Sammy Horner has been involved in music ever since he could hold a guitar. His career has taken many turns over the years and he has lived a very colourful and rich life. He has been described as a human dynamo, a very apt description for someone who is always working on different projects and creating meaningful connection through his messages of spiritual renewal and communal inclusion. Whether playing Folk inspired songs, as part of The Sweet Sorrows, or releasing Gospel Rock albums as Rev Sam and the Outcasts; Sammy has always looked to inspire and connect with people of all demographics and to create a positive experience and joy in those who listen. We are delighted to have the opportunity to interview Sammy and catch up with his very interesting back story, as well as looking forward into his future plans
Who were your biggest influences in music, growing up in Northern Ireland as a boy?
Initially my family. I was the youngest of seven kids. The first three died before I was born and my sisters were a good deal older than me, so we had records from Elvis, Cliff, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, and Jerry Lee Lewis. I really loved that ground breaking rock music my oldest sister loved. Another sister really loved Johnny Cash, we listened to Live From San Quentin a lot. Jacky, the sister closest to me in age (still 7 years between us) was listening to Rory Gallagher, Dylan, Cohen, Van The Man and the like, whilst my dad loved country music, Patsy Cline, Les Paul, Ernie Ford, Farron Young, Porter Wagoner and Charlie Pride. I think that stuff really gave me a good all-round view of popular music at the time. Bands like The Monkees were on TV so we got exposed to that stuff as well. I loved the Beach Boys... those harmonies …even to a little kid, I knew they had something special. When I was 15, I decided I wanted to learn bass. The day I went to buy my first bass, the music store in Belfast was blown up in the Troubles. When I got there, the firemen had put out the blaze and the store was wrecked, but I still went inside and got my first, (and only!) bomb damaged bass for twenty-nine pounds. A friend pointed out a guy he knew who played. He showed me how to tune and a few licks, and I sat with my dad’s records trying to play along every day. In my teens, Glam Rock and Punk came my way…I always wondered if you could somehow mix it all up…later bands like Jason and The Scorchers showed me that you could! I must mention my friend Rodney Cordner. I heard him sing an Irish folk song when I was 16, it stole my heart and became a huge influence on how I think about music moving people.
You first achieved media attention as a member of Scottish Celtic/Punk band, The Electrics. Can you tell me a little about the group and how you came together?
I was working in a small town by Loch Lomond in Scotland. I had already been in a band called ‘Infrapenny’ with the guitarist Paul Baird. When that band broke up, Paul and I had written a handful of songs. We went to a Salvation Army studio after hours (they recorded the brass band music you hear around Christmas) so we would go in at ten o’clock at night and using an old drum machine, we recorded six songs. A few months later a Festival in Scotland that I helped organise, put us on the bill…we were free, so nothing to lose. By this time, we had drummer Davie McArthur, and Keyboard Player Allan Hewitt. Amazingly we went down really well and went on tour in France and Portugal within about three months. At that point we hadn’t figured out a real sound. Paul was a blues rock guy, Davie was a metal head, Allan liked jazz and I was a country rocker. Bands like Jason and the Scorchers, Lone Justice and the Pogues proved it was possible to mix genres and make a good noise, so since we all had a love for Scottish and Irish folk music, we decided to write that way and play it like punk rock…it worked.
You had a lot of success, releasing nine albums and recording in Nashville with Buddy Miller. I believe that the band has never officially broken up?
It all happened very quickly. We did the usual driving all over the UK /Ireland in a van for a few years, but a producer heard us at a festival and asked if we’d be interested in a little indie deal. We made our first album but before we finished the record company went under. Davie’s mother loaned us the money to get the masters from the studio and we toured for about three months solid to pay her back, BUT the producer, Tony Cummings, pushed the album to other companies and WORD UK took a chance on it. Within a few months we were being invited to festivals all over Europe, playing to big crowds every weekend. Buddy Miller was on the same bill as us when the airline lost his guitar, so he asked if he could borrow one of ours. After his set he stayed behind to listen to us and liked what he heard. We became Buddy and Julie’s European band for a few years and Buddy produced our Whole Shebang album in Nashville, where we met Phil Madeira, (Red Dirt Boys), who went on to produce both Electrics, Solo and Sweet Sorrows albums for me. It amazed us… we were just a bunch of mates who loved to play and we were always thankful. We still occasionally play short tours.
Your musical journey has always included a strong Christian message. Has your faith always been an influence in your writing?
