SAMMYJO

Bedford Review


After that things started heating up…
Eskimo Brit. Kinda country, very rock and fronted by the most awesome chick I have seen on stage in a long time. SammyJo. I am impressed, I want to be you when I grow up. The strongest voice, full of passion and body; such a curtain of perfect blonde hair, eyes that sparkle and shine and glint with naughty cheeky rock chick fire; and to top it all off, she does this from behind a drum kit. Yes really. She leads from the back and makes the stage her own, never forgetting her boys. Because that is who they are, her boys, and her audience. Chick rock, maybe, yes, but the kind of thing anyone could get into.


Review following the Bedford gig on 27th October 2007 on venue web pages.
- The Bedford

Things are warming up nicely for Eskimo Brit.
Featuring Chesterfield’s own SammyJo on drums and vocals:

A summery slice of perfect power pop with a country flavour, strummed acoustics flirt with Lavigne-like vocals and witty lyrics, mixing up a delightful cocktail as irresistible as iced G & T on an August evening.

SammyJo says of ‘Paradise’ her new single – “It’s about how different paradise is to each person; everyone has their own; a big house, a fast car, spending time with someone special. All of those things or none of them.”

‘Don’t Wake The Neighbours’ has more of an R&B feel, with a deep-dish bass riff that showcases SammyJo’s diva delivery. There are some great over dubbed back vocals too, turning her into a one woman Supremes!
Lastly came ‘I Don’t Wanna’ which kicks off with an angular rock riff and builds to a huge anthemic chorus. Throwing up references of everyone from Elastica to Joan Jett, it has more hooks than a schools cloakroom.

Philfy Phil - Derbyshire Times

Review by Sheffield Sandman Magazine
Sept ‘06



Eskimo Brit
@The Grapes / Sheffield
.
Ice rock is how Eskimo Brit describes themselves. What the heck is that you might ask yourself? I did and a Google search produced similar results.

Eskimo Brit is a trio fronted by singer / songwriter and drummer SammyJo, a female equivalent to Phil Collins immediately springs to mind. Having recently returned from Nashville from recording of their promo EP, Crush, they are currently touring the country.

It's difficult not to pigeon hole any band or artist but power pop would suit the description here. An excellently played set followed, which over shadowed a few technical hitches that dogged the band in the first two songs.
A comparatively short performance with songs like Make It Rain and Crush leaving you wanting to hear that little bit more Credit must applied here to SammyJo for fusing drumming with singing and making it seem like second nature.

Eskimo Brit is quite a new band with radio friendly songs that wouldn't be out of place in the UK top 20, check them out.
GW
- Sandman Magazine

“The strongest voice, full of passion and body; such a curtain of perfect blonde hair, eyes that sparkle and shine and glint with naughty cheeky rock chick fire; and to top it all off, she does this from behind a drum kit. Yes really. She leads from the back and makes the stage her own”

This was a recent review written about a young lady called SammyJo who with her backing musicians calls herself ‘Eskimo Brit’ and I got a chance to chat with her just before her performance at ‘Guilfest’ one of the biggest of the UK’s famous open air summer music festivals of 2007.

Q – So how did it all start for you SammyJo?

A – During my time at high school I went to a recording studio as part of my ‘work experience’ secondment. I spotted this drum kit all on it’s own and that was it. A partnership was born, and although it took two long years of begging my parents to get me a kit I knew it was where my future was.

Q – And the singing, where does that fit in?

A – I’ve been singing since I was about 10 years old, had various tuition, messed about a bit with song writing but nothing too serious at that stage and then when I was 15 the drums arrived!!!

(gently tossing her hair back over her shoulder she is totally unaware of the effect she has on people)

Q – So how come the drumming and singing became a combined item?

A – Ahh (she laughs with a wicked twinkle to her bright blue eyes) well…….. somebody told me that to do anything in this industry that I would have to choose, that I couldn’t do both. So…………. Eskimo Brit was the outcome of that!!!!

Q -“Credit must applied here to SammyJo for fusing drumming with singing and making it seem like second nature.” That was said in a UK music magazine review so it seems you’ve made it work out ok?

A – I don’t know how it works, I can’t explain it. Yeah it’s hard work but it all just seems to come together and the end result sounds ok. It’s always going to be hard being a female drummer anyway so to add that something extra just gives Eskimo Brit a bit of added interest.

Q – And now you write and record your own songs?

A – It’s a really important part of this industry to be able to write your own material. I have worked with some excellent people based here in the UK with co-writes like TableSauce, Sandi Thoms’ producers and I have also written a huge amount of my own songs. We perform some of those live when we gig and some of them haven’t been recorded yet.

Q – Where do your ideas for songs come from?

A- Well I can certainly say not all of it is personal experience although some of it is. I’m working with the NSPCC at the moment trying to raise some well deserved funds for them by organizing a gig in Sheffield and one of my more recent songs was written with their organization in mind, particularly the children they are trying to help.
‘Dares to Dream’ is all about a young girl who is trying to find her way out of a life of physical abuse and saving her sister and brother from the same kind of life she has been enduring. I’m hoping the song can be used to raise lots of money for the charity.

To lighten the tone a bit I asked her about her male fans and if she had any funny tales to tell us –

“ Oh crikey, where do I start ? I had a ball at a recent gig, we were playing with another band and the lead singer was wearing this ‘cowboy’ hat. I laughed so hard when he blushed bright red because I had stopped my song halfway through to tell him I thought he was sooooo sexy and he looked like Johnny Dep”

“ As far as fans go I’m not aware that I have picked up any particular fan as such, but I do get lot’s of lovely messages on our myspace site. I always make sure that I take the time to answer anyone who goes on there and leaves me a message and it’s fun to chat with everybody and find out all about them”

“ I suppose our funniest ‘member’ of Eskimo Brit is our mascot Little Eb, he has his own ‘myspace’ page and puts new blogs up there quite regularly and believe me he gets up to quite a lot of mischief!’

Q- So, where do things go from here?

A- Wherever the music takes me I suppose. I will just keep working hard in the hope that I can build up a good fan base and get a record company interested enough to put a deal on the table. I released my first single earlier this year through my own label but Eskimo Brit has evolved quite a bit since then and that song really isn’t a good representation of the sound now. We were lucky enough though to win the UK’s Bands Unsigned ‘Battle of the Bands’ in December and get 3 of our tracks into the top 10 of their chart at the same time!! Quite a coup and it certainly boosted the ego a bit.



And so as this blonde hair, probably the longest I have ever seen swings out the door I’m wondering why on earth this young lady isn’t up there performing with the best of them.

Check out Eskimo Brit’s site at www.myspace.com/eskimobrit and leave SammyJo a message, she promises to get back to you.



- Toronto Exclusive Magazine