picture by John Daley
Sammy Horner has been in the game nearly 30 years now. His musical stylings are wide and varied from Celtic to Americana to Outlaw Country to Punk Rock to Modern Rock; all of which he seamlessly blends together throughout his large catalog of over 25 albums. His name can easily be mentioned in the same breath as Knott, Mallonee, Taylor, and Roe, as the lyrics, music, and artistry are of that quality. I first became aware of Horner through our mutual friend Masaki Liu as he was about to fly to Scotland to record The Electrics first release on 5 Minute Walk Records. I was a huge fan of the Pogues and was thrilled to hear another band in that vein of that music without sounding like the aforementioned group. I had the pleasure of opening for The Electrics during a short stint I had on bass playing for Masaki’s band Rivulets and Violets, another 5 Minute Walk band. I lost track of Horner somewhere around 1998 and later rediscovered his work around 2005 and was pleased to find an abundance of back catalog and newer releases from Sammy through his websites. He now has a BandCamp page with all of his releases, including rare Electrics albums, all for quality downloads.
Sammy and wife Kylie have formed a new group called the Sweet Sorrows in the realm of Plant and Krauss, Harris and Knopfler, and Bill Mallonee and Muriah Rose. A great blend of male/female vocals over acoustic based Folk with hints of Celtic and Country. Hands down one of my favorite releases of 2013, I recommend you get it ASAP!
I knew little about Horner aside from his music and high praise from our many mutual friends. So join me as I get to know the man, the myth, the legend, Sammy Horner.
Where did you grow up?
Born and raised in Belfast Northern Ireland.
Were you raised going to church or did you become a believer later?
Well it was cultural in Ireland for parents to send their kids to Church.. Sunday school, scouts and stuff f like that, but my family didn’t really go to church… they just kinda had a cultural relationship with it. Ireland is a deeply religious country so I was certainly exposed to certain religious views my whole life. I came to faith, at least as I understand it, at about 16 years old.
What first inspired you to want to play music? How old were you when you started?
My dad played lap steel guitar and loved country music. There was always music in our house, and parties always included people singing. My father wanted me to play but of course, I refused to go to lessons. I hated music at school…the subject was dull, tedious and badly taught. Oddly, even as a kid, I could always pick out the bass lines of songs. I bought my first bass guitar in a bomb damage sale (yes, I said bomb damage). The IRA had blown the local music shop to bits the very day I decided to buy a bass. I arrived shortly after the fire service had put the fire out, walked through the window and asked the guy for a bass…..he gave me a bass, a chord and a strap for 29 UK pounds…I had no idea how to play it. I was 16 years old.
What was your first instrument?
A Kay bass guitar …basically a copy of a Gibson EB4 SG style.
Is bass your weapon of choice (it’s mine for sure)? I learned to play to Dee Dee and CJ Ramone and Kim Deal from the Pixies bass lines when I started. Who are some of your favorite bass players?
It is indeed. I love bass and have a decent collection. I have made some stupid choices, like swapping a Rickenbacker 3000 for a Mando guitar and selling an original Hagstrom for $150…but ain’t that the way of it! I love lots of bass players who are so much better than me. I love how Lemmy from Motorhead kinda plays a rhythm guitar and bass style on his Ricky… Love Mark Robertson… he really is great. Mark King rocked but all the slapping left me a bit cold in the end. Nick Beggs was great and became one of the main guys with a Chapman Stick. Steve Lawson is a solo bassist from the UK… he is amazing… he once told me I was an early influence of his, which was nice, but I am guessing it was when he couldn’t play a note! For me… nothing beats a Fender P bass… it’s simple and always delivers, (at least for what I wanted). I still own two of them but have had a bunch over the years… but I still have my 1975 USA P bass… white, with black scratch plate and rosewood neck… but I have a Mexican made one that I used for touring… airlines are bad to guitars… lost my jazz bass to thieves and swapped my P Bass special (slimmer fast action neck, active and with more pick-ups) for a Musicman Stingray, which I sold ’cause it was too heavy. Right now I own about 10 basses…. mainly for studio work for different sounds You know, five strings, eight strings, acoustic, fretless and so on….
