Sam Roberts

For the last couple years, Sam Roberts has led a double life. In 2002, Canadian radio stations unexpectedly jumped on the infectious track “Brother Down” from the Montreal-based artist’s indie EP, The Inhuman Condition, and before long Roberts and his band were blowing away crowds from the Maritimes to British Columbia. Hoping to duplicate the Canadian breakthrough in the States, Universal Records signed Roberts and put out his debut, We Were Born In A Flame (with “Brother Down” as its single) in June 2003, but nobody noticed—Roberts describes the U.S. release as “a non-event.” Bummed out but determined, the band kept plugging away in the States, touring on its own dime after Universal pulled the plug on the project. “We put everything we had into staying on the road down here, just to not give up,” says Roberts.

South of the 49th Parallel, Roberts toiled in obscurity; north of it he was a national hero, nabbing Best Artist, Best Album and Best Rock Album honors at this year’s Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammys). By February he was free of his U.S. deal, but other stateside labels held back, seeing the band as damaged goods. Roberts refused to accept that perception. “We were like, ‘Hold on a second. How can we have a black mark against us here when nobody’s even heard our record?’ I put my life into this album, and I wasn’t about to lie down and swallow that fate. But we were bitin’ our nails, knowing that we might just become another rock ’n’ roll statistic.”

Their nails grew back after Lost Highway A&R executive Kim Buie caught a set at SXSW and decided on the spot to offer Roberts a deal. The label recently reissued the album and put the band back on the road. “Second chances don’t come easy,” a grateful Roberts acknowledges, “and we’re with a record company whose ideas are in sync with our own. We’re now being allowed to take small steps and build something.”