With his third album ‘So Much I Still Don’t See‘ being prepared for release, Sam Robbins is teasing a second from it by releasing the opening track today. The sounds of ‘Piles of Sand‘ are built around the stark simplicity of a man and his guitar, and it’s a feel that was inspired by the James Taylor live album ‘One Man Band’. The Boston singer-songwriter also acknowledge as influences the likes of Jim Croce, Harry Chapin citing the formative experience of growing up in New Hampshire and frequently driving up to the white mountains for weekend hiking trips with his father, accompanied in the old truck by a 70’s singer songwriter CD box set. After a tumultuous five years in Nashville, ‘So Much I Still Don’t See‘ is a return to his roots for Sam Robbins, as it is the first recording made after moving back to the Boston area in early 2024. After trying his hand at co-writing country songs five days a week, Robbins found his way to a home on the road, now performing over 200 shows per year in listening rooms and festivals across the country.
Speaking of today’s song Robbins has said: “Walking down a riverside path in Nashville, next to the barbed wire of a prison, watching and feeling gravel being blasted for a high flying condo building across the street was a very inspiring moment. After walking further and seeing a huge pile of gravel soaring high across the street, the first chorus lyric was immediately written down as it appears in the song now: “I thought it was a mountain but it was just a pile of sand towering so high, a nine to five creation”. This line and rhythm was springboard for the rest of the song, steeped in Stoicism, written that afternoon.”
