Sam Stokes is a songwriter, musician, and storyteller exploring the strange, beautiful, messy experience of being human.
Her music moves between intimate songwriting and full-bodied rock, blending vulnerability, curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of the unexpected. Whether performing solo or with her band, Sam Stokes & the Sunfires, she is interested in one thing above all: connection.
Her current project, The Tale of Gaia, is a collection of songs exploring the experience of a soul living a human life—getting lost, falling in love, searching for meaning, and finding its way back to the light.
Alongside her music, Sam hosts Tell Me, a podcast built around a simple idea: everyone knows something fascinating.
Come for the songs. Stay for the stories.
SAM STOKES
Songwriter. Musician. Storyteller.
My Name is Sam
THE STORY
There are a lot of ways to describe a person.
Songwriter. Musician. Performer. Storyteller.
Sam Stokes has never been particularly interested in choosing just one.
At the center of everything she does is a fascination with being human: why we love, why we hurt, why we search for meaning, why we make art, and why—despite everything—we keep reaching for one another.
Music became the place where those questions could live.
Sam's songs move between intimate reflection and full-bodied rock, often finding beauty in unexpected places. Sometimes they're playful. Sometimes they're searching. Sometimes they're loud enough to shake the walls. But underneath them is a consistent belief: music is most powerful when it creates a genuine connection between people.
THE FIRE
Sam thinks of music as a kind of fire.
It can be a wildfire—unpredictable, overwhelming, impossible to ignore.
It can also be a candle: small, warm, and just bright enough to help someone find their way through the dark.
That's the space she tries to inhabit as an artist.
Not perfection.
Not certainty.
Presence.
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THE TALE OF GAIA
Her current body of work, The Tale of Gaia, grew out of that fascination with the human experience.
The idea is simple and enormous at the same time: imagine a soul arriving on Earth and becoming immersed in a human life. Along the way, it forgets where it came from. It experiences love, fear, desire, loss, joy, confusion, connection, and all the beautiful contradictions that come with being alive.
The songs follow that journey.
They're not answers so much as questions set to music.
What are we doing here?
What do we do with the time we've been given?
What remains when everything else falls away?
And how do we find our way back to what matters?
THE SUNFIRES
Sam also performs with Sam Stokes & the Sunfires, bringing the songs into a live setting where they can become something bigger, looser, louder, and more immediate.
The Sunfires are about the feeling of being in a room together—musicians listening to one another, an audience becoming part of the experience, and a song changing every time it's played.
Because that's the point.
Music isn't meant to be perfectly contained.
It's meant to be shared.
TELL ME
That same curiosity led to Tell Me, a podcast where Sam sits down with people who are passionate about something and asks them to explain it.
It might be graphic novels.
It might be filmmaking.
It might be the tuba.
The subject almost doesn't matter.
The interesting part is watching someone light up when they talk about something they love.
And maybe that's what all of this is really about.
Paying attention.
Being curious.
Finding the things that make us feel alive.
And passing a little of that fire along.
Credits
Photos and Videos by Judy Lin, Tobias Waldenmeier, Austin Barradas & Manu Waldenmeier
Album Artwork by Jasmin Giller
"Common Ground" Illustrations by Erin Spencer
For Booking / Press Contact
samstokesofficial (at) gmail (dot) com