Toronto singer-songwriter Sam Louis’s first proper studio album, 8 Ball, is comprised of eight songs of eclectic alt-pop. The album title, however, also alludes to the Magic 8 Ball, that old novelty toy that’s been helping people answer yes-or-no questions for decades. Louis calls his debut for Shamus Records, a subsidiary of TRO Essex Music Group, a “concept album revolving around these manic questions that float around in all our psyches.”
Louis has referred to himself as “the loneliest boyband,” and the songs on 8 Ball often feature big, sticky melodies and falsetto choruses even when he’s pondering big, daunting questions. “Like a Drug” explores the complicated emotions of a codependent relationship that begins to resemble an addiction: “There’s no going back, you took everything from me / I wish that I had seen but we were young and so naïve.”
“These songs can be heavy, exploring themes of mental struggles and escapism,” Louis says. “So much of my previous music never showcased that side of living, mostly because I was scared. Afraid to speak about a darker, more emotional side and connect deeper with that in myself.”
Louis recorded 8 Ball in Los Angeles with producer Andre Mohring (Big Sean, Baby Keem). Together, Louis and Mohring developed the album’s unique genre-blurring sound together, one song at a time.
“I got to make this album in such a beautiful but dynamic city. I couldn’t have dreamed of these songs if it wasn’t for Andre,” Louis says. “It was a conversation that most of the time just kept flowing, we demoed about two songs a day for about a week.” Then they tracked live bass and drum tracks for the album at Revival Studios in West L.A., soaking up the atmosphere of a room where legends like Prince and Earth, Wind & Fire had recorded.
8 Ball’s aesthetic draws heavily from the Y2K era of music that Louis grew up on, like Linkin Park’s fusion of high tech rock and vulnerable emotion. “I studied and listened to Meteora a lot down there, that one album helped me the most when I needed lyric inspiration. It was so powerful to hear what can be buried within melody,” Louis says. “This led to the writing of a critical song on 8 Ball, the only ballad on the album, ‘Legacy,’ inspired by the time I lost a close friend to an overdose.”
Sam Louis knows that most people that hear the nu-metal bombast and glossy synth pop hooks of “Faded Jeans” and “Chemical” will listen on a modern streaming service. He likes to imagine, however, an ideal context in which you’d hear those songs in a bygone era. “8 Ball is designed to be a record you purchase at your local HMV store or illegally download to your PC from Kazaa or Limewire.”