SAM MacPHERSON
“I’ve reached a point where the only thing that I can make music-wise is music that sounds like me,” says Jersey-born singer-songwriter Sam MacPherson, who released his debut album, American Dream Trajectory, in May, and will perform his fourth annual holiday show at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park on Dec. 27.
MacPherson was born in Red Bank, and raised there by a musical family. But it wasn’t until 2015, his freshman year in college, that he picked up an instrument for the first time as a form of escapism from his new environment. “I found myself playing music and trying to learn how to play guitar and piano and sing as kind of just a decompression from a lot of new information — a new environment, new people and new friends,” says MacPherson.
Within a year, he dedicated his life to songwriting and playing music. He started revisiting memories of watching his father — Sam MacPherson, who has sometimes performed under the name Zeke Moffit — write songs, or listening to him play at gigs. It made him move from passive listening to analyzing music in a new way.
“I had a different view and a different perspective about and through music because of him, and I saw music through the lens that he saw it,” says MacPherson. “I was thinking about the songs and I was infatuated with parts of the songs.”
SAM MacPHERSON
Inspired by The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke and John Mayer’s live album Where the Light Is, he began experimenting with songwriting, learning to draw inspiration from things without copying them exactly. After years of practice and experimentation, he believes he has found his signature sound.
“I think it sounds like driving down Ocean Avenue in Monmouth County at the end of a long summer, when everything is winding down and people are looking inward again,” he says. “It’s a big part of New Jersey culture, and it feels very lyrical and song-centered.”
He aimed to convey the visceral feeling of living in Jersey on American Dream Trajectory. The 13-track record was written over the course of a year, in styles including indie, Americana and classic rock. It was recorded live at a studio in Asbury Park, with MacPherson’s best friends playing in the band, and producer Tom Lewis mixing.
The album’s title is derived from a line in the chorus of the title track, which explores the impact that small interactions can have on a person’s life. “It talks about how the smallest movement off of the path that you think you’re destined for — which happens by someone pushing you or a breakup or a loss or a new job or a new source of happiness … can shift, by a matter of just a few degrees or drastically, the course and the arc of your life.”
The album aims to capture the feeling of growing up on the East Coast, showcasing how the changing seasons mimic the progression through different phases of life. One of MacPherson’s favorite tracks, “Whatever You Are” (listen below), is meant to express why it is so hard to leave his home state and why he always feel called back to it.
The cover of Sam MacPherson’s album, “American Dream Trajectory.”
“Young or old, we’re all in the dark/Come back here, whatever you are/Saint or psycho, the sum of broken parts/I’ll still hold you, whatever you are,” MacPherson sings, personifying the state as a nurturing figure, always ready to welcome its citizens back regardless of their circumstances.
“New Jersey gets a bad rap from everyone, everywhere in the country,” says MacPherson. “Even the people who live in New Jersey give it a bad rap. Then they move away and they realize that there’s no place like it in the world, and they move back. It’s like the most classic, common New Jersey human trope.”
MacPherson spread his love for his home state throughout the country on tours with the band HARBOUR in the summer, and with Ruston Kelly in the fall, playing songs from American Dream Trajectory solo, accompanying himself on electric guitar. Although the album is deeply personal and focused on the unique experiences of living in Jersey, MacPherson has found that others can still connect with his music in ways he didn’t anticipate.
“I’ve found that the further you go inward, the greater the potential to reach people, and I feel like I’ve gone pretty far inward on the album,” says MacPherson. “I’ve seen people connect with those small moments that feel like they’re isolated to me, but are really universal in the feeling and the sentiment and sometimes even the experience itself.”
Sam MacPherson will perform at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. Visit ticketmaster.com.
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