A B.C.-based solo rocker has rarely built such a buzz by 21 years of age as Sam Weber. He was the subject of a feature article in Guitar Player Magazine, one of music's periodical bibles, and he was also granted a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music which, after trying it awhile, he gave up for life on the road. Weber decided he wanted to tour the Canadian highway more than sequester himself behind Corinthian columns, stuck on the Massachusetts Turnpike.
He makes his Prince George debut on Wednesday, but he comes in knowing more about the city than the city knows about him.
"Dougal McLean [another rising singer-songwriter] is a good friend of mine and he's from P.G. He says very nice things," said Weber, who gets his first view of a P.G. audience from the stage at Nancy O's.
So, by way of introduction, Weber is primarily a guitar smith, so confident on the instrument that he hardly seems to touch it to coax out its many voices. He's one of those fluid pickers who can trick you into thinking there's more than one player even when he's by himself. Most of his tracks demonstrate his own appetite for the guitar by layering and weaving different acoustic, electric, even lap-steel strands all over the song.
For a guy so attached to his primary instrument, though, he has an affectionate ear for drums. Each track starts anew with a different rhythm profile, the snaps of the skins adding an instrumental quality to the song, instead of being a glorified click track.
And then Weber's voice comes into view. His tone and delivery evoke Roy Orbison, Gerry Rafferty, Ron Sexsmith and David Grey.
He took up the guitar at age 12 out of a sense of rock 'n' roll desire but by his late teens he was rethinking his innermost motivations.
"When I got into playing guitar I listened to a lot of Aerosmith, which had great amazing guitar playing and that was what I was gravitating too, but then I realized what I was really into was the catharsis of those big, powerful, well-written choruses. It took awhile to confess to myself that this was the part I liked the most, and then put that into my own music."
His tunes sound nothing like Aerosmith, but they are loaded in that craftsmanship of songs.
With catchy, lyrically substantial songs like Right-Hearted, August and Burn Out, Weber stakes a claim to his own sound.
"I write all different ways," said Weber. "Some of my more successful songs have come from writing lyrics first, but some have come from clear melodic thoughts that came first. Not to be super clinical, like math is regimented, but it's like a math problem. It has variables, and the more variables that are filled in, the easier [the unwritten song is] to solve."
While some performers thrive at the songwriter's desk, Weber said his strength was taking what he composed and recorded, and bringing it to life for an audience.
"Honestly, it's when that veil between the artist and the song and the performance gets really thin, and the interaction with the audience is truthful and honest," he said, describing his happiest times as a musician. "Live, you can do a lot more to create something for the audience, whereas in the studio you're only appealing to one sense. So in the studio I want to convey as much emotion as you can, thinking forward to when you translate it later into a live performance."
