Singer Sam Riggs confronts demons on ‘Breathless’

Published 11:13 pm Thursday, March 24, 2016

On his new album, “Breathless,” Texas-based country singer Sam Riggs peels back the surface to expose pieces of his sometimes sentimental and sometimes troubled soul.

On the album’s first single, “The Lucky Ones,” Riggs looks back with appreciation on his wild days growing up “dirt-floor poor” in Florida, struggling to make a living and, against-all-odds, holding on to big dreams.

“We were the lucky ones, raised up to be fighters.

Swinging at everything we could see through hungry eyes.

We were the lucky ones, hell-bent and full of fire.

Giving it everything we had to keep our dreams alive.

We were poor and we were wild and we were young

And we were the lucky ones.”

“(The song) has all the elements of what kind of made me what I am,” Riggs said on his making-of-the-album video. “‘The Lucky Ones’ is a song about growing up and sort of coming from nothing. You know, we didn’t have anything handed to us. … We just came from a way of life that sort of made you hard in a way, but it definitely taught you about hard work and making something of yourself.”

In 2007, Riggs left Florida and moved to Austin to chase his dream of being a singer. Mentored by Texas music icon Ray Wiley Hubbard and inspired by Garth Brooks’ reckless-abandon approach to making music, Riggs put together his band, Sam Riggs and the Night People, and in 2013 released the well-received “Outrun the Sun.”

The debut album produced regional hits with “Hold on and Let it Go,” a song about a couple struggling to make their relationship work, and the despair-driven “Angola’s Lament.” Texas Music Pickers named Riggs its 2014 Artist of the Year.

“There’s really not a bad track to be found on ‘Outrun the Sun’ and for a first full-length effort, that’s a remarkable thing,” praised the music website Roughstock. “There’s a highly good chance that Sam Riggs and The Night People will become the next big thing to break out from Texas.”

VULNERABLE SIDE

In “Breathless,” Riggs presents men facing demons, both past and present.

The song “Second-Hand Smoke” is about a man drowning in heartache who can’t get over a woman no matter how hard he tries. It opens with the confession, “I have always been in love with the things that kill me” and later offers the sobering realization, “Some days it feels like more than I can take. I guess you’re just a habit I can’t break.”

“I think everybody is addicted to something in life,” Riggs elaborated in Rolling Stone magazine. “But more often, people are addicted to someone more than something. And that’s exactly what ‘Second-Hand Smoke’ is about.”

Riggs also takes on the complicated addiction of love in the single “Breathless.” “Just one kiss from your Novocain lips and you take all my pain away.”

“For the most part there is an edginess and darkness (in some of the songs). I don’t hold that back,” Riggs said.

Being willing to go deep into an emotionally vulnerable place helps Riggs connect with the audience.

“When I’m putting these songs together, I’m looking for the common emotion we all have – that common emotion we as humans have all experienced. People have these same weaknesses and they feel they know the singer through that (shared emotion).”

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Riggs co-wrote many of the songs. “I like taking songs into co-writes because it brings in a different voice from my own and kind of paints (them) with a different color palette,” he said.

He often collaborates with Chad Camp, his longtime friend and the band’s drummer. “We’re very honest with each other,” he said of the relationship.

Riggs said Camp keeps him focused as a writer and adds a different perspective to telling stories in songs.

Riggs also serves as a producer of the album. “I do like to have my finger on everything: writing, production, song choice. But I try to surround myself with people who are straight up with me.”

His goal was to make as diverse an album as possible.

“It’s got songs that range from heartache and nostalgia all the way to just hard-hitting, good-timing songs, songs about addiction, songs about livin’ it up while you’re younger, all kinds of different songs are on there so there really isn’t one theme except being yourself.”

Riggs said in many ways ‘Breathless’ is a continuation of the first album and reflects the crazy life the band is living.

“‘Outrun the Sun’ was an album we made when we were just kind of getting everything off the ground and blowin’ and goin’ a lot. And, you know, nothing has changed. We’re still pounding pavement, hammering highways show after show, night after night, town after town and there are times this amazing life leaves us breathless.”

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