Sound, & the feeling of sound, have always been at the center of Brad Sample’s mind. Growing up in Ricky Skaggs’ studio, hearing players that would become his heroes like Marty Stuart, Ry Cooder, and Ricky himself, he began to identify emotions that accompanied chords and filled the spaces between notes. It was in his early 20s that Brad, while fronting rock band Run With Bulls, opened for legends like Joan Jett and Widespread Panic & began to witness the sounds he created having a real, emotional effect on other people as well. Brad went on to become a lead guitarist, session player, & band leader for other artists in Nashville on every side of genre divides- Alice Cooper, Maggie Rose, Randy Houser, & others.
His 2019 debut solo album “Rhinestones and Broken Bones” released to critical praise, noteworthy streaming placements, and terrestrial radio play on Americana & Triple A stations such as WRLT Lightning 100 and WSM 650am. In the fall of 2019, Brad spent a week alone in a cabin in the desert mountains outside San Diego with no phone, no internet, and no electricity. Sitting in absolute silence for a week, he began to identify an emotional soundscape he hadn’t heard before, and he filled the silence with the first of songs that would become his sophomore full length album “Ghosts of a Love”. That emotion of distant yearning and separation proved to be timely in light of what was to come in 2020. Low moaning guitars like echoes through a vast emptiness, drums that snap and flash like a meteor shower, and bass that punches like thunder. The sounds are all there, and Brad hopes they make you feel.