Irish, born in Dublin, Sam Seale was 12 years old, in 1974, when he bought his first guitar from a neighbour, paid for week after week for several months.

It is in Glenbeigh, Co Kerry, that he received his first week's wage, in 1977, which was spent on a guitar - 5 punts - 1 pair of Levis and the tape of « Bat out of hell »...

...London, Paris, Geneva, are the towns where he started his singer carrier, busking until 1986 when his first record « Things can only get better » was released.

Blacklist, his Swiss group, very nearly made it to fame, the Music Business School, created by Sam Seale so that young artists would not have to face the same heartakes as him, Sam Seale and the many professional musicians who are playing along with him on his gigs...

 

Discover more about his life in his complete biography further down.

 

Since 1986, Sam Seale is regularly playing in Switzerland and abroad for private and public parties, happenings, shows where his talent and his stamina are always welcome.

Go through his website to listen to some of him compositions !

 

Enjoy it and see you soon !!

 

Sam Seale's Biography (October 2009)

 

Sam's youth - in Dublin...

 

Sam Seale was born in Ballyfermot ,Dublin, in 1962.
His musical career started the day he was born. He can remember listening to the radio in the kitchen and singing to his little sister in the pink wooden cot that had served all the family and was  painted blue for the next arrival. He listened to the songs and learnt the words. Later on he had his own little wireless and would listen to Radio Luxemburg under the covers when he was supposed to be asleep. He half bought his guitar when he was about 12. which means he bought it from a neighbour and paid him by the week. It was an Ibanez Strat, which he was really was proud of!  With his mates Gerry and Damo they decided to put a band together. Gerry got a set of drums, Damo got a guitar and an amp and on top of that he got guitar lessons as well.

They called the band The Webb. They all practised on their own to try and master their instrument. Sam had no amp and his Dad managed to hook him up to the old record player in the parlour. At that time Damo and Gerry had a fight and were not talking so the band never got to rehearse. Sam got tired of playing "Don't play your rock and roll to me" so he gave the guitar back and even got his money back too. He thinks it wasn't the neighbour's guitar in the first place to sell. This was the end of his rock career for the moment.

 

 

... and in Glenbeigh

 

His first job was in Glemnbeigh Co Kerry and with his first week's wages he bought a guitar for 5 punts, a pair of Levis and a tape "Bat out of Hell" this was a sign from heaven for him and this is where he was going. He learned to play quite quick and soon was playing with the musicians in Towers and The Glenbeigh Hotel. One day he went to Dublin with a guy he met and bought his first new guitar and then started writing songs. He lived in Glenbeigh for nearly two years which he say's were two wonderful years of his life.

 

London, Paris, Geneva

 

In1979 he went to London and tried busking but the little money he had was soon running out and he was making little to nothing. Next stop was Paris, were strangely he remembers he seemed to fit in quite well and playing in "Le Metro" was very good to him. He played in a spot in St Lazare and when he was finished he would go to a little Bistro called Chez Leon where he still goes and visit's every time he am in Paris. There his change would be transformed into notes and he would be fine till the next day. There were some bad days but those days he would eat onion soup with croutons and cheese and that would fill him up till the next day.

 

On the 11th of May 1981 Francois Mitterrand was elected President of France and it was one of the best street parties he had ever seen. The next day he took the train for Geneva and has lived there ever since.

He soon found a little bar where the Irish students from the hotel business schools would meet and he would play there most nights (the cheapest beer in Geneva at the time) after busking in the old town. One night in the Postionne (It's now become an Irish bar called "The Post Café") in walked Francie Conway and his girlfriend Mona Clover, he asked Sam if he wouldn't mind if he joined in?

 

This was the start of a lifetime friendship between and Sam, Francie and Mona as Mona later became Francie's wife.

 

Francie's career really took off in1982 and Sam became right hand man to a Rock star. The next three years were spent hanging around with Francie and his entourage. Here he met all the people from the trade and a few years later Sam ended working with many of the people he had met during that time.

 

One night when Sam was busking in the Old Town of Geneva a girl asked him to sing "The Streets of London"... she bought him a whiskey and then a second. Her name was Monique and they have been married now for over 20 years; they have two sons Seän and Bryan.

 

That same time Chris White (The Zombies) who was producing Francie at the time, advised Sam to go to England and record a few of his own tracks with a friend of his called John Verity (Argent).This was the end of Sam's busking career.

Sam's first record

 

In the spring of 1986 Sam went to John's studio which was called "Somewhere in Yorkshire" Just outside of Leeds. They had already met in Switzerland the year before at a festival. When they met in Leeds, John asked Sam what he wanted to do and Sam replied he wanted to make a demo of two of his songs. John replied quite seriously "If you want to make a demo, you've come to the wrong place! Here we make Records" So that's what they did.

"Things can only get better" was released by MS Records in the summer of 1986 in Switzerland. It was a fairly successful single which opened new doors for Sam; now he was getting real gigs.

 

News travel fast in the busking world and soon Sam was something of a local hero. The local musicians were all wondering who the band would be. Sam was doing solo gigs and never really thought of this question yet.

