Rockzeit havde mandag d. 13 april en meget lang snak med den britiske guitarist Sam Wood. Vi har oplevet ham i Danmark på Jailbreak I 2023, hvor han sprang til for at hjælpe Saxon, i det Brian Tatler var blevet syg.
I år oplevede vi ham igen, hvor han sprang til for at hjælpe Uriah Heep, da Mick Box, deres guitarist var blevet indlagt, og derfor var blevet forhindret i at spille.
Sam Wood er så meget mere end det, og vi var blevet nysgerrige efter at få en snak med ham, ikke blot om Saxon og Uriah Heep, men også om hans egen karriere.
Det blev til en snak om hans karriere, hans bands, gamle biler, danske Søren Andersen, som han er en stor beundrer af. Det blev til en snak om hans forældre, om Robert Plant og meget andet. Det var en stor fornøjelse at tale med Sam Wood. Man mærker meget tydeligt hvor ydmyg og venlig en person han er. En person der ikke tager noget for givet, og er dybt taknemmelig for at lave det han gør.
Et stort uddrag af samtalen får I her:
RZ: Hi Sam. Thank you so much for taking your time to talk to us!
SW: Thank you so much for the invitation.
RZ: First, when did you realize that you wanted to go with the music and make that your living?
SW: Oh well, I think that was pretty obvious. I got my first guitar when I was about twelve, and I just loved it. I have always been a huge fan of rock music, and my dad took me to see bands all the time. I felt like the next step was to me learning to play something. I played pauker drums for a bit, and played a bit of bass guitar, but then my dad bought me my actual guitar …. and that was it. And I was thinking, ahh okay, I loved it. I must have been fourteen or fifthteen when I knew this is what I’m doing, this is my life. I think you know, it feels more like a calling than anything else. I just feel incredible lucky to be in a position where I get to do it.
RZ: It’s a tough business, there is a lot of musicians….
SW: It is, it is. A lot of musicians don’t get to do it, don’t get the lucky break. There are thousands of guitarists out there that are fantastic musicians, that could wipe the floor with me as a player, but sometimes, if luck doesn’t come your way. It’s about being at the right place at the right time. I was down to luck, and I feel very fortunate to have had a few lucky moments in my life. It’s absolutely amazing.
RZ: Who are your influences?
SW: For me mostly, this will be no big surprise given the band I’m in …..Thin Lizzy was my biggest influence. I’m a huge glam rock fan, so David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust. I’ve got Mick Ronson on the wall (Sam is pointing at a nice looking pic on the wall behind him). He is a huge influence of mine. I have always loved UFO….Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads, his guitarplayer, who had a huge influence on me. And all that british new wave and heavy metal that came along. I was brought up on my dad’s record collection basicly. that was it, and everything he was listening to when he was a teenager, that was sort of what I was listening to, and this was obviously before we had the internet, so when I was looking for things to listen to, or looking for things to learn on the guitar, everything was already there. He had his records, and I just put them on listening to them, going….ohhh like that, and like that, and before you know it, you’re into the same music as your dad, just thirty years later.
RZ: Right, you are quite young, and it seems that the music you’re playing, feels quite older.
SW: Yeah, that has always been the music that I’ve been drawn towards. It’s all my dad’s fault really ….ha ha.
RZ: So your dad is proud?!
SW: Oh yeah, I think so…ha ha.
RZ: You graduated from the music conservatory in 2010….
SW: Right, well I grew up in London, and then when I was eighteen, I went to music college. The one I went to was in Leeds back in Yorkshire, which is were I’ve stayed ever since I really love it here. There probably would have been a lot more opportunities back in London, for me as musician, but by the time I graduated, I was in a couple of bands. It was those people I was in bands with, that went on to be the people that I was in bands with later on, so a lot of it has come from being up here.
RZ: Well you have to be where it feels the best…..
SW: That’s it, oh when you say 2010, that was sixteen years ago! That feels impossible …..ha ha!
RZ: You have achieved quite a lot since then….I think.
SW: Ohh thank you, thank you. It has more been good luck than anything else, but thank you.
RZ: It seems, that you have a lot of balls up the air at the same time….
SW: That’s the one thing, you have to. I always say yes to things, if an opportunity comes along, I say yes, and then later work out how I’m going to do it….ha ha.
Because you have to. You have to say yes. If people know, that you are someone that says yes, they will come to you. There are hundreds of thousands of fantastic guitarists out there, but if you can be someone that is free, available and willing to put the work into learning their songs or whatever you need to do, go on the road for a month. That offer, I find it more important. It’s about being available and being up front. As long as you show up and not completely ruin everything….ha ha.
