Outsiders: Samuel Organ

Film images by Hollie Fernando

I’m Samuel, and I make music and ride my bike. I lived in Brighton for the last 15 years, and recently moved out of my place to see if I could cycle tour full time whilst still working in music and learning new skills. I’ve toured around the world with different bands and as a solo artist, but now I'm swapping the tour van for a steel touring bike.

When did your relationship with cycling start and how has it evolved over the years?

I guess it really started when I was a teenager. I was lucky enough to grow up in the countryside, so would go to a friend's after school on a Friday and head off for the weekend on old mountain bikes, make fires and shoot stuff with an air rifle. I moved to Brighton when I was 16 and cycling just became a way to get to work, so gravitated away from that sense of playful adventure for a good 10 years. Shortly before the global pandemic I bought a cheap gravel bike for some reason, and looking back it was the best few hundred quid I ever spent. I lost all my music work during that time and would ride the undercliff path every morning and start my journey of discovery into the hills and ancient pathways of the south downs surrounding Brighton. Since then it's just spiraled, and I started to notice that cycling and cycle touring had started to give me the same creative freedom I was getting from music, with its opportunities for problem solving and improvisation. I started to infuse my experiences and heightened connection with the natural world into my creative output, and that's led me to where I am now, living and traveling by bike full time for the foreseeable future.

What prompted you to make the jump from those home comforts to living on the bike, and how have you found your time so far?

In short, money. I love Brighton, it feels like my home. The access to nature, coastline, and an exciting creative city is unmatched, but the rental market is out of control. I don't have that spark to hustle at the moment, and build on my music career following the more traditional pathways. Over the last few years, I've thought a lot about the presence of numeric quantification in creative careers. It's such a numbers game. More followers, more records, more shows, more income, just to make ends meet. All of this creates a framework where your connection with creative endeavors is altered, and possibly harmed, for algorithmic prosperity. That's not the life I want. I also noticed that making music relied on quite an infrastructure for me. Studio space, equipment, tour vans, the list goes on. I'm curious as to whether there's another way for me to live and feel fulfilled, whilst being more mindful of the environmental needs of the planet. As for how I've found my time so far, complete bliss. Recording music is hard, but I've been writing, field recording, taking photos, and using friends' studio spaces when I can, or phone recording pianos in the corner of a pub. I love it, and adapting to those new challenges has made me more creative. I've built a network of people through touring over the years, whether that's fans, promoters, producers, friends… and now I'm getting the opportunity to meet them outside of a more traditional transactional relationship and work with them in different ways. As I’m writing this, I’m staying on a farm on the edge of the Forest of Wychwood, helping out on the farm in the daytime, learning new skills, and using a studio space here in the evenings.

Music is obviously a huge part of your life. How does music connect with riding for you?

On the surface, it's a beautiful companion when you're riding. Whether that's blasting slow doom metal whