Meet Ireland's Newest Songwriting Sensation Sample Answer

Sample Answer’s third EP Collision sees the Battersea-based Tallaght singer-songwriter cast off the shackles of youth that preoccupied his early work, in favour of a more expansive sound and vision.

Having caught the redeye from London to Dublin this morning, SA – real name Maurice O’Connor – is flagging. Guitar in hand, he greats us with a smile – before sinking wearily into his chair, last night’s gig at the Windmill Brixton catching up with him. “What’s that coffee?” he asks in a South-West Dublin accent, with a London drawl on the rocks. It’s a strange yet enchanting tone, with a wise-beyond-his-years lilt. “You look like you’re having so much fun. I’ll have to get one of them.”
He is keen to talk about T-Rex, Chet Baker and Nirvana; to reminisce about The Square; and to wonder aloud at the number of heroin addicts he’s seen in Dublin this morning.
O’Connor upped sticks for the bright lights of London while still a teenager. “I wanted to go do tunes somewhere hectic,” he explains. “I just knew I needed to do something. I made a few (demos) I’d produced myself. It sounded as good as I could make it at 15. I was getting quite irritated giving people recordings that didn’t sound right – so I went into the only studio I knew that was good, The Dairy in Brixton – and that’s how that (Good Boy) EP came about”.
That EP established Sample Answer in the new wave of singer-songwriters utilising loop stations to create more expansive soundscapes. However, one thing that made O’Connor stand out was his highly emotive lyrics, centered around complex family matters.
“I don’t know, what is a good kid?” he responds in reference to hit single ‘Good Boy’. “Is that someone who’s good academically? Someone who stays inside? Or is it someone who’s respectful? What is it? I’m still a kid. 21. But I feel like I’m a better one now”.
O’Connor prefers not to elaborate on his lyrics leaving fans to draw their own conclusions. “I’ve heard other songs meanings and I’ve been like ‘Oh no. I thought it was about something else’ and I almost couldn’t listen to it anymore. I’d hate to ruin any ideas someone had. It’s nice for people to have their own interpretation.”
While displaying significant growth as a songwriter, the expansive sound on Collision was no accident.
“I didn’t want to have a band – I’ve had bands and it’s quite complicated. But I didn’t want it to be acoustic. I wanted it loud – and all from the same source.
“I didn’t want it to be as clean as Ed Sheeran or as intense as Jack Garratt. I wanted it to be like the bands I used to listen to – and with loop stations you can do it”.
Later, in The Grand Social, we witness exactly what Sample Answer can do, with several loop stations, two microphones, an acoustic guitar and a drum pad.  Distorted swamp blues Lead Belly covers. Raucous distorted glam rock. And, when the power goes out, Sample Answer brilliantly reduces ‘Purple Laughter’, his most expansive song yet, to its acoustic bones. This boy is good...

Collision is out now.