Sam Roberts (born October 2, 1974) is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter who has released six albums. His debut EP The Inhuman Condition, reached the Canadian charts in 2002. He and his bandmates have released three albums as Sam Roberts and four albums as Sam Roberts Band. He is also a member of Canadian supergroup Anyway Gang, who released their debut self-titled album in 2019. Roberts has been nominated, together with his band, for fifteen Juno Awards, winning six, including Artist of the Year twice (2004 and 2009) and Album of the Year once (2004).
Born in Westmount, to South African immigrants who had arrived in Montreal three weeks earlier,[1] Roberts grew up on Cedar Avenue in Pointe-Claire, where his family moved to when he was five years old. Roberts is an alumnus of St. Edmund Elementary School, Beaconsfield, Loyola High School, N.D.G. and John Abbott College, Ste. Anne de Bellevue and McGill University.[2] He holds a BA in English from McGill University, graduating in 1998.[2] Roberts’ first band was William in 1993, that changed into Northstar in 1998. As William they put out a single, “Piranha EP” on Northern Assembly Records in 1996, while as Northstar they released a self-titled independent EP in 1998,[3] but broke up in 1999.[4]
After disbanding Northstar, Roberts recorded a twelve track demo, “Brother Down”,[2] which formed the basis for the EP, The Inhuman Condition released in 2002. Recorded with Jordon Zadorozny, Roberts “recorded a song a day”.[5] Roberts signed with artist manager Dave Spencer and began to perform live. With the assistance of Linda Bush at Universal Music Publishing Canada, he signed a publishing contract with UMPG and a record contract with MapleMusic Recordings. MapleMusic released the six track EP culled from the demo with Roberts noting that “it is not something I had intended to be my first real foray into the music world but I couldn’t turn my back on such a chance”. It included two breakthrough singles, “Brother Down” (released in mid-2002) and “Don’t Walk Away Eileen” (released in late 2002) which were heavily promoted in the Canadian market.
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