RZ: What excites you the most about playing music and especially the guitar?
SW: Playing live I think. For me….well, I love playing the guitar. I quite like songwriting, but I’ve never found that to be my outlet if that makes sense. I’ve always preferred playing guitar than creating songs. For me the ultimate is being on stage, going to do what it is that you do, that to me has always been the most exciting.
I love being in the studio, and there are a lot of people where the studio is the most exciting, creating something, and I get that, but for me the excitement, I mean I love the time you spend on stage, but those two minutes before you go on. And you can feel, that the lights has gone down, and the music has started. I don’t get nervous, but I do feel that adrenaline, and it is such a wonderful feeling, and I’ve gotta go out there and in an hour and a half, do the thing I love to do the most in the world. That sure is such an exciting feeling, and it never goes away, doesn’t matter what you do, it never goes away .
RZ: One of your early bands The Treason Kings… During a recording you meet producer Toby Jepson, and that same person later on, asked you to become a member of his band.
SW: Absolutely, it’s all about who you know. Being at the right place at the right time. That was Wayward Sons, and we’ve been going on now since 2016, so that’s ten years now.
Yeah, Toby was producing two EP’s for Treason Kings, my old band, and when we were in the studio together, I kept saying…if you ever need a guitarist let me know. ‘Cause you gotta try. Yeah, and then one day, maybe six months later, he phoned me up, completely unexpected, just rang me up in the afternoon, saying, I’m doing a solo album, and I would like for you to play guitar on it, if you would like that. So I said, oh yeah of cause I would. I will absolutely love to, and then we started to send some song ideas around, and then we all got in the room together. We had a couple of rehearsals, and it just felt so good playing with each other. You know, sometimes five brilliant musicians can get in the room together, and not quite connect, and for no reason, nobody is doing anything wrong, but with this, it just instantly clicked. It felt like we were all coming from the same point of view musically. It was such great fun, so it very quickly went from being Toby’s solo album, to be a band, that we all wanted to be a part of, and that was how that Wayward Sons came about, which was lovely, that Toby was happy, and happy for us to be a band, and not just his solo project.
And then we’ve been doing that ever since. Which is wonderful.
RZ: Right, and Wayward Sons have actually been supporting Saxon.
Was that how you got to know Saxon, and why they called you to fill in for Brian Tatlor at Jailbreak in Denmark in 2023?
SW: It might have helped. We were supporting Saxon on a tour in 2018, and I really got along well with them, but Toby has produced an album for them, so he knows them really, really well. That was partly how we got on the tour I think. The other link, by the point that I got asked to do the Saxon gig, I was already playing in Black Star Riders, and our manager was also manager for Saxon at the time, so that is really how I got the gig. It was only this one concert, so I meet up with them only an hour before the gig, because they had a festival in Sweden the night before, with Brian Tatlor. So I meet up with them just before the gig. I sat in the dressingroom and went through a couple of the endings. Going straight on stage. What an incredible feeling that was…..ha ha!
I remember, that the first song that we did in the set was, Carpe Diem. It doesn’t start with a solo, but the first guitarsolo in it was mine. Everything else just cuts out, so it is just the guitar, and I think the drums playing, but everything else cuts out, and I was sort of getting used to how it feels on stage and everything, so I went up to the front of the stage to do my solo, and I could feel my legs shaking. I was so nervous!
After two songs I think, I relaxed thinking, okay, we are here doing this. You are just gonna tell yourself: You know the songs, so that’s okay, ’cause I had around three months to learn it, so that was a good amount of time to go through it.
Saxon is a Yorkshire band, and Paul Quinn only lives about thirty minutes from me, so I’ve come to his house and had a couple of days with him, showing me all the parts properly
RZ: That wasn’t quite the case with Uriah Heep was it?
SW: Nooooo …..ha ha! It was very different with Uriah Heep.
RZ: Seventy two hours. How did you do that?
SW: Well, I don’t know, it is as if you are cornered, you just have to do it. Uriah Heep’s manager rang me up on Thursday night and said; We have got a bit of a problem. Uriah Heep is on a Scandinavian tour and Mick Box is ill, he is at the hospital, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to make the first week. They fly out on Tuesday. Do you think you can do it?
Ha ha, I thought well…..you can’t say no. I can’t say no to that. What a fantastic opportunity. I just went, yeah I’ll do it. I’m very lucky here, when I’m not on the road playing music, I have a classic car business. Basically, I work for myself, and if I get an opportunity like that, I can just say yes. I don’t need to check with work, I’m not letting anyone down. The only problem is, if I am meant to be on tour with somebody else. That would be the only problem.
