Today, Tom Sail, Manchester-bred, London-transplanted singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who releases his second single, ‘Wounded’. A howling chorus and driving beat propel ‘Wounded’ through a tight three minutes of what Sail calls his “retro-indie pop” with heavy rock and a touch of pop at the core.

 

Listen close for echoes of The Beatles, The War on Drugs, Oasis and Motown in Sail’s music, of which a 12-song album will be released later in 2019. The product of two years’ work by “scraping together” one or two days in RAK Studios, the as-yet untitled album will showcase his talents by playing every instrument .

 

“I come from a very musical family, and taught myself to play since I was 10 years old,” Sail says. Some of the ideas for my music were generated during a six-month trip through South-East Asia, Australia and America and written in the back of a camper van on a tiny guitar I bought in Vietnam”.

When he’s writing a song, Tom says that the process starts with a mix of any of four ingredients: melody, story, lyrics and a riff. “Sometimes I will pick up the guitar and the song will just start with a melody. Other times I will pick up a phrase from a book or something written on the back of a bus seat which will inspire me to create a lyric” he says.

 

Perhaps with a nod to his Beatles and Motown influences, Sail turns to the melancholy of their early works. “I like how all the Motown and early Beatles are always about heartbreak,” he says. “I like to feel melancholic hopefulness in my songs – they are usually sad to a point but not depressing.”

‘Wounded’ and its haunting predecessor, single ‘Two Weeks’ both deliver riveting musical introductions to this new talent. What five words would Tom Sail use to describe his upcoming album?  “Retro. Melancholic. Hopeful. Dreamy. Pensive.”