Spotlight: Sam Tompkins on his New EP, Tiktok Fame & Working with Justin Bieber
“THE FIRST TIME I WENT TO LA, I WAS FLOWN OUT BY A FAN — because I couldn’t afford it,” Sam Tompkins says, the Bright-based singer-songwriter who you may know from his viral “To the Moon” cover or his intimately personal single “Hero.” “He let me stay on his couch for two weeks … I’d literally spoken to him on the phone twice, and I probably definitely should have never done that — really bad stranger-danger stuff — but he’s now a really good friend of mine, one of my closest friends.”
Like many of our favorite artists, Tompkins’ recent ascent to success had humble beginnings busking on the streets of Brighton and writing songs in his living room. Tompkins found sudden stardom with his viral cover of “To the Moon,” which has reached over 78 million streams globally on Spotify. Since then he has worked with Justin Beiber, released a number of beautifully-written singles, and even played his dad in his recent music video for single “Hero.” With a new EP, who do you pray to? out now, The Luna Collective had the privilege of attending a virtual press conference hosted by 1824 of Universal Music Group to hear all about Tompkins’ writing process, biggest inspirations, and experience working with Beiber.
“What you see is what you get from me — I am a man from the UK with a beard, that’s about as much as I can say,” Tompkins jokes over Zoom from his home in Brighton one Tuesday evening. “I write very depressing music.”
He comes across as personable and eloquent as he shares the story of how he began performing: “The way I started busking was because I couldn’t afford a hat in a shop, and my friends told me that they wouldn’t let me borrow my money,” he explains. “They said I had to go and perform in the street for it, and at that point I was too scared to sing in front of anyone; I was surprised my friends even knew I could sing … I think confidence has a lot to do with feeling free, and so busking gave me confidence; it made me a performer and made me realize my purpose as a human being and there’s nothing more freeing than that.”
With music that works to open a discourse on mental health, Tompkins discusses how music connects people who are struggling. “There’s something to be said about music that leans into the average human experience,” he describes. “So many people battle with mental health struggles — sadly, pretty much everyone I know of [who is] my age has gone through some sort of struggle or at least knows someone who has gone through something like that. Music just needs to be real and give people the actual human experience, and that’s what I like to do. I like to write about things I’ve actually been through, because I know lots of other people have been through the stuff I’ve been through … I want my music to make people feel heard, make their problems and their issues make sense to them, and make them feel less alone. Initially, I always make music for myself and then to get myself out of certain positions and what I want ultimately is how my music makes me feel. I want that to sort of project itself onto other people who are going through similar things.”
And his advice to people struggling with their mental health? “My advice to people is try and connect with people on a human level as much as possible — there’s something really grounding in just chatting to your friends about how you’re feeling,” Tompkins says. “There’s something to really gain from interconnectivity. If there is a reason why we’re all here it’s so we can communicate with each other and enjoy the time we have with each other.”
Though Tompkins’ “To the Moon” cover has gained a lot of attention, the singer-songwriter had no intention of creating something that would go viral. “I’ve never really set out to make one of those viral TikTok hits, because I wouldn’t even know where to begin — I’m a bit of an old man,” Tompkins remarks. “I was going through a breakup at the time, and I recorded that cover in my living room, and basically it was a really weird time because I was heartbroken, but at the same time my career was really kicking off. It was wicked [but] it also gave me a bit of an existential crisis because I was thinking, ‘That’s a lot of people who know my face and voice now; I can’t really hide in the shadows any more.’”
Tompkins continues by encouraging new artists to release covers: “Covering other people’s songs is really important, and you should never be too proud to do that stuff,” he says. “When you’re a new artist with a face that no one’s seen before, no one’s ever heard your music; it is really hard to be seen and heard for the first time, so you’ve got to give people a little bit of familiarity, but obviously put your own spin on these things. The people that you’ll reach is insane if you’re doing something that’s familiar to others. I can’t explain to you how insane it is when you see something like that snowballing.”
When asked about his work with Bieber, Tompkins explains that it was a unique experience. “It was wicked — hanging out in the studio and seeing him work was really special,” he describes. “He’s been my favorite artist since I was 14, and watching him work was a testament to how far I’d gotten. We come from completely different places and for us to have met and me being able to see him… I’m just so lucky; no one ever gets to meet their heroes.”
Alongside Beiber being a huge musical inspiration for Tompkins, he notes that the Canadian singer is not his only inspiration. “I loved early noughties R&B like Usher; I really liked Justin Timberlake as well,” he says. “Kanye West has always [had] a big influence on me, especially The College Dropout album — he was so raw and honest in that time. Any artist that makes good storytelling songs — I always really liked storytelling songs growing up and thought they were fantastic. I like that you can make someone visualize a situation through music. Any style of music I make comes from a point of really appreciating the history of that, and it’s a part of who I am as a person.”
Tompkins’ new EP, who do you pray to? focuses on familial relationships, among other themes. “A lot of the stuff I write is personal, so personal [that] sometimes it’s almost niche,” Tompkins shares. “The crux of the whole project is about family and coping mechanisms that get you through tough times. The concept of the project is talking about when you’re not sure what you believe in, what are the things that get you through hard times? Because a lot of people aren’t able to lean on faith and lean on something they believe in to get them through hard times; the project is really introspective about my coping mechanisms.”
“Hero,” Tompkins’ latest single, which discusses his relationship with his father, is the artist’s “absolute favorite” from the new EP. “I wrote [“Hero”] first,” he says. “I wrote that the day I flew out to LA for the first time, so I’ve had that song for like four years. I wrote it for my Dad’s birthday, and I never thought I’d actually release that or [that] it would have any cultural impact. When I wrote [that], I was in my bedroom at my mum’s house, and now it’s the song that got me signed in the end and any sort of industry success in terms of behind the scenes. It’s been really cool seeing that being received by the wider world. “Hero” was the start of this project and all the others fit around it, [and] here’s probably 15 versions of it with different producers who have come and gone.”
The music video for “Hero” sees Tompkins play his father and discusses his father’s mental health struggles and Tompkins’ relationships with him, something that Tompkins is open about discussing. “The interesting thing about “Hero” is that the story that that video comes from [when] I was about five at the time, and I didn’t know any of it was going on,” he explains. “My mum and dad split when I was about 11 or 12 years old, and when I was older I realized my dad wasn’t a perfect person. We fell out for a number of years, and I lost a lot of respect for him, but as I got older and I dealt with my own stuff, I realized I was actually very much like my dad. Now he’s my best friend, and I talk to him about everything — especially with this lifestyle, it’s really hard to find people to talk to about it who really understand and are willing to listen and are not just there to get gossip from me. My dad is my confidant. He’s a massive role model.’
When asked about the importance of marketing for new artists, Tompkins is open and honest about its immense importance. “Marketing is probably more important in this current climate than the music, [but] as a musician you’ve got to come off very genuine otherwise all that marketing is pointless, because if people realize you’re fake and you don’t care about what you’re doing, you’ll fall through the cracks,” he shares. “You’ve got to be super authentic with your artistry, because eventually you’ll be caught out and people won’t resonate with you. When I started writing music I never wrote from a personal situation, and I always wondered why the songs weren’t connecting with people. Then I went through a hard time and I lost one of my close friends and for the first time in my life I sat down and I was really unable to process it. So I wrote about it and I released it without even thinking, because I realized I believed what I was saying because it was so true.”
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