About That Song: Sam Graber Band
About That Song #67
In our special series, singer-songwriter Sarah Morris interviews artists about the songs that shaped them.
Hi! I’m Sarah Morris. I’m wildly in love with songs and the people who write them. There have been a few songs in my life that have been total gamechangers—songs that made me want to be a songwriter and songs I’ve written that made me feel like I am a songwriter. About That Song is a space where I can learn more about those pivotal songs in other writers’ lives.
For our 67th edition (and our first of 2025!), I was excited to connect with members of the Minneapolis-based Sam Graber Band: Sam Graber (writer, bass, keys and vocals), Marc Partridge (guitar, vocals), and Brian Reidinger (drums, vocals, engineer/producer)! We talked about the music that started Sam’s lifelong desire to create his own songs as well as the making of their new album.
Sam Graber Band. Photo credit: Tony Nelson.
Sarah: Hi Sam Graber! It’s nice to meet you! Congratulations on your new album, Love & Fury! This feels like a perfect excuse to dive in and learn more about your songwriting journey—are you ready? Do you remember the song you heard that made you want to be a songwriter? Tell us about that song.
Sam: Hey Sarah! Thanks so much for having the Sam Graber Band. Really appreciate the opportunity to talk songwriting with you, as you’re one of the renowned writers around town. Appreciate your kind praise for the Love & Fury album.
I realize this might sound super zany for everyone out there, but I remember the first time I heard the Allegro movement from Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola. I was around 10 years old and being hit by that track was a transformative experience. People use the word cathartic to describe an emotional release or bliss sensation, but it comes from the Greek word for purification. This “song” by Mozart, without words, speaks all the words.
I was so transfixed I had to sit there rewinding the little cassette tape back over and over, pushing my Sony Walkman headphones tighter to make sure I heard every note. Each phrase, each harmony, each voicing, each soaring lift was purification, getting dipped into the river of music and being cleansed by greatness. I wanted to be part of that, to be able to write in such a way that it would connect me to our living world of inspiration. Of course, being 10 years old, I sure didn’t know exactly how to do it. Took a while before I could find the right medium and moment to transform desire into action.
Sarah: WOW! a) I’m here for the super zany, always, and b) Mozart! YES! You paint such a vivid scene here, and I’m left with the impression that you were quite the 10-year-old, Sam Graber! Once you began writing, did you feel like a writer immediately? It took me years of writing before I believed it myself. Was there a song that gave you that “a-HA! I AM a songwriter!” moment? Tell us about that song.
Sam: So now let’s fast forward to high school.
Sarah: Let’s!
Sam: I had spent a couple of years writing formative rock and jazz stuff, mostly hellacious high school emotionally vapid garbage that you never ever want people to hear because it’s that crude embarrassing slop that we all have to wade through to reach the light bulb moment. Then the terrible event happened.
I was part of a tight-knit music and arts crew and we always hung out after school, and during school, sitting around the piano and hiding in rehearsal rooms when we should have been in class. There were two upperclassmen who always seemed so wise. They had that air of elder royalty. So you went along with their antics and their ideas, hoping to glean a sense of belonging from them.
Sarah: Um, did we go to the same high school?
Sam: Which is why I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of a car while one of them was driving, and the other wanted to car surf. We’re in the high school parking lot and we’re driving the car around in circles while the oldest one, the cool upperclassman with all the power of immortality, was on the car roof, surfing. Until he wasn’t on the roof. We hear screaming. The brakes slam.
It’s still confusing when I reflect back on the sequence of events, especially when I had to testify about it in court, but you can’t forget the image of the body lying in the parking lot, red pooling, screams, people running in different directions getting help, the ambulance, police, gathered crowds, crying, the hospital waiting room with the surgeon telling parents the precarious and critical nature of a tenuous outcome, friends huddled together in the waiting room. There was a lot of blame and anger circulating.
Sitting there, I wrote a song called “Sad Anger.” In the days that followed I played it for friends. Through music there was this raw connection. Even through the lawsuits, and friendships lost, and lives almost lost (the surfer took a long time to recover), I learned that art allows people to grasp a shared prism for perceiving signature moments of life. It made me forever want to be a writer.