 

He played with a band for a while but the only reason was Sam had a record in English. They rehearsed a few times and that was that.

 

At the end of that year Sam was contacted by a guitar player in Geneva who was a big fan of John Verity and was very eager to meet him. Sam is still wondering whetherf he wanted to meet him or John.

 

Having met up, they decided to work together and went over some of Sam's songs and ideas for the album. It sounded great at the time to Sam and it was much more different and exciting from busking.

 

In 1987 they returned to Yorkshire and recorded a few more tracks which was helpful to get more gigs. This duo worked very well and the year later they went once again back to John's and finished the album.

Sam's first album and Blacklist

"Five" was released in1989 and now concerts were next on the list the Sam Seale band was formed. It worked rely well for Sam as all the members played in different bands and were all making albums, but between them all Sam was the only one who spoke English. He wrote two albums for two of the band member's 1991 and1992. At this time Sam had written many songs and the band would play them at gigs. They had a manager at the time and with a Demo they signed with Dino Records for Switzerland, Germany and Austria. They did not want to go under Sam's name so they called the band Blacklist. This was one of the biggest mistakes Sam ever made.

The single "Nightmare" and the album "Blacklist" were released in 1993
"Nightmare" went into the charts in Switzerland and everything seemed to going perfect.
One day Sam got a call from the record company in Germany to ask the band to go to Germany to do a showcase in Dortmund which is in north Germany. Sam was very excited about this and called the other members of the band. None of them would follow with excuses like it's very far, I can't get of work etc.............
Sam went to Dortmund and came back with a broken dream but worse of all a broken contract. That was the end of Blacklist. Sam thinks now the name was very appropriate.

This was a big blow for Sam's career which meant going back to playing by him self in much smaller gigs and much smaller finance. He still managed to get over a hundred gigs a year. He played with different people depending on the money but the blow from Blacklist haunted him for a long time. As the saying goes. "Out off all bad something good will come"

 

The Music Business School

 

In the spring of 1997, Sam went to visit "The Rock College" in Ballyfermot  with his old friend Francie who teaches there  Ballyfermot it Sam's childhood area and what he discovered there stayed in his head.

Sam wrote down all the things that went wrong with his career and with the careers of other musicians he had met over the years, he took a course in management and everything seemed clear.

 

He wrote a course called "Music Management: all you need to know about the music business" .Within three  months, on June 31st, 1997, Sam was opening his "The Music Business School" in Nyon Switzerland, where he's been living for over 20 years.

 

Sam had finally got rid of his demons!

 

More albums

 

Around that time, Sam had become very active and after going out with one of his old friends, John Woolloff, for a drink, Sam was talking about making a new album. John suggested they do it together which they did. The album "Wigan Pier", which includes a song co-written with his brother Dermot and a song from Kevin Flynn which he has played over the years, came out in 1998 and Sam was back on stage with "The Sam Seale Band" .

He played in festivals and concerts, this time with professional musicians only. He was also busy writing songs, organising a festival with his students, playing in California; he wrote the words of the album "Cambodia" from Bonny B., a former student of the Music Business School!

 

Over the years when playing solo or duo, he was playing lots of Irish music and as songwriters do, he had written enough material to make an Irish album; he had also met a few musicians who played Irish music, one of his students at the time was David O'Doherthy a now famous Irish Violin player.

 

The other musicians were Christine Regard on Violin and Jacque Van der Val on any thing you can blow into or hit, who is still playing with Sam today. They recorded an album called "Story's" in January 2000, which was the first album Sam produced. The songs from the album and the band are still going strong today.

 

His next record recorded in 2002 was titled "Arthur Guinness"; it was the official record for "The Guinness Irish Festival" in Switzerland. In addition to the band, they were now joined by BigDave Unitt on Badhrän and Pascal Schlatter (one of Sam's students) on guitar and backing vocals.

In 2003 Sam wrote four more lyrics for Bonny B's second album, including the title track
"If This Is Life".

The band was now joined by a second violinist , Hélène Conrad and a live DVD was recorded featuring the whole group and LittleDave on Bass (one of Sam's students) and Frank Engler on Drums.

 

In 2006 Sam put  "Like the Wind" on stage, a musical he had written some time ago ; it was only played once but Sam was very proud and his mother and sisters came to see the show all the way from Dublin and London.

Sam says "It was written, it was ready and one day somebody would put put it on stage.... I did!"

 

In 2008 Sam released a compilation of his songs called "Play It Again Sam".

 

He returned to Ireland in 2009 and performed his very first concert in Ballyfermot, his childhood area,  accompanied by Jacque Van der Val and Francie Conway.

 

March 2011: Sam's latest album "Fairy Tales" is released, a pure product of rock&roll, produced in close collaboration with avec Lucien Granges. Their first concert, with drummer Olivier Quinche and bass player Pascal Schlatter is taking place on March 17th, 2011 (St-Patrick's Day) at Dublin's Old Irish Pub in the Chaux-de-Fonds.

 

The title "Dublin's Irish Pub" has been specifically written for this famous pub in the Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.