Sam MacPherson has a one track mind. Currently it’s on an American Dream Trajectory, inching closer and closer to the release of his debut album.

Barreling down the Jersey Shore, straight through the backroads of Nashville, and into a small room on the English Seaside (odd in its similarity to the very place where he first found music) MacPherson found that it was time. Time to turn off the gas of his life, and harness it into telling his story.

His story, made up of call outs that any Jersey Shore resident could pick out of a haystack, needed to be told right. All of it was terrifying: the time he allowed himself to take, the truth on every page of every draft of every song and the way he let himself disappear into the process.

“I said I was going to take a year off of releasing music, but then it became I'm just gonna take as long as it takes to make an album. That was really scary and terrifying because it feels like you put your phone down for a little bit, and you don't really exist to the world,” explained MacPherson on balancing album promotion with album creation.

MacPherson wanted to do everything right though, and there was only one person that he could think of while making the project. So, he did the one thing every person in their 20’s (or any age, let’s be honest) can collectively agree is the worst thing ever: he put his hopes and dreams in a cold email.

“Physically, I feel like I'm always perpetually moving back to New Jersey since late 2020, and I feel like the music I've been making has also been just moving back towards where I'm from and like the music that is the reason why a lot of people know that place,” details MacPherson. “I've always wanted to make that kind of music, I just didn't really understand how to do it through my own lens. So when I was like, ‘All right, it's time to write my first album’ I wanted the Springsteen thing, the energy, I wanted the end.”

Crowned “The Bruce Springsteen of the U.K.,” Sam Fender has dominated the charts over the last decade, backed by producer Thom Lewis. Fender’s bright guitars and powerful brass sections are a light in modern music – for MacPherson, Fender’s sound feels like being home.

Luckily, original demos of summer singles “August Always” and “I’m Not From Anywhere Else” caught Lewis’ eyes while scrolling through his inbox, and his ears a short while later.

“My manager pretty much cold emailed him and he [Lewis] was like, ‘Hey man, I love the songs. I love the new stuff Sam has out, but I don't really see how I would fit into the equation,’” but MacPherson fought for himself, his vision so close within his grasp. “So my manager wrote back and said, ‘No, you have to listen to the new songs, like the album songs.’”

And Lewis did.

“[Lewis] wrote back saying ‘This is insane.’”

So, a few short months later, MacPherson moved to New Castle, England. 4,400 miles from where he resides in Nashville, he felt closer to home than he had in years.

“ It's a mirror image of Asbury Park, New Jersey minus like 50 years. It's a small fishing town on the beach. It's working class people,” MacPherson said, staring off across my shoulder, not quite tearing up at the memory. “Geez.”

While he could find little slices of home everywhere he went, and harnessed them into the project, he certainly couldn’t find a good bagel everywhere he went. Alas, he survived, and pulled inspiration from the other Jersey greats (that weren’t necessarily the best ball of dough you’ve ever had) to come out the other side with a project that he’s still tweaking, because it’s the most him, most special, most perfectly imperfect thing he’s ever created.

On the last single of the album, the heartfelt thesis of the same name, he sings of the false-spring February black-out any resident of the northeast dreads for eleven months of the year, heading west to escape a broken heart and donning the hard shell you build when the salty shore winds whip you day after day – when you no longer need to.

Thrilled, terrified and honored we help Sam announce:

Sam MacPherson’s debut album American Dream Trajectory is out May 9.

This isn’t the last you’ll see of us and MacPherson – catch Pt. 2 of Tour Talks and our coverage of his April 19 NYC show on our website and Instagram.