Sam the Boy

Acoustic / Indie / Folk

Gilbert, AZ

Billboard

THE OFFICIAL BIO:

My real name is Ryan. That's the name that my parents had agreed that I would be named. When I was born my dad decided that he wanted to name me Samuel. My mom was all drugged up and passed out because I had a huge round head and was too stubborn to make it easy on her, but my grandma stopped him from writing it on the birth certificate.

Growing up my dad and I had an odd relationship and he had nicknames for everyone. He would never call us or any of our friends by our real names. At different times he would call me by different names (Scottie for instance), but "Sam" was the one that just wouldn't go away. I'd be in the middle of a soccer game and he'd be on the sidelines yelling "GET THE BALL, SAM!"

I hated it. I really did.

My grandpa, who as far as I know had invented the nickname thing and passed it on to all of his kids, liked the name too. He had a Golden Retriever that he loved as a son and he named him Sam. This caused a conflict whenever I came into town, so he would specify by calling the dog "Sam the dog" and me "Sam the boy". I was okay with that because my grandpa was amazing. He also threatened to break all of our arms every time we talked to him, but he really just meant an indian burn. If you want to learn some more about him, listen to my song "Sing to Me". He's the stubborn old cowboy. Since he died a couple years ago I've thought about him a lot and now I miss him calling me "Sam the boy", and singing his dumb little song, and all that. This is my attempt to keep it alive.

Anyway, that's the story. I hope you found it to be both enjoyable and educational.