RZ: Don’t you get stressed? I mean, Uriah Heep is a fifty year old band with an extensive back catalogue. How did you get to learn it in only seventy-two hours?
SW: Well, they sent me the setlist , so I knew what the setlist was going to be. The only Uriah Heep songs I know how to play, are those fourteen songs on the setlist, that’s it, I don’t know a second more ….ha ha!
I didn’t have time obviously. Now I had to start at the top of the setlist and just work my way down. I didn’t do anything else for three days at all!
I just sat and learned the songs, listening to the songs, probably twelve hours a day…make it ten hours a day.
RZ: I’ll tell you, that we were impressed, and in some of the Danish reviews, you made headlines. One even wrote, that you were Uriah Heeps new guitarist.
SW: Oh, it was amazing. I couldn’t believe it! Above anything else, it was an honor to be trusted to go and do that. That really meant something. You know, Mick Box is obviously the only original member. Bernie and Phil have both been in the band for forty years, so they have been there for a long time. Russell and David, they have been there for twenty years each. Everyone has been in the band for a long time, but Mick is the founding member. I think he only missed two gigs in 1971, but that has been it. That was the only time he didn’t play a Uriah Heep gig. So I had the pressure learning the songs, but as this was their farewell tour, I also had the pressure of … you know as for me, if there was a band that I absolutely loved, and I always think of Thin Lizzy, If I had to go and see Thin Lizzy, and knowing that Scott Gorham was gonna be there as a guitarist, if I found out, in the last minute, that he wasn’t gonna be there, and some young kid, that I’d never heard of, was going to be taking his place, I would be a bit disappointed. I was really worried that it was going to be disappointing to a lot of people that Mick wasn’t there.
There were lots of people though, that was so kind about it, and I think ultimately people want to hear the music, don’t they?! They want to go and have a good time.
Obviously they would wish that Mick was there, and I totally get that, but also he is seventy-eight, people understand and respect that, and I think the fact that the band were still able to play, and weren’t canceling , I think that meant, in it’s own way, meant more to people,….almost. I know that they would rather have had Mick there, but I think we gave it a good shot.
I loved it, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
RZ: Back to your bands. In 2022 you did a few concerts with Black Star Riders, and later the same year, you became a member of the band, which is sort of Thin Lizzy’s “littlebrother”.
SW: Yeah right, Well I had a few concerts just with Ricky Warwick, the singer. But you are right, I did start with Black Star Riders I November 2022. I had been playing with Ricky in The Fighting Hearts in the summer of 2022, That for me,… I was almost more nervous for that than everything that came later, ’cause that was the next step up .
RZ: ‘Cause that was “your” band, Thin Lizzy’s “little brother”?
SW: Yeah, exactly, exactly! Obviously I’m a huge Thin Lizzy fan, but when Black Star Riders first came out 2013, I was only twenty-four then, and I loooved it. I was a massive fan of Black Star Riders, and I thought Thin Lizzy from the modern days, great, and I never thought I would be in a band so closely related to Thin Lizzy, and actually being in Black Star Riders, a band I’ve been a fan of in nearly ten years anyways.
RZ: In September you are going on a tour around Europe?
SW: Yes, September, October. I think Germany, Belgium. Holland, Poland, Prague, France.
RZ: But not Denmark ?
SW: Yeah well, the thing is, I think it would make sense. I know everyone would want to, if we could make it work. The trouble is just to making it work Actually, it’s such a big undertaking to make a tour to line up, but yeah, if it is possible. You know, I don’t think anyone would say no, but my feeling is, probably not this year, but who knows. I would love to.
We are gonna have the trunck, we have all the gear, everything. It would make sense. We are gonna be in Germany, so we would only have to go up to Denmark. It’s quick and easy right!
RZ: Your band, The Dead Collective?
SW: Ahhh yes, we are on tour this thursday. We have got the first rehearsal tomorrow tuesday, and the first gig is on Thursday. So that is just U.K. for now. That is gonna be for the next three weeks which we are looking forward to.
RZ: When did the band The Dead Collective form?
SW: I think that was in 2022 as well, maybe in the end of 2021, when we first started. No, it was 2022. Again, this is very, very different musically. It’s a lot more modern than the things I use to play, or the bands I’m usually associated with, but it is great really, great fun, and it is nice to put a totally different head on for it. Does that make sense?
