02 June 2023 - 0 Comments

Samuel Philip Cooper, a 28-year-old solo contemporary pianist from Wellington, New Zealand, is excited to release his second solo-piano album, Journey to Sobriety, following the release of 7 singles in the past year that will be on the album.

Listen to Journey to Sobriety here.

Journey to Sobriety was inspired by a time in Samuel’s life where he was consistently making bad and embarrassing choices while under the influence of alcohol, and suffered severe regret and anxiety. Several of the songs were written while at considerable low points with his drinking. Journey to Sobriety, broadly, tells the story of a desperate young man in his mid 20's wanting to give up alcohol, failing and then succeeding.

The first five songs on the ten-song album reflect the miserable failings of Samuel trying to control, reduce and quit alcohol. The dark and harsh melodies in several of these songs tell stories of regret from drunken social media activity/poor decisions, long lasting hangovers with various consequences as well as the anxiety of blackouts. The song Trapped represents the lowest of the low for Samuel in his alcohol struggle, and with that came dark thoughts, and slipped back into mindsets not felt since his mental health struggles back in 2017 and 2018.

The second part of the album reflects where Samuel finally makes the decision to get, and stay sober. The songs reflect a difficult and committed effort to work incredibly hard on himself and combat his urges to drink and instead, remain sober. One of the later songs, Positive Light Ahead reflects a point where Samuel is well in control in his sobriety and is a reflection of his hard work to date and being incredibly grateful and content with his decision to quit.

Through the release of Journey to Sobriety, Samuel wants to show that there is a great life to lived being sober and several benefits awaiting that he didn’t realise until finally being sober. He doesn’t want to preach that everybody should stop drinking, but wants to highlight that there is light on the other side. He explains below:

“I always thought that I could never socialise, go on a night out and have fun without being considerably intoxicated, but I quickly proved myself wrong. I’m able to still have a night out and have a good time, sober drive, and waking up hangover free with no regret or anxiety to distract me from my week(s) ahead – it’s a truly a blessing.”

Sobriety allowed Samuel a successful 2022. He performed regularly throughout the year, with highlights being his solo performances of his own work at Lincoln University and at the Geothe Institut, several corporate cocktail events performing his extensive old classic rock repertoire. Sadly, a concussion in late 2022 halted Samuel’s planned performances/concert plans and is currently looking into more places and venues to perform at in Wellington and around New Zealand, as well as continuing to write and record new music. More recently in May 2022, Samuel had the thrill of performing (piano accompaniment) a song on stage with up and coming pop artist Cassie Henderson at the St James Theatre in front of a strong crowd. Samuel plans to keep writing new solo piano music that reflectisng his tough concussion recovery, and planning performances of his own work later in 2023.

Comments

Return to News Archive