A friend once referred to Sam Semple's career as the longest drum roll in history. His journey is of the long and winding type. A first-rate songwriter, very well respected, he's a sort-of modern-day British Kris Kristofferson.

Sam is currently writing with fellow songsmith Tom Baxter and together they wrote 'Better' and 'Miracle', both tracks featuring on Tom's second album 'Skybound'. 'Better' is currently the lead single released from the album and was used in Run Fat Boy Run, a film starring Simon Pegg, directed by David Schwimmer.

Sam is also currently writing with electro funk synth-voyagers Eugene Machine.

Two of Sam's songs, 'Baby We're Alive' and 'Come In From The Cold' are being used in a forthcoming Canadian film Clear Lake by Mick Paulusma.

Very slowly and criminally lazil-il-ily at his own pace (zero-ish miles an hour), Sam has recorded to date two EPs and an album. The first EP, entitled 'Thursday', was co-produced by Charlie Winston. The second EP, 'I'm Looking For A Band', was co-produced by Tom Baxter.

'Female Astronaut' was Sam's first album and it was co-produced by Jon Wilkinson (Alabama 3). Sam has written all the songs for his next album provisonally entitled 'Mystery Songs: Songs For The Journey Down Old Cruel River' which he hopes to record this year, 2008. Or maybe next year. Or possibly the year after that. Actually, I'll abandon this stupid third person voice for a minute and state categorically I'm going to record the album THIS year*.

[Back to third person voice:] Semple fits in well to the tradition of 'literary songwriters'; words are central to Sam's songs. He studied English Literature at Southampton University and he worked for Douglas Adams, on h2g2, an encyclopedic website based on Adams's novel The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

A pivotal moment in Sam's life was when he first heard David Crosby sing 'Deja Vu'. He was completely blown away. He binned his Olivia Newton John records and decided there and then to learn to play the acoustic guitar, write songs and see where his life would end up.

Kris Kristofferson has been a big inspiration on Sam's journey so far (hence the wishful thinking of the opening gambit in the first paragraph).

Sam's dad, Shel Macrae, sang with 60s and 70s harmony pop band The Fortunes, and the songs his father sang - some of which were written by hit writers Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway - are today a big influence on Sam's own writing.