You have to think totally differently, because it’s a very modern way of doing it, with a totally different show. It is the only time I have ever played with a laptop and things happening, that aren’t actually on the stage. It’s different and very exciting, and I think that for me, because I’ve spent so long thinking bands shouldn’t use a laptop, a band should be a band, all people playing together, and that is the thing. I had that mindset for so long, and actually in a certain way I still do, but it all depends on how you use it. If you use a laptop to trick people, I think that, that is no good. If you are pretending that everything that the audience is seeing is what they are hearing, but it isn’t, I don’t agree with that. But we are a band with three people, there is a lot of stuff that you are hearing, that clearly isn’t being played by us, but this is how we want the songs to sound for you, but you are still getting two live guitarists, a live drummer, live vocals, and if it is used in that way, that makes sense to me. You are not tricking the audience, you are seeing us live, but we want the songs as good as they sounds. It’s not like we’re replacing the vocals, nobody is miming or anything like that. We are all playing live, but there is more stuff happening.
RZ: Well, you can do what you like, as long as you don’t lose your soul.
SW: Exactly, exactly, and as said, it’s the three of us playing live. Enjoying that. That’s why it works I think, and that was how it made sense in my head, that we should be doing it with a laptop and everything. I know a lot of people would be completely against the idea of either being in a band that uses it, or seeing a band that is using it, but I think the reality is now, that so many bands do use it. It’s just a different way of thinking about it I suppose.
I enjoy it in such a totally different way. This is a totally different challenge.
RZ: You are playing in three different bands. The chemistry, is that the same in all the bands?
SW: Ohh yeah. I have been SO lucky that every single band I’ve been in probably, the chemistry has been wonderfull. Everyone has always got on perfectly, everyone has, you know, understood each other. Even when I started in Wayward Sons, it was Toby’s project. He had put it together, and I thought he is gonna want to tell me what to play and I’ll do that, but from day one he said: I’ve got all you guys here, because I like what you do, so I’ll just play these songs, or listen to these songs or whatever, and I just want you to play whatever you want to play. You are the guitarplayer, which is so nice freeing, to have that understanding. You are not being told what to do. You are allowed to be free and do the thing that you want to do. And on a personal level, yeah, the chemistry with everyone as individuals. That is the most important thing.
If you are on tour for three weeks, you are only on stage for an hour and a half in the evening. You know, there is a lot of time that you will have to be spending together.
Decisions that has to be made. No matter what level, you need to get on. You spend a lot of time together. You need to get on. You need to enjoy each others’ company. It doesn’t work if you don’t, that’s why a lot of bands fall apart I think, they are not getting on..
I’m feeling very, very lucky, that I’ve only been put in bands with nice guys…..ha ha.
Even with Black Star Riders, when I was coming in, I haven’t done an album with them yet, so we are obviously doing old material, and Rickey and Scott on the first day said, oh yeah, you shouldn’t try to copy what has come before. It’s a real sense of freedom.
I feel so lucky, that I’ve always been given that freedom in the bands that I’ve been in, to be myself. It’s a rare thing to be let loose like that ….ha ha.
RZ: When you play with bands like Saxon or Uriah Heep, do you get sort of the same freedom, or do you try to imitate?
SW: It’s a different thing when you play in bands like that. With SAXON I really tried to play everything as exactly as I could. There are these solos, and as a guitarist, and as a listener, who also is playing guitar, these solos are just as important to me as the lyrics are, so I think that you have to do what you can, to be as close as you can.
With Uriah Heep obviously I didn’t have the time to be able to learn everything, I just didn’t have the time, but I think what you have to do is to be respectful of Mick’s playing. I couldn’t copy it. It’s a very different band, a very different guitar style. I think it would have been a bit strange if I had copied what Mick did. In most of the solos I’m trying to take the main idea of what he has done, and be respectful of it, but also do it sort of my own way.
That feels like the right thing to do for the Uriah Heep shows.
The things I’ve learned guitar from, my playing style is naturally what I go for, it fits in classic rock world, so it works with a band like Uriah Heep.
If it was a heavier band, a metally band, maybe my natural style wouldn’t have fitted quite as well. Does that make sense?
So with Uriah Heep, I was able to do my own thing, and it may have been a bit more fitting than with Saxon, I don’t know.
It feels quite comfortably to play songs in that style, which was lucky….ha ha.
RZ: That might have been why they chose you….
SW: Well, I hope so. The other thing I gotta say is….thank God for YouTube! ‘Cause I was able to go on youTube and find exactly how they played that song on their last tour in October last year, and I found five different variations of it, and I could go and find out exactly how it starts, how it has been changed, what the guitarist is doing, or what the guitarist should be doing.
RZ: And you were able to remember it all?
