your music for somebody that doesn't even know who you are, but they're watching this? Or why should they come out and see you and all that? How would you do that?
Sam Grow:Yeah, I'm in. I love country music because of the storytelling. So all my songs possess the storytelling thing. My dad, you know, grew up listening to classic country and also soul music as well. So I, you know, I listened up, grew up listening to that stuff and then also he introduced me to a lot of Southern rock. So I'm a blend of anything a good storytelling song with some rock and roll guitars and a little bit of soul as well. I'm a birth product of that smorgasbord of music that my dad had me listen to.
Skip Clark:So what did you start first? Playing guitar. How old were you? I was.
Sam Grow:I guess 12 or 13 years old was the first time and I actually had to borrow a guitar from a friend and proved that that I was going to put in the work ethic to learn it. My dad's super blue collar spending money was not something that you just did on a whim, so I had to learn some songs and play him some songs and then, after he saw that I was going to be serious with it, he went and bought me a guitar and I started playing in the bars at third Because he would convince the bartenders to let his son come in on off nights and play for tips and that's awesome.
Skip Clark:It's a story that I've heard many times. Yes, what gets you to where you are today? If you weren't doing music, what do you think you'd be doing?
Sam Grow:If I wasn't doing music I'd probably be a lineman. I love watching my dad go and chase power lines and the excitement of a storm and going out there and working, you know, with a team setting, but also it's just a different kind of work and a different kind of adrenaline. I love bucket trucks. I loved being 90 feet in the air. He'd take me up there when I was a kid and raise me up in bucket trucks and I just I love that. So probably that.
Skip Clark:Yeah, I know there is a thrill to that. Not that I was ever in a bucket truck like that, but I was a fireman for a lot of years. Oh, that's a lot. In our plant we had platforms take you up 85, 90 feet.
Sam Grow:Man, thank you for what you did, man, I appreciate it.
Skip Clark:Not doing it now, but I appreciate everybody that is doing it and yes, it was. It was a lot of fun and quite the experience. But getting back to it, it's all about you. This weekend lost horizon, the place is going to be rock and even though it's acoustic, you just look like that guy that's really going to let loose. I mean, I'm looking at the tats, I'm looking at the rings. I mean, dude, so cool.
Sam Grow:Yeah, we try to. We try to make it still very interactive and you know, upbeat it's not me just playing a bunch of sad tunes, you know I I still want everybody to have a good time and enjoy it and interact and that's the best part about these acoustic shows is, I feel like, if I can take a moment and talk to the audience and have them talk back to me, that's, that's part of the fun and the enjoyment of it, you know.
Skip Clark:And I'm sure you've already been told this the more you do that, the more your fan base builds.
Sam Grow:Oh yeah.
Skip Clark:You know you, you establish a relationship with your fans or with the people that are at these shows, and they're never going to forget you.
Sam Grow:Yeah, completely different experience, and it's something that I enjoy much more than the bigger shows. To be honest, when you do the big shows, you don't feel like you get to have that connection with the audience, and and that's what I love and I'm addicted to now of these acoustic shows is just being able to have more of a personal experience with the people who care enough. I'm so blessed that they want to let my music be in their life, so to be able to have a talk to them about that and, you know, hang with them after the show and not be on some tight schedule or be a part of some festival where you get swooped away after two minutes of talking to someone. I just like the freedom that these shows allow.
Skip Clark:I love that. I love that I got to ask how many tattoos? Oh, so many. I only got a couple, I mean, but still.
Sam Grow:I'm leaving on both arms.
Skip Clark:So yeah, that's cool.
Sam Grow:Yeah, it's a lot of tattoos.
Skip Clark:A lot of meaning in those tattoos. One means something for sure. Now, when they did the one on the back of the hand that I can see on the camera, did that hurt because it's so close to the bone?
Sam Grow:Honestly, the hand tats are a little uncomfortable. I'm not going to lie to you. The way after you have them you don't have knuckles for a few days because you're up so much, so it's just you just look like a cankle of a hand, honestly. So that's a little uncomfortable after a while, but man worth it. I love these.
Skip Clark:It looks good, man, it looks good. Something to disagree with us, but I think it looks good. Not a problem, I just have a couple, but yeah.
Sam Grow:Well, the first tattoo I ever got was on my hand, which is this treble clef. Okay, I was in a business class and my teacher told me that if you ever got a tattoo past the collar of a long sleeve shirt, you'd never be able to work in corporate America. Oh please, one of my first tattoos I got was a music note on my hand, so I would never have to work for a court.
Skip Clark:Good thinking, sam. I like it. I like your way of thinking. That's pretty cool, so we're looking forward to seeing you this weekend here in Syracuse. If you watch this between now and Saturday, make sure you get your tickets. It's at the lost horizon. I think tickets were only like $10.
Sam Grow:Last minute ad of a show Okay, cool, anybody here? Lucky that they saw we were up there and they just wanted to throw us on a show. So perfect tickets. You're gonna be a fun night. I'd love to meet some new people, absolutely.
Skip Clark:It's Sam. Grow Sam. Thanks for hanging out in the white Bronco and I don't does. She know you're even in it. She's gonna Wait talking about that. So do you have any kids?
Sam Grow:I do you do, yeah, have a couple of two girls.
Skip Clark:Well, awesome, I have three girls, boy, my daughters are grown and they've given me grandkids, but there's, there's something about having a daughter, that's just. I mean you love them all, don't get me wrong. You know daddy's girl.
Sam Grow:So and there's a different connection between a little girl and a dad. For sure.
Skip Clark:Yeah, you know anybody to mess with daddy's girl.
Sam Grow:That's right.
Skip Clark:And they got somebody to. Yeah, somebody's gonna be paying for it, so that's right. I hear your brother. Hey, I look forward to seeing you on Saturday and do my best to get out to the show. And is Brad coming along?
Sam Grow:Oh yeah, he'll be there you got. I.
Skip Clark:Love it. All right, we'll see you there, sam grow. It's. Cigars and bars is the name of the tour, the acoustic tour cigars and bars. Make sure you check out the music. If somebody wants to check out your music right now, where can they go?
Sam Grow:Anywhere they stream it or listen to it. I'm on all platforms. Wherever they like to hear me, I'm on there.
Skip Clark:You're awesome, sam. It's pleasure talking to you. We've never talked before. I enjoyed this very much. Definitely gonna see you at this weekend and a safe travels to the queues. Dress warm. We haven't had any snow yet Well a couple of inches, but it's really weird when it comes to the weather.
Sam Grow:So I'm coming, man, but I think we're gonna just miss it.
Skip Clark:They said something was coming up the coast.
Sam Grow:I have no idea, but I'll be honest with you I love y'all's chicken wings man. So if I get stuck up there a couple extra days, I'm cool with it.
Skip Clark:You're in the area, I'll get you hooked up for wings. So I'm on. All right, we'll talk. We'll talk when you get here. I love it, my friend. All right, sam, grow things, for joining us on the inner harbor cast. We're 92.1 today. We look forward to a hearing more of your music. Hopefully we can get some of that on the air for you as well. It's gonna be so cool. Like I said in the beginning I believe it was on the podcast it's a ten year town. You've been there ten years, baby. It's your turn.
Sam Grow:It's your time I'm your lips to God. Man, I appreciate it.
Skip Clark:There you go, same girl. Thanks so much. Thank you, brother. Stay right there. All right, dude, I.