I honestly can’t imagine what it must have been like growing up around organizations like the IRA. We have a lot of shootings in the states, but when a bomb goes off it’s treated as if the world is ending. How does that weigh on you growing up with the possibility of being caught in the crossfire when the actions happen? I would be stressed.
It stresses you for sure. It all began to happen when I was about 10 years old. The tension weighed heavy on me. I had my first nervous breakdown at the age of 11. I was hospitalized and woke up after being unconscious for 3 days. My parents thought I was going to die, and after many tests, the doctors misdiagnosed my blackout as epilepsy. They medicated me for four years and for some reason put me thru Electro shock treatment. Turned out it was stress…. but I ended up misusing the meds and in the end I was worse off than before. It’s weird tho… I remember nights when I would wish shooting / bombing would stop just so I could get to sleep. It is odd how quickly people adapt to what is happening around them… you either choose to get on with life of never leave your home. I honestly believe both faith and music helped me a lot… once I got that first bass, I got myself in a band within 3 months and hit the road in Ireland. It changed everything for me.
Do bombings still happen like the one in the music shop?
Bombings are less frequent now days, things are better, but it still ain’t over
I always feel that high school is the time when our taste in music really starts to develop, who were your favorite bands back then?
I agree… although I hated school and left as soon as I could. I was raised on great country music that my dad loved. I still love Patsy Cline, Les Paul, Ernie Ford and Jim Reeves. My sisters loved Elvis and Cliff Richard and lots of the old school rock n’ roll, and of course the Beatles but I was lucky to be exposed to the likes of Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen and Rory Gallagher. Glam rock got BIG back then. I loved it in my teens… mainly British bands like The Sweet, Slade, Alvin Stardust, Mott The Hoople, ELO, T Rex, and more… I guess I loved a lot of music… oddly I never got exposed to Irish traditional music until I was about 17 or so… a guy called Rodney Cordner got me into it… it became very influential in my own work.
Were the Electrics your first band?
Nope….. I played bass in a country band called ‘Crystal River’, when I was 16… Then was the bassist for a rock band called ‘Infrapenny’. The Electrics formed out of that band…
Did Infrapenny record anything? Did it have a similar vibe to The Electrics?
Infrapenny was a band put together to do a charity show… it was the singer’s band really. It was more pop rock I guess… we did make a Cassette LP, self-financed and kinda self-produced. I think we only played about 30 shows in 3 years, and it wasn’t very Celtic. However, Paul Baird was the guitarist, and it was he and I that started the Electrics when Infrapenny folded. We had good times, but it wasn’t a serious band. No tours of anything like that.
What year did the Electrics form? How did you meet?
1988… Paul Baird (guitar player) and I had been in a band called Infrapenny… when it split, we hit the studio with 6 new songs. We recruited Davie McArthur on Drums and Allan Hewitt on Piano, sax and accordion… we had all known each other for a while. We never expected it to last for long… but good things happen when good buddies form a band… those guys have been my best friends and supporters to this day… great guys.
Did your band have knowledge of what was going on in America with, what I call underground Christian acts like Daniel Amos, 77’s, the Choir, etc?
Well we met guys like Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong on European tours. We played at a lot of festivals together and became good mates. Derri sang backing vox on one of our albums…. what we didn’t understand was the subculture… it all seemed very strange to us.
Did you want to tap into that market or was that something that happened on its own?
Honestly, we never had any plan… we always got offered record deals, first in The UK, then Germany, then the USA… it just sort of happened… each deal spread the word about the band. At one point I was making 3 albums a year for different record companies… solo stuff plus band stuff. It was busy but very inspiring and creatively satisfying. We started out playing university gigs, bars and some tours in the UK… within months we were touring in Portugal, Spain and France… within a few years we were being offered shows all over the world… incredible really for a bunch of friends who just liked playing music together. I don’t think there was ever a time when one of us didn’t say ‘Can you believe this? People are paying our flights, hotel rooms and food AND paying us to play.’ We were always thankful for the chance we got.
When did you first tour the States?