SW: Well, as much as I could, I was playing guitar for between ten and twelve hours for those three days….. ha ha before I flew out. I learned as much as I could, the rest of it. You just have to do what you can, but what an honor , what an honor. That was how I approached that. To be respectful, but not copy.
There is a friend of mine, who is a really big Uriah Heep fan. Mick Box is very theatrical the way he performs. He always has got a lot of hand gesture, and things going, which always has been a part of Uriah Heep’s….thing. And the friend of mine asked, oh are you gonna do Mick’s hand-thing. I was like absolutely not, I’m in enough trouble playing the guitar. That would have been crossing a line. Weird and not right at all, that would go from, this guy is filling in and trying the best to be Mick Box. That wouldn’t have been good, that’s kind of why I didn’t exactly copy his guitar playing,
I think it was close enough, and from a respectful distance, I think. That was what I was aiming for….ha ha!
RZ: Personally, do you have any future projects, besides your three bands, and your cover band?
SW: Well, I also have a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. Obviously, it’s a completely different challenge, but it’s just four of my friends. We have been playing together for, maybe fifteen years now. We started as an original band, but it became this, and I just love it!
I absolutely love doing it and the songs are great. We haven’t made it to Denmark yet, but we did some festivals in Sweden. We did flew out of Denmark, so we have been to Denmark, we just never played there..
If we can make that happen, we would love to get over there.
RZ: You write music as well?
SW: Oh yeah, yeah. With Wayward Sons, is the only band that I really write with. I’m hoping that there will be another album to come, with writing, with the Waywards Sons as a starting point, Toby Jepson, he is a fantastic songwriter, and so very often he will come with an idea, it might be a full song, or it might be some cords and a line he has got, but everything that we produce as a band, we’ve created the four of us, we work together, which is how I love to do it. When you start to see a song come alive, you might have gone through a couple of different variations, it starts to go one way, then it goes another way, you find a way that totally works, and you feel the spark in the room when it works. That is a very exciting part of making music.
I’m not much of a songwriter. All the great singers that I know and work with, they kind of have a little book, and they’re scribbling things down all the time.
RZ: So kind of leave it to them?
SM: Yeah, for the most part. Yeah, I’ve always got a few songs on the go, but I’m never in any rush to do anything with them, maybe one day I will. I love doing that, I’m really happy playing the guitar, and I love being the guitarist in a band. I love doing that, and I feel that if we are to play to our strength, that is what I’m strongest at.
RZ: And with your three bands, and your cover band, you are fully occupied!
SW: Yes I am, I am busy ….ha ha! And when I’m not doing that, I’m working on old cars. That keeps me busy as well.
RZ: I’ve seen that, what is it about old cars?
SW: Yeah, there is something, I think that attracts musicians old cars as well. I don’t know. I’ve got a warehouse. I love them! I’ve always owned classic cars, so that was how I got into it, and I needed a way of making a living when I wasn’t on the road. I ended up buying one, and I sold it for a few hundred punds more than I’d paid, so I thought…. oh, okay maybe there is something in this. As time has gone on it has become a business, and it has become a way to keep the roof over my head, and keep me fed and happy when I’m not making music. Again, I feel very, very lucky with every aspect of my life.
I know very well, that everyone doesn’t get that. I feel generally greatful for what ever powers in the universe that let me do that.
RZ: Well you found your path early in life. Some finds it later in life….
SW: Yeah, you are right. I knew exactly what I wanted to do from the age of fourteen or fifteen , so I think that has kind of kept me on track.
RZ: And I feel, that your parents supported you?
SW: Oh my dad and my mom both were very helpful and supporting. I couldn’t have done it without them. And generally their encouragement. They both knew, that this was what I loved doing, and what I really wanted to do. They have absolutely supported me a hundred percent. That is really why I’m here doing this. I will always be very grateful to them, that they didn’t force me to get a proper job….ha ha.
All the good luck and fortune comes later, that you need to be at the right place at the right time.
RZ: And I bet your father will always be grateful, of all the concerts he can go to.
SW: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah,…ha ha!
He saw Uriah Heep, and had a great time.
With Wayward Sons, my mom used to do the merch. We lost my mom a few years ago. My dad still does the merch when we are out playing. He loves it! He gets to come to all the gigs, he gets to know everyone, everyone knows him as Sam’s dad….ha ha ha, it’s wonderful. Yeah, I’m so lucky with all that. How great is that, being on the road with your dad.
RZ: Well Sam, I will thank you so much for this long talk!
SW: Thank you so much for this, It has been so wonderful!
