Thee Sacred Souls on heartbreak, hyper-capitalism and their sophomore album
Though Thee Sacred Souls maintain they write about universal experiences of love rather than personal confessionals, there’s an undeniable softness that creeps in when discussing matters of the heart. “The heartbreak felt by the person who perpetrates the hurt is still heartbreak,” John Lane, who’s responsible for their buttery-smooth vocals, tells me. It’s this kind of candour that defines my conversation with the band, even as exhaustion from their relentless touring schedule threatens to seep through. The notion of heartbreak comes up because of “My Heart is Drowning”, a track from their sophomore album, Got A Story To Tell — why I’m sat across from them in a Shepherd’s Bush hotel on an early autumn day. I tell them that “My Heart is Drowning” reminds me of Wendy Rene’s “After Laughter”, and I even find myself singing it to the band. Clearly, Thee Sacred Souls have the kind of placid energy that makes you feel like it won’t be too embarrassing to croon in front of them. It’s that, or they’re just completely exhausted. It’s probably a mix of the two.
The soul trio – composed of Josh Lane, Sal Samano and Alex Garcia – have been living out of suitcases, touching down in London from Manchester two days prior. To say things have been intense for the band since the release of their self-titled debut album would be an understatement. They’ve been touring North America and Europe since 2022, something which doesn’t look to stop until early next year. It comes with challenges that the relatively new band is surprisingly measured about. “You just have to grapple with the reality that it’s a blessing to be on the road, but there’s sacrifices,” Lane tells me. “You’ve got to put everything else on pause”. It doesn’t come as a shock that Thee Sacred Souls are in demand. When Lane confesses to pre-show jitters, it’s hard to believe, especially given the electric performance I’d witness later that evening at Jazz Cafe. Lane commands the crowd with an ease that belied his earlier admissions: “Ten minutes before going on stage you’ll feel like you don’t want to go out there,” he admits. Their energy is so infectious that I feel quite jammy to have sat across from them mere hours earlier.
The band’s demanding schedule has resulted in a sophomore album that’s decidedly darker and “more mature”, as they put it themselves. It’s an evolution they take in their stride, though — not all too surprising given they speak about music with an almost scholarly reverence. They drop references to everything from Cambodian soul to Delta blues, and on occasion I’m left scrambling to keep up. But the ostensible “best” thing about Thee Sacred Souls? Despite being treated as the next big thing (their track “Can I Call You Rose” exploded on TikTok), there’s still an edge to them — that’s particularly evident when discussing the insatiable demand for new material. “I’m sure they’ll ask for a third album in a couple of weeks,” bassist Sal Samano quips with a hint of weariness.
Ahead of the release of Got A Story To Tell, HUNGER sits down with the band to chat about the cathartic power of music, creating in a hyper-capitalist world, and the frustrations of accidentally creating a “TikTok song”.
Amber Rawlings: Tell me a little bit about how Thee Sacred Souls came about. Your sound is so seamless people might think you’ve been together forever, but it’s quite an interesting story.
Sal Samano: Me and Alex [Garcia] were playing in separate bands at the same time, and we ended up playing the same show. We were both waiting to play. I was drinking whiskey in the back of the venue. He was looking for whiskey. We just, you know, started drinking and talking about music we grew up on.
Alex Garcia: Yeah, and we needed a singer. I had already been following Josh. Liked his voice. Hit him up. Easy as that. Took it from there.
AR: Was it quite a whirlwind for you to be snapped up like that, Josh?
Josh Lane: Well, it kind of started fast, but I didn’t feel snapped up. When [Alex] reached out, he didn’t actually express the band idea right away. He just reached out and asked if we wanted to jam together. I thought maybe I’d just sing something on his instrumental stuff and he would play drums for me in return. But at the end of the session he showed me some of the instrumentals he was working on with Sal. He actually showed me an instrumental which ended up becoming “Can I Call You Rose”. I just kind of sang along to it, and came up with some melodies and lyrics… To answer your question, yeah, it’s been a whirlwind.
AR: Can you even fathom how much “Can I Call You Rose” blew up?
AG: Yeah, it was cool. You know, that’s one of our more popular songs.
JL: It’s all the younger people on the different platforms. You know, we’re relatively young too, but the Gen Z’s are another thing. Using our song when they record cooking videos, or get dressed with me videos.
AR: How do you feel about that? I was telling people that I was interviewing you, and they knew “Can I Call You Rose” as a “TikTok song”. I guess that’s amazing because it’s providing you with a platform, but I imagine it can be frustrating?
JL: It’s never the most fun for people to be like, ‘Oh, that TikTok song’. It means more to us than that. But on the flip side… If that’s what the people are using to digest music, then that’s a blessing.
AG: That’s just where we are with TikTok and music. People make careers out of it. You know, putting a song on TikTok… Next thing you know, you’ve got a record deal.
JL: It does make the song a little less fun to listen to. It’s not a song that I like to hear as much because I hear it everyday on Instagram. But we knew it was a good song when we wrote it. I just don’t think we knew it was going to get amplified in the way it has.
AR: You’ve spoken before about how music is a very cathartic thing for you. Was that still possible, or still as true, with this second album? When there’s more expectations?
AG: Yeah, there’s definitely more expectation. More pressure.
JL: It’s still cathartic though. I still get a sense of release from working on music. I feel like – and I think I speak for all of us – halfway through the recording process, I wasn’t happy. I was sad, and I felt overwhelmed. But writing some of the songs and then seeing them come to fruition gave me some release.
AG: The whole recording process is pretty crazy. You experience so many different feelings. Some days you’re feeling it, sometimes you just wanna go home. You know, life is happening while you’re working on the album.
AR: Given you’ve been touring while making this second album, it must have been a very different process? A lot more stressful?
AG: I mean, for me it was like an escape. Writing was something I looked forward to. It’d be a comfort.
JL: Yeah, I was the opposite, at least on the touring front. I don’t know how to not spend time in the green room trying to warm up, or getting into the mindset of having hundreds of thousands of people stare at you, you know? I didn’t have the available bandwidth – or even desire – to write on the road. I did have faith that the songs would come out of us. I was like, if Alex is writing and this is a good time for him… But when it was crunch time, I did get a little worried, because I didn’t want to fake it.
AR: Do you think this record feels a little darker than your debut?
AG: Definitely more mature.
JL: Yeah, more mature and darker. I’d say a whole third of the record has a bit more of a darker tone. Sonically and storywise. The first time we were just writing songs. For me, writing lyrics and melodies… Either I was coming out of some story I wanted to tell, or there was a chorus which made it easy to direct where the story would go. But this time we were a little bit more thoughtful about what stories we wanted to tell.
AR: Yeah, there’s definitely an arc. Do you feel like you can see that? When I’ve spoken to other artists, they find it harder to see that. More than a fan or listener would, anyway.
JL: I just think the good and bad of life are weaved together in a more thoughtful way on this one. But [the arc] wasn’t necessarily on purpose. If you listen to the record, there’s love, there’s coming to an awareness of oneself, there’s heartbreak… And then it ends on a love song, which I think was on purpose. To be like, at the end of the day, if you’re living for yourself – experiencing the good and the bad – the good still happens after that.
AR: I think it’s a real testament to the way the record is constructed that by the time I did get to the last track (“I’m So Glad I Found You, Baby”) I felt a little bit emotional. Tell me more about the last track.
AG: Before it was titled “I’m So Lucky To Be With You”. I met my girlfriend and came up with that whole thing of I’m so happy you found me and vice versa. But as far as the music is concerned — that’s some Royal Jesters soul, in my opinion. Panama soul. “You Call Me By My Name” by Joey Con Los Silvertones is one of the inspirations for that one.
AR: One of my favourite songs on this album is “My Heart is Drowning”. It feels different to others on the record — it’s definitely a tone change. Tell me a little more about it.
JL: As we were writing these songs and some of the heartbreak songs were coming together, I was starting to think of a story. A story arc around a person hurting somebody else, and that person dealing with how they inflicted that hurt. Like, the heartbreak felt by the person who perpetrates the hurt is still heartbreak. And that’s a relatable feeling.
