What It’s Worth is the third single of alt indie rocker Sam Himself’s upcoming debut album Power Ballads, due out in October. The new release follows album singles Nothing Like the Night and Cry.
Sam Himself – Swiss-born, Brooklyn-based ‘Fondue Western’ baritone and Swiss Music Awards 2021 nominee – was on tour in Europe when the pandemic broke out early last year. Unable to return to New York City, his chosen home of the past decade, Sam set up shop in his native Basel, Switzerland, where he wrote and recorded most of the ten tracks on his full-length debut during lockdown.
Sam’s exile-at-home lasted just under a year – and inspired some unexpected reckonings with the past, according to the artist:
“My own history caught up with me during my time back in Switzerland. That’s where I grew up, and living there again brought back a lot of memories; home doesn’t forget… One ghost I kept running into was an old relationship that fell apart after I lost my dad a few years ago. All of that happened in my hometown, his death and all its casualties, and What It’s Worth is about one of them.”
Sam started recording the songs on his first album in Switzerland, at various locations ranging from a studio he gradually built out during the pandemic to the attic of his mom’s house in Basel. When he was finally able to return to New York in early 2021, Sam finalized the LP together with his ‘Second Beatle’, producer and mixing engineer Daniel Schlett (Iggy Pop; The War on Drugs) at Strange Weather Studio in Brooklyn. The pair most recently joined forces for last year’s acclaimed EP Slow Drugs (2020), which – in addition to international press, radio airplay, multiple DSP editorial features plus six figure view counts for the accompanying music videos – earned the artist a Swiss Music Award nomination in his home country in early 2021. All songs on Sam Himself’s upcoming debut album were mastered by Greg Calbi (David Bowie; Bruce Springsteen).
Stream ‘What It’s Worth’ here: https://samhimself.lnk.to/WhatItsWorth