Sam Obernik - Mr Butterfly - Video - streams

Sam Obernik, the unmistakable voice behind Tim Deluxe’s hit single ‘It Just Won’t Do’, releases her stunning debut single ‘Mr Butterfly’ on May 12 through eastwest Records. ‘Mr Butterfly’ is taken from Sam Obernik’s debut album Stellify, which will be released on May 19. Sam’s solo material, in its scatting, ironic way, reaches deep into emotional territory, charting the highs and grizzly lows of love and life, and comes out the other side as a bunch of sexy, hypnotic rallying calls. The vocal and sensibilities conjure up everything from a tousled Ricki Lee Jones to Maria Muldaur, Ani DiFranco, even a soupon of Cerys.

Sam Obernik grew up in Dublin where, at the age of 15, she started busking - Prince, the Stones, country airs - around Temple Bar with a group of mates. “It was a wall of sound, and we’d annoy the shit out of the fishmonger because we used their big marble doorway, brilliant for acoustics.”

Leaving school at 16 with a paltry 10 O-Levels, Sam moved into bedsitland and waitressing. By day, she’d be writing music. At night, however, she organised the bar at Dublin’s Wildebeest club – “A mad place with dead animals on the walls. They had live everything, from live comedy to live sex. I was knee-high to a duck’s arse, dressed in next to nothing, and practically running the place.” After a brief singing stint in LA with friends who’d been in Alan Parker’s movie The Commitments, Obernik moved to London, married, and found herself touring with Terry Hall. She toured until she was five months pregnant and then settled down to be a mum.

When Billy was three, his parents’ marriage broke down and his father left. Alone again, it was back to waitressing, but her teeth were gritted like a pit bull’s. She wrote and wrote and went out gigging with a big band - too damn big, with nine players and a crazy vaudeville-type show that packed venues, gave her back some confidence but ultimately swamped what she really wanted to do. Then fate introduced her to her current producer, Drizabone’s Vince Garcia. They found they had a wavelength in common, and, “Suddenly, we had a sound.”

www.samobernik.com

Mr Butterfly Video