AG: There was some Christmas Eve party going on above the studio when we wrote [“My Heart is Drowning”], but I was on some darker energy at that point. Even though there was a party going on upstairs, in my head I was feeling very dark. I was on some spooky vibes. The demo even had some spacey sounds in it — there was a synthesiser in the background.
AR: There’s a lot of talk about the pressures for artists to be super confessional in their music — lay it bare. You’ve talked about being somewhat averse to that. Do you think there’ll be pressure for that to change down the line?
JL: It always comes from something real but it’s also about telling a story. Just like a movie director — they might be doing a murder scene, but they probably haven’t murdered anybody. For us, it might not be confessionals, but I know how I would feel if I was in a certain position. I don’t know if this band is ever going to word-for-word tell people what their lives are like, but the stories we tell are universal. Humans go through these things. They break each other’s hearts. They find themselves.
SS: Also, it keeps it open for the listeners. Keeps it relatable.
AR: What are your favourite songs on this album? Were there any that were really challenging to put together?
JL: “Waiting on the Right Time” is one of my favourites because it feels like a good middle ground between the soul we grew up on and other music we listen to. The way I was singing the verses felt a little more R&B. Or the softer parts of some Michael Jackson songs. It definitely sounds like soul, but it also sounds like a good R&B track to me.
AG: I had fun tracking the guitar on “Price I’ll Pay”. It kind of reminds me of Los Angeles Negros because of the wah guitar. It’s more like that Spanish soul from the early ‘70s.
SS: I think “Lucid Girl” was fun to record. There’s a toughness to the drums on it, and for a bassist that’s everything.
AR: Have your influences changed since the first album? I read in another interview with you guys that your influences for the first album were very much classic, old soul, but I wondered if you’d immersed yourself in the soul revival world a little more now?
AG: I was listening to a lot of world music and Delta blues from the 1930s. I would say even Cambodian music — their interpretation of soul music was influential. And I like the storytelling in Delta blues.
JL: I was just listening to up-tempo soul, really. But I was so busy on the road that I wasn’t the best music digester. I was just surviving the tour.
SS: A lot of salsa, to be honest.
AR: I think there’s a lot of noise at the moment about what it takes to be a successful musician — you have to be this fully-formed package. Do you find that hard? Do you wish you could, you know, put out a record and then just disappear?
JL: It’s a mixed bag. It’s beautiful to engage with the fans. Ten minutes before going on stage you’ll feel like you don’t want to go out there, but when you see the smiles – and sometimes the sadness – you realise that the music is bigger than us. Even if I’m not always living the lyrics, someone else is being deeply influenced by it. We’re helping people to escape for a little bit. But then the other side of it is we don’t get to be home as often. You just have to grapple with the reality that it’s a blessing to be on the road, but there’s sacrifices. You’ve got to put everything else on pause. I don’t have a partner right now, but I tried to make it work with someone while I was on the road. You have to really make time. And you have to have a partner who understands and wants to make time with you.
AR: How are you feeling about your show at the Jazz Cafe tonight? I don’t know if you’ve been there before, but there’s actual seats. Like an actual jazz bar.
JL: We’re probably going to ask them to stand up. We understand how pretty that is, but with the music we make, we need engagement. I’ve seen a show where Marvin Gaye plays a banquet or something, but the difference with that was it was a room of hundreds of people — fifty or sixty tables. When it’s a smaller venue, it just doesn’t make sense. To have people sitting and feeling like VIPs… I don’t like that feeling of class.
AR: Finally, what’s next for Thee Sacred Souls? A break, perhaps?
JL: No.
AG: Nope!
SS: We’ve got a six or seven week tour coming up. Then a small break, then another tour. We have a total of, like, two weeks off this year.
AG: Yesterday was our first day off in a long time.
JL: I think our next break is after our February tour, and we’re going to fight to keep that. You know, sustainability as a musician… We live in a very hyper-capitalist world, whether you like it or not. The industry will let you extract everything out of yourself unless you have some boundaries. We’re learning that.
AR: So, a third album? In 2026 based on the trajectory you’re on?
SS: I’m sure they’ll ask for a third album in a couple of weeks.
Thee Sacred Souls’ second album, Got A Story To Tell, will be released on the 4th of October.
