Sam Roberts Band

Having honed his craft through a demo that gained traction in Montreal, Canadian singer/songwriter Sam Roberts issued his genuine debut album in 2002. Earlier, he had begun as a violinist before shifting to guitar and assembling a rock group with his peers. Following exposure on MuchMusic, the ensemble headed to Los Angeles in pursuit of a breakthrough, yet record labels offered no encouragement and the project dissolved in 1998. Undeterred, Roberts returned to Canada to resume songwriting, assembled that same demo, and then entered the studio to complete his debut, The Inhuman Condition, which arrived in 2002 and became the highest-selling independent Canadian release ever.

Signing with Universal in 2003, he delivered his follow-up, We Were Born in a Flame, the following June. The record achieved major success across Canada, earning Roberts Juno Awards for Album of the Year, Rock Album of the Year, and Artist of the Year. He sustained that momentum through the rest of the decade with Chemical City, issued in April 2006, and Love at the End of the World, released in May 2008, both of which also claimed the Juno for Rock Album of the Year.

On the 2011 album Collider, Roberts began operating under the name Sam Roberts Band and enlisted Dave Nugent on lead guitar, Eric Fares on keyboard and guitar, James Hall on bass, and Josh Trager on drums. Sam Roberts Band resurfaced in 2014 with the Lo-Fantasy LP, steeped in ’80s dance-rock textures. Two years afterward came his sixth studio effort, TerraForm, tracked at the Tragically Hip’s Bathouse Recording Studios in Kingston, Ontario, and co-produced by Roberts alongside Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh; the set included the single “If You Want It.”