Sam Graber Band. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Sarah: Oh my word, Sam—that IS a terrible event. Life-changing. It’s my experience too that music sometimes is the only thing that can help an aching soul make sense of the worst things. It certainly speaks to where your deeply compassionate lyrics might stem from.
Now I have some questions for the Sam Graber Band—hi Marc Partridge and Brian Reidinger, welcome to About That Song!
Your album Love & Fury is filled with songs ready for radio, but you lead with the single, “Higher,” a song you say is “about the upper echelons of human bonding.” With an infectious chorus, you proclaim a series of “maybes” to your listener: Maybe we’ll never get cold, maybe we’ll always have fire, maybe we’ll never grow old, maybe we’ll only grow higher. Can you tell us about that song?
Marc: I respond to aspirational songs. We’ve all been through fractured relationships; we live in a fragmented world. Sometimes you have to leave the past and the present behind. Any relationship endures “maybes”—the uncertainty of each other, our selves, and the future. But why not an optimistic maybe? Perhaps there’s no limit to how far two people can go—transcending the commonplace, leaving the real world far behind, far below. Rise above.
Sam: What Marc said!
Sarah: Why NOT an optimistic maybe! Yes, indeed. The song “Long Long Way” offers comfort to the listener. With a bridge that says “You are not the only one, I promise you, I promise you”—sung by a small chorus of voices—it’s like an extended hand to someone who may feel alone. What can you tell us about that song?
Sam: This song was written for my sister, who’s had a long way to go. She’s made it.
Sarah: Well, that is a beautiful thing.
Brian: From a producer’s standpoint, from the first rehearsal when he presented this song to Mark and me, it was clear to me it had the potential to be a very strong track. The flow of the composition, the meshing of the various parts, and the lush harmonies Sam envisioned all resonated with how I approach recording and mixing.
Sam and I tracked the bass and drums in one or two takes max, top to bottom. No programming, no looping, just a solid rhythm section playing for the song. Those tracks were then sent to Marc to record guitar parts at his home studio. Once those came back, Sam and I headed to my downtown studio (ITG Music Studio A) to track his vocals. As the main songwriter, Sam knew exactly how he wanted to paint his lyrical imagery, which made tracking him an absolute breeze; here again, one or two takes max. All of this went back to my home studio (Studio B) where I added my harmonies, Marc tracked his parts at home and sent those over, and I began to mix.
The mix itself is very straightforward; no big, splashy production tricks, just good sounds that I did my best to find spaces for. When I’d finished, I posted it for the band to review. I also (I always do this) could access that link via my phone in my car; I find this to be a very useful environment to assess a mix I’m working on. After a very few listens, I texted Sam and Marc with my assessment; “I think ‘Long Long Way’ could be our sleeper hit; it’s that good…”
One never actually knows when you’re on the inside, but I had a strong sense that we’d created something that transcended the “Americana pop/rock” territory we'd been quietly laying claim to. “Long Long Way,” to my ears at least, has the depth and compositional strength to garner broader acclaim for the band, and Sam’s songwriting prowess in particular.
Sarah: Brian, I appreciate you peeling back the curtain a bit on how a song that has such a strong personal motivation when it is written can then become this “sleeper hit” via the coming to life in studio.
With this band, and this album, there is a palpable sense of everybody being IN. I imagine that translates to an epically fun stage show! Do you have any upcoming Midwest shows where we might hear you sing that song?
Sam: Heck yeah! Come sing and party with us as we rock all over Minneapolis. The band hits hard. I’m proud of the big sound the three of us deliver. Hope to see you all soon.
Get your tickets for An Evening with Sam Graber Band on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 at the James Ballentine “Uptown” VFW Post 246 in Minneapolis! Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the music starts at 7:30.
Listen to “Long Long Way”
Love & Fury Album Credits
Sam Graber - bass, piano, vocals
Marc Partridge - guitars, vocals
Brian Reidinger - drums, keys, guitars, vocals
all songs written by Sam Graber
produced & engineered by Brian Reidinger
recorded at ITG Music, Minneapolis MN and Studio B, Independence MN
all songs © 2024, published by Reuben Riffs Inc. (ASCAP)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Morris. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Sarah Morris is a superfan of songs and the people who write them, and a believer that certain songs can change your life. A singer-songwriter / mama / bread maker / coffee drinker who recently released her fifth album of original material, she’s been known to joyfully sing with people in her Big Green Bathroom.
