Sam Price & The True Believers

Biography

Sam Price & The True Believers is a New Orleans-based roots band led by bassist, vocalist, and songwriter Sam Price, who has been embedded in the Crescent City music scene since 1992. Price spent years as a sideman — most notably as a founding member of the Honey Island Swamp Band — before quietly writing his own material "in the back of the van" during tours. He formed the True Believers in December 2015, finally stepping into the frontman role with a full band built around his privately cultivated songwriting voice. His musical life has always been eclectic: beyond roots rock, he has led OTRA, an Afro-Cuban jazz ensemble, and recorded Brazilian music under the alias LosOtros — a breadth that finds its way into the True Believers' sound as well.

The band plays a blend of soul rock, New Orleans roots rock, funk, and blue-eyed soul, with critics drawing comparisons to Allen Toussaint's lush 1970s songwriting. Their debut self-titled EP (March 2017) was recorded at Neutral Sound Studio in New Orleans and voted Best Roots Rock Album of 2017 by Offbeat Magazine. The follow-up full-length, Dragonfly (2019), was produced by Papa Mali — himself a New Orleans guitarist and collaborator with members of The Meters and the Grateful Dead — and funded by a Threadhead Cultural Foundation grant supporting Louisiana roots music. The album featured a wide array of New Orleans luminaries, including Gregory Davis of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Jake Eckert of the New Orleans Suspects, and percussionist Michael Skinkus. A subsequent album was in development with producer Anders Osborne as of late 2023.

The band's stated mission — "Love is the message, and music is the messenger" — is reflected in an explicitly optimistic aesthetic. They have performed at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, appeared in WWOZ studio sessions during pledge drives, and are regularly featured on WWOZ's event calendar. Price credits WWOZ 90.7 FM itself with sparking his interest in Afro-Cuban jazz when he first arrived in New Orleans — a fitting full-circle connection for an artist whose work is deeply rooted in the city's musical ecosystem.

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Fun Facts

• Sam Price wrote the True Believers' songs secretly for years while touring as a bassist with other bands — describing the process as 'years of secret song-writing in the back of the van' — before forming the group in December 2015.
• Price's interest in Afro-Cuban jazz was sparked specifically by listening to WWOZ 90.7 FM after moving to New Orleans, an especially fitting origin story given the band's deep ties to the station.
• The Honey Island Swamp Band — Sam Price's other main project — formed in San Francisco in 2005 because Hurricane Katrina displaced its members there; they met at a weekly residency at the Boom Boom Room before eventually returning to New Orleans.
• The Dragonfly album was funded by the Threadhead Cultural Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and promoting New Orleans roots music, giving the record an institutional stamp of authenticity within the city's cultural ecosystem.

Musical Connections

Mentors/Influences

• Allen Toussaint - Stylistic touchstone — critics explicitly compared Price's vocal inflections and songwriting spirit to Toussaint's 1970s output [Lifelong influence]

Key Collaborators

• Papa Mali - Producer of the Dragonfly LP (2019); contributed acoustic/slide guitars, Omnichord, and effects to the record (Dragonfly (2019))
• Gregory Davis - Dirty Dozen Brass Band trumpeter who contributed to Dragonfly (Dragonfly (2019))
• Anders Osborne - Norwegian-born New Orleans blues-rock guitarist and producer; collaborating on a forthcoming album as of 2023

External Links

• Spotify