We played Cornerstone festival in 93… it wasn’t really a tour… we played a couple of shows in Chicago and the festival… that was it.
How did the 5 Minute Walk deal come about? How was your experience with the label?
picture by Beth Raich
We were playing at a festival in Germany and Frank Tate, the 5 MW president saw us. We had just finished a deal with our German label and he asked if we would be interested in signing. We thought, ‘why not?’ It was that simple. As for what I think of it. I am still not sure. The USA was something of a culture shock for us. We didn’t get the heavily policed sub-culture. In Europe it was nothing to see people smoking and having a beer at a festival. It was normal. We weren’t a bunch of kids and couldn’t believe the issues surrounding alcohol etc… I mean…really? I am not suggesting that you need to go do those things, but I am suggesting that you need to make up your own mind on it. I know of bands that lost deals because their record label heard they had been drinking beer. We were Irish and Scots… you get what I am saying? It all seemed weird. Of course, if we were playing to young people we were never going to tell ‘em to hit the bar and get hammered, but people need to know that life choice and how we see a life of faith is open to lots of paths… it cannot just be one narrow point of view that controls us all. Anyway, the years with 5MW have allowed me to continue to play. It helped open a fan base in the USA and I am thankful for that…it was mixed feelings for us as a band, but good things came from it.
Are The Electrics on hiatus or broken up?
We never got round to breaking up… and we still get to play some folk festivals and get invites to play around Europe. It’s a bit tougher now that I am located in Canada, but the guys still play on my albums… they are the best!
Man… I was sick and tired. My health was suffering, my mental health was spiraling and I felt I was finished. I was broke and low (It was only about a year later until I actually tried to take my own life). I just sort of whimpered a prayer, as best I could. I said, ‘I will play anywhere I am asked, for anyone, anytime!’ I started to write and decided to try to record. I swore that I would let anyone play on the record, no matter who they were or what kind of mess their life was in. It was strange, but people started asking if they could play on it. People who were recovering addicts, drunks, broken relationship issues, people with deep intimacy issues, depressed, lonely, hurting people. I happened to be doing some shows in San Francisco and my dear friend Masaki offered to record some tracks for me. I told him I had no money, but he said we’d figure it out. I had already recorded some tracks in Scotland and Ireland, but we did another 5 in Saki’s studio. The day we finished recording I got a call from a guy who had been thinking about me. He told me that he felt that whatever I was doing right now was important and that he wanted to pay for it… all of it… it was amazing. A lot of people love that album.
That brings us to the present and your latest project the Sweet Sorrows. I’m really, really, enjoying that album! Can you tell us about the project, how it came about, recording process, etc?
Well my wife Kylie and I moved to Canada a few years ago. She had been a nurse her whole life but wanted a change, and her visa here in Canada didn’t permit her to work. She had sung in cover bands and some church worship bands in her time, she has a sweet voice. We thought we might as well write and do some studio work and that was it really. Her voice works pretty well with my gravelly vocals (it sounds like I smoke two packs a day, but I don’t). I didn’t want it to be a Sammy Horner album, and tried to keep it rootsy without being a full tilt Celtic project. You never know how people will respond to a new thing, but our first USA worked well, we have played some Canadian shows, in Jan 2014 we will do a tour in Australia, next March we are looking at a USA tour ‘down south’, April will take us on a UK tour and May we hope to play in Germany and Romania. Not bad for a new project that no one has heard of! Working on a new Sweet Sorrows album called Can’ticles, Love songs for the not so perfect. Studio work is a bit trickier with your wife… but unlike the drummer, you can kiss her when she sings well…
Are you touring the house show circuit?
We have done house shows and would love to do more…we haven’t played in California yet! But we got to play festivals, bars, coffee shops, churches, community halls and more on our last tour.
Where can people find the Sweet Sorrows and other releases of yours?
It’s all on BandCamp including all my past releases… http://sammyhorner.bandcamp.com/album/it-all-belongs
And for other merch like our page and message us @ https://www.facebook.com/TheSweetSorrows
Any final thoughts?
Yeah… I am thankful that people are still interested in our music….that, more than anything makes it all worthwhile. Thank you!
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