Interview: Samson & Delilah
SEATED in a Salford gig venue, CityLife is undergoing a rather strange career switch – from music correspondent to, erm, marriage counsellor.
The subject of our marital concern is Samson & Delilah – the beatific Manchester folk duo, who, incidentally, are also a husband and wife team, Sam Lench and Anna Zweck.
Over an hour long conversation, we have carefully examined the five years of their relationship: from how they first met, to their marriage and, most critically, how they manage the tricky act of juggling their musical life and their personal life.
And it’s a juggling act where those balls have come close to falling down on occasion.
“It’s a very strange arrangement... being married and making music together,” explains Anna, who hails originally from Australia, but has now adopted Manchester as her new home city.
“There are lots of sacrifices. Being separated from our families... in order to make the relationship and the music work. But it’s all been worthwhile. Things are quite chaotic now because we’re right in the middle of the storm. But I’m sure we’ll look back in ten years’ time and say ‘wow, didn’t we have fun, trying to juggle about a million things at once’.”
CityLife is a little taken aback by the duo’s candour – but then again, if you’re a Samson & Delilah fan, you’ve probably come to expect such cheery openness.
'No great masterplan'
Invest in Samson & Delilah’s eponymous debut album, released last week, and you’re cordially invited into the couple’s cosy musical abode: a snug, warm blanket of a record, it weaves sumptuous folk arrangements with bucolic country-pop, stretching the nu-folk template in exciting and dynamic ways on a par with contemporaries like Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver.
The perfect record to take comfort on these cold winter nights, it’s made all the more homely by Sam and Anna’s personal investment: the album was recorded as a backdrop to their early courtship – and thus becomes a cute scrapbook of romantic reminiscence.
“It was never really the plan to make an album together,” says Anna. “There was no great masterplan. We were just writing songs together and living our lives, still working out our feelings for each other. The music we were writing was basically trying to make sense of everything – finding a sense of home.”
Finding a sense of home is a recurring theme in the story of Samson & Delilah.
Hailing from Adelaide, Southern Australia, Anna first came to Manchester five years ago – the intended next stop on a round-the-world back-packing trip.
She responded to an advert on website Gumtree, which specified: “Music-loving Manchester household seeks new housemate.”
Upon arriving in Manchester, that house certainly lived up to its billing. Located on a quiet street in Fallowfield, Anna’s new home resembled more of a bohemian arts commune: filled with songwriters and musicians who would write, collaborate and gig around Manchester, and naming themselves The Waverton Collective, after Waverton Road in Fallowfield where they lived.
Scrapbook of memories
“I had never seen anything like it,” recalls Anna. “I’m sure many people would have hated living in that house. All those musicians playing instruments all day and night. It was like something from the sixties. I loved it ‘cos music was one of the main reasons I came to Manchester.”
For Anna, good things arrived in threes – alongside her new home and musical pursuits, she also found romance in the shape of housemate Sam Lench, an up-coming songwriter on the Manchester nu-folk scene.
As Sam and Anna’s relationship grew – an “immediate, very natural romance”, they were married within two years of meeting – so did their musical co-dependence.
They didn’t know it at the time, but the songs they were writing during their courtship would eventually form the backbone of their debut album, which finally sees the light of day this month.
Recorded live in the comfort of their Fallowfield home, the album feels like a cosy scrapbook of memories, while the musical framework is a perfect union of Anna’s more classical background (she had classical training on the flute, with a view to performing with orchestras), and Sam’s broad knowledge of the Manchester nu-folk community.
“The beauty of the album is how we both learnt from each other,” Sam enthuses. “We both come from such different backgrounds, and that gives the record a very unique mix of influences. I come from a more old-school folk background, whereas Anna is classically trained.”
Anna adds: “But we meet right in the middle. Lots of the album was recorded at home, in our living room, so that explains the homeliness and intimacy of the record. You can hear background noises like traffic or our cat meowing if you listen hard enough to the record. It’s very organic.”
'Beautiful and intimate'
Yet what’s most impressive about Samson & Delilah’s musical approach is the strict sense of discipline.
When CityLife meets the couple on a rainy October afternoon at Salford’s Sacred Trinity Church, where they are due to play a gig later that evening, we stumble in on them rehearsing a new song with their three-piece backing band.
The new track is tremendous: a shimmering, ethereal epic which recalls Arcade Fire after a country-folk makeover, it’s by far the most grandiose thing Sam and Anna have ever written.
However, when CityLife expresses these opinions to them later on, the duo are visibly horrified.
“I think the worst thing would be to get too epic,” exclaims Anna. “We don’t want to turn into Coldplay or go stadium rock! We love old folk musicians like Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan and our folk philosophy is really influenced by them – keeping the sound low-key, but also beautiful and intimate. Going epic doesn’t suit us.”
Whatever musical direction Sam and Anna decide to take in future, you can be sure it will be in perfect, blissful harmony. Like every aspect of their relationship, whether personal or professional, Sam and Anna know that love and investment will always pay off in the long run.
So better clear a space in your hearts for these musical dwellers, fast.
Samson & Delilah play The Bay Horse on November 11, 2009. Their debut album Samson & Delilah is out now on Little Red Rabbit Records. For info visit myspace.com/thesamsonanddelilahshow.
Published: Thu, 29 October, 2009
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