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You have probably heard Sam Austins already. Since releasing the song “Seasons” last year, the dreamy nü-new wave track has been used in over one million TikTok videos (most of which are just talking about how great the song is) and has accrued nearly 60 million streams on Spotify so far.
Austins may seem like a sudden breakout act but his story isn’t too dissimilar from other megastars on the rise the last couple years: The 29-year-old has been hustling since his teens, eventually getting signed to a major label during the pandemic. Three years later, however, he and his label parted ways. He felt they didn’t really know what to do with an artist like him who didn’t fit into an easy, already successful mold.
“It’s a story that multiple other artists have felt like a Chappell Roan, like a Gigi Perez,” Austins says, calling from London where he spent early June doing some recording sessions. “I think that there are a lot of artists that end up getting into these spaces where they’re fortunate enough to open the door, but that door doesn’t lead immediately to what you would expect a major label to do for you.”
After he parted ways with his label in 2023, he parted ways with his old team too, starting from scratch.
“I sat down and got more motivated to even show up and do the best I can do,” he says. “Everything didn’t feel like a plan necessarily. Right out the gate, it felt like, ‘Okay, well, what do we do today?’ And I chose every day to make some music.”
That choice is one Austins has been making since he was a kid. Growing up just outside of Detroit, he had a fascination with making music from a young age, playing with his family’s NPC and baby grand piano. He got the bug from his dad, a touring singer who was a replacement member of The Four Tops.
“I would go and watch him perform all the time,” Austins recalls. “He was always traveling.”
While his parents raised him mostly on Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, the first music he discovered independently of them included hip-hop artists like Eminem and 50 Cent. “That kind of music was my first gateway of discovery,” he says. “Then as I got older, going deeper into the internet rabbit hole, I found rock music and indie music. A lot of different portals were opening through that.”
Austins had taken a liking to experimenting with the instruments and programs he had accessible. In middle school, he was part of an after-school program where he and his friends who go record in a studio together, making songs inspired by the artists they loved at the time: Drake, Kid Cudi, Frank Ocean.
At home, he would toy around with Logic on the MacBook his mom bought him, her way of supporting his creativity. His dad, who left their family home and moved to Kansas before Austins entered high school, was less enabling.
“My dad did not like me doing music,” he explains. “It took him a long time to even accept the idea — until very recently actually — that music is a thing that his son could be excelling at. For my dad, it was just a distant reality, probably because for him, it was a very distant reality to be a solo artist.”
Austins was a good kid, who never got into trouble and spent his evenings at home working on his art and weekends heading to downtown Detroit to perform at open mics and make music with the budding artistic community that had quickly accepted him. He didn’t mesh well with school, however, and it quickly became clear that a four-year college was not his path. He enrolled in community college, still living at home with his mom who began dating someone Austins would constantly butt heads with.
“He was not a fan of me, and weirdly enough, I don’t think a fan of Black people actually, which was crazy,” Austins says, describing the confusion of watching his Black mother settle down with someone who did not seem to accept who they were or their culture. Once Austins had formally made a decision to not enroll in college, his mom’s partner threatened to send him to the Navy.
“That was a shock,” he says. “I chose to leave. My mom, at that point, felt like that was where she needed to be.”
Then 18, Austins embarked on a formative period of his life, moving from couch to couch and at times living in his car over a few months. He was surrounded by artists, an inspiring aspect of an otherwise challenging experience. Eventually, his aunt and uncle took him, housing him for years and allowing him the space to work on his music as long as he paid whatever bills they asked him to pay.
“Back then, it didn’t seem like a really close reality to be successful in music, even if there were moments where it may have seemed like it was,” he says of this time. Austins was just starting to break through the Detroit bubble a bit, opening for artists like Danny Brown and Playboi Carti. But he still had a long way to go. “It felt distant from the rest of the world.”
After winning a Tidal Rising grant from the streaming service, Austins relocated to Los Angeles just before the pandemic. Instead of immediately heading back home during lockdown, he decided to stay and see what could happen. It was that summer when he was discovered by Atlantic. The following year, the then-25-year-old dropped Homeless Star, his debut album that was inspired by the months after he left his mom’s home.
Austins wrote “Seasons” while he was still signed to his label; he feels thankful that they let him keep the songs he was still working on while signed to them. After hitting reset on his entire career, he decided to try something new. He had never had much success on TikTok but in October 2023, he wanted to see what would happen if he shared some of his unfinished songs on the app. The video he posted with “Seasons” quickly received 50,000 views. It took Austins quite some time to finish the song, releasing it in May of 2024 as an independent artist.
“I put it out seven months after it initially found a spark, and it was quiet for a second,” he says. “It was just sitting on streaming services getting a thousand plays a day. I was like, ‘Okay, well, this song is living. It’s a seed. I’ll let it be what it is and just keep creating.’”
While “Seasons” was brewing, the rest of his EP was practically done. He wrote what is now The Woods, Vol. 1 (out June 20) before he put “Seasons” on streaming. Like he was as a kid, Austins was drawn to the drum machine, wanting to make an album inspired by Detroit, the city’s eclectic music history and the artists he loves the most: Prince, Radiohead, Drexciya.
“I just found a little bit of magic in this alchemy and started to work on it,” he explains, describing how he pulled together his own vast array of influences. Austin has a deep appreciation for melodies and strong choruses, and he wanted the music to defy genre as much as possible. “When I go on stage, I play as if I’m playing in front of an arena, because that’s where I see myself,” he says.
This summer, he has a pair of EP release shows in New York City and Los Angeles. Then he’ll be performing at festivals like Lollapalooza and Hinterland. This past spring, Austins was supporting Magdalena Bay on their Imaginal Disc tour. At one of the Terminal 5 shows, the person cheering him on the loudest from the balcony was his mom. Over a decade after Austins left her home, the pair have never been closer.
“She is my rock and my number one fan,” he gushes. “I just want to do everything for her.”