Well, you write what you know. I spent a lot of years in a seminary and worked on different levels for the church for many years. I’m sure it comes through in many ways, especially when I am writing what people might call ‘spiritual’ or’ gospel’ music, but for me it’s all spiritual … all of it ... I don’t see any divide. So, if I am writing a love song, a dark song, a party song, a country song ... whatever … it’s about some aspect of life and it seems to me that all of life is spiritual at some level. Even exploring the dark side (which I loved) with Dark Country (Tunes From the Darkside), I suppose I was still exploring how anyone can fall into madness, jealousy, hatred, vengeance…like Hollywood keeps telling us…it’s biblical!
Your partner in The Sweet Sorrows and also your wife, Kylie, is a registered nurse and has worked with diverse groups in different countries like Australia, Saudi Arabia and the USA. Was she also a musician when you initially met?
Kylie had sung in some cover bands in the middle east, and church choirs in America and her family were into family sing along times, but she was still working as a nurse when we met. She played flute as a kid and some piano, and she has worked on penny whistle and accordion / melodica since we started playing together …she has done great … and I keep buying her new things to learn … got her a guitar for Christmas and she also has electronic bagpipes…working on those!
When you formed The Sweet Sorrows with Kylie, who plays superbly on whistles, accordion and melodica - was this a result of your courtship between Ireland and Australia over a number of years?
I have been touring in Australia for more than 20 years. I was on tour with a friend of mine and Kylie was at the first few shows when we met. She was getting a lift home with a guy who had asked me about my music so I gave him my email… he had it on a note on his dashboard, she memorised it and emailed me… the rest is history!
Your work ethic has always been very high and the total number of releases is in the region of forty! What is your writing process?
It sounds more impressive that it actually is. At one point I had three record deals with three different companies. I was writing and recording for The Electrics, The Celtic Praise Series and Kids music. I was like a staff writer for one company, writing songs on demand, so for about a ten-year period I would be making three albums a year. Then when I went solo, I’d make a record, then tour every year. I played bass for anyone who needed a hired gun, took opening slots and wrote for different projects for other peoples’ groups, (Scotland against Drugs, Play Peace inner-city kids project and a stack of charity albums). Blues guitarist Glenn Kaiser told me one time, ‘Blessed are the flexible, for they shall eat’…it was good advice. You need to keep ego out of it as much as you can. Phil Madeira told me to take any work that came my way… always say ‘yes’, you can always find the musicians you need to make it work. Mostly I have done that and thankfully the work kept coming.
As for my process, anything can inspire me. I read a lot, but comic books, theatre, movies, conversations, visual art all help inspire me. If I get an idea, I try to write something…I don’t use all of it but I try to describe, story tell or spin it into something. Usually, I sit with a mic and a guitar and play with ideas around the hook line… I don’t leave until I have a first draft, then if I like it, I revisit and edit. I mostly write alone but I have enjoyed writing with others. They bring something new and different to the process.
You recorded as Rev Sam and the Outcasts quite recently, a tongue in cheek version of a heavy rock band, with tunes that reflect a religious theme. What was the motivation behind this alter-ego?
I haven’t actually performed this yet ... it was a pandemic project. I’ve always loved Metal, Punk, Glam and wanted to find a vehicle to make a record. It’s a bit tongue in cheek with lots of samples of old American preachers spun into the mixes, but a heap of fun. It gave a chance to make a big noise... I’ve been playing acoustic music for 10 years now ... it felt good. We have some interest in Switzerland and Germany for 2022…really hoping we can do it.
Earlier this year you released a solo album, Far Away Places. This looks at the Irish Famine in the 1840’s and mass emigration - events that changed the course of Irish history. Was it a subject that you always wanted to visit?
Yes…I have been wanting to make this album for years. Crazy thing is, I grew up in Belfast and was never taught Irish history. As I began to read more and understand our history, it brought up all kinds of feelings, so I sat down and wrote the album (also during the pandemic, in one sense COVID- 19 gave me time in the studio I would never have had.)
An audio book for children, Finn and the Wild Goose, was recently published and you also released three separate albums for children; one of which put the ten commandments to rock music. Again, is this you reaching out to spread the message of faith and hope?
Those albums are really old now ... I used to work in schools and with kids a lot. But yeah … the ideas of not stealing, being greedy, selfish etc are still good boundaries to live by, I think. I worked for an Australian group called ‘Values For Life’ where we looked at positive values for living in community. I would often speak and sing to 3,000 kids a week in schools and the schools and teachers mostly loved it. Finn and the Wild Goose was actually written for my grandkids, Finn and Evie. I never expected it to actually get published, but an old friend of mine since Record Company days asked to see it. Angela Little is an editor and ghost writer who worked with the likes of Moya Brennan - she thought it was great and suggested we shopped it to publishers ... she got me the deal … and I love the process of writing longer stories!
WORSHIP LIKE A CELT was released in 2018 and is an album that explores the ancient Celtic Christians belief that worship was something to practice in everything, or ‘all of life’. Is this the way in which you choose to approach your life as a musician and an ordained minister?
That’s it in a nutshell …I just try to keep my eyes and ears open. You see beauty and truth everywhere if you pay attention … sometimes that is harder than others of course. I also love that the most common-sense way to faith and life came from Ireland! I’m also deeply aware of my many flaws and issues like everyone else …maybe even more, so a harmony of faith and everyday life is a blessed thing, I am kinder to myself and others and try my best to see others where they are at…we all fight our demons.
Is this also the philosophy that led you to become involved with Trade-Off, your outreach programme to help others in need?
I have been doing this kind of thing for years. Mostly in Thailand but also in South Africa and Romania. We started a ‘Guitars for Africa’ for kids in Beaufort West... a town with the highest child abduction rate in the whole country. I set up a music programme for kids in the slum community of Khlong Toei, Bangkok, about 13 years ago. We helped fix up and repair a community centre for homeless and poor people in arid Romania, but Thailand has been a real ongoing work. I teach electrical skills (I am a qualified electrician) and Kylie teaches first response medicine/ first aid. We mostly work with Burmese refugees. They are treated terribly in a country that has been in civil war for seventy years. The stories are too distressing and way too many to list here, but mass murder, landmines, ethnic cleansing, rape, hunger and extreme poverty are all causing deep misery and anguish. We train people to be skilled, to save lives and get better jobs. After training we do practical projects and give every graduate the tools they need to do the work. In 2018, we got over forty men well-paying jobs and now employers want our people because they are trained better than some of their workers. I know we aren’t changing the world, but at least we can help to change their world a little. I love this work and our music is what allows us to do it…we set money aside from our gig fees and pay for the training every year so there is no cost to the people,
This album also saw you include musician friends Beki Hemingway and Randy Kerkman from the United States. They are a talented husband and wife, musical duo and live here now. I believe that you were instrumental in bringing them to Ireland to initially ‘house-sit’ for you?
Ha! I’m not sure that we were instrumental…Beki has wanderlust more than anyone I know. Beki and Randy were a part of that Gospel Music scene back in the 80s. Lots of us knew each other, even if we had never met., (Buddy and Julie Miller, Phil Madeira, Phil Keaggy, Mark Robertson (The Legendary Shack Shakers) Amy Grant, Michal Been (The Call), Larry Norman and more. Beki and Randy knew who I was and I knew them from the band, This Train, I had played with on the road somewhere. She contacted me years ago when they were coming to Scotland for Randy to do a music recording course, I think. They stayed with me for a night and borrowed a guitar for a show which I attended. We stayed in contact, helping each other out where we could and when they decided to come to Ireland we had just moved back from Canada and were hitting the road. They stayed with us for about six months until they found their own place. We still sing and play on each other’s records... in fact I think quite a lot of their album, WHINS AND WEATHER, was tracked in my studio.
Apart from writing songs of faith and spreading the word about spirituality and inclusion with your Celtic Praise releases, you have worked in Bluegrass and Newgrass (with the Lasslo Bros), released an album of murder ballads (as Dark Country), Celtic club music with loops, fiddles and uilleann pipes (The Seanachaidh) and International Desert Songs. Do you ever slow down long enough to smell the roses?
I write all the time, short stories, kids’ books, poems, ideas and of course, songs. I still love mixing it up and my mind runs on several channels all at once. We often tour globally about forty weeks a year, so I guess writing is a lot of my life, but touring allows me to smell the roses in Ireland, UK, America, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong, France etc ... Writing and making music is the very thing that allows me to occasionally stop and smell roses all over the world.
Covid has certainly made us all sit down and take stock. We see a fragile world and a people who are divided by fear and hope. What are your immediate plans as you look forward to the months ahead?
We haven’t been able to tour so writing has been my focus. We hope to do a music/ book tour in September and as soon as it opens up, we have tours awaiting us…looking forward to getting in front of people again. I also have a book for little kids coming out before Christmas Evie Versus The Dark, I’m working with a fantastic Sri Lankan visual artist Sanoji Rathnasekara. It’s been fun connecting her imagination with my words. Also, Master Guitar builder Dan Comerford here in Wexford is building me a Rev Sam RAT guitar (recycled and upcycled) … because you can never have enough guitars.
Anything else that you want to leave us with before we say our farewells?
Thanks to everyone who bought stuff on line and to magazines like Lonesome Highway who have helped keep us in the public eye during these strange days…hope to see you all on the road somewhere soon!
Interview by Paul McGee