Lifted from the forthcoming new EP
‘Are We There Yet?’
Announced as a member of the Ivors Academy Youth Council
Following on from the success of his previously shared single ‘The Kids Are Alright’, which landed on Spotify editorial playlists Fresh & Chill, Pop Right Now and New Music Friday in the UK, Germany and Switzerland; Apple Music’s New Music Daily in eleven countries, and named Record Of The Week on BBC Radio Shropshire, British singer and songwriter Sam Johnson has now returned to unveil the new acoustic video for his newest offering ‘Peter Pan’.
Lifted from his forthcoming new EP ‘Are We There Yet?’, ‘Peter Pan’ follows largely in the footsteps of ‘The Kids Are Alright’ with its broad and atmospheric tones. This new acoustic rendition of the single aims to highlight the warm and enticing persona that Johnson breathes into everything he produces. Recorded on a pedalo in London’s Dulwich Park, the singer’s wistful prose can be heard over a buoyant display of birds and animals living their lives around him.
Speaking about his new video, he said, “We had a bit of a laugh making this video. It was a pretty hot day in London and the idea was to get a video of me performing Peter Pan on one of the pedalos in Dulwich Park pond, but as luck would have it the park ranger had closed up shop a little earlier than expected. So after lots of umming and arring, Isy (the photographer) and I jumped over one of the fences and hopped in one of the boats that was chained to the edge of the pond when no one was looking. We had to do it in one take as we weren’t really meant to be there. I nearly fell in, and Isy nearly got attacked by a swan but I think we still managed to capture something really beautiful.”
Taken from Sam’s forthcoming EP, his latest collection is set to see him grow more as an artist and a human being throughout. “I create characters influenced by what I see around me,” he says. “A lot of the lyrics are touchstones of my childhood, and where I grew up… and the people that I grew up around.”
Earlier this week Sam Johnson was announced as a member of the Ivors Academy Youth Council. The newly formed Youth Council is made up of sixteen young creators from the Academy’s Youth Network, acting as an advisory group, which will form a central role in shaping the future of the Academy. The Academy’s Youth Network, which was established last autumn, is a growing and connected community of young creators and a hub of partnerships with Universities, Colleges and other non-academic organisations. The Network aims to empower and educate young songwriters and composers of all genres, and provide a platform at the Academy to voice views on music industry issues.
A driven and relentlessly ambitious artist, Sam Johnson’s story also owes a debt to chance. Fate dealt him an unusual card when Kevin Shields – My Bloody Valentine auteur – crossed his path, taking the fledgling talent into the studio for the very first time. “That was a real moment for me… that developed my backbone. It made me want to have that element of legacy. And he made me realise that it could be done.”
A country boy lost in the big city, Sam’s music has taken him from a rural setting to the London metropolis, but he’s driven by an extraordinary sense of purpose. ‘Are We There Yet?’ is a tightly bound EP, one where each passage speaks to the next. Overseen by My Riot at RAK Studios, the production is left deliberately raw, almost unfinished, so that the songs “could breathe, without over-cluttering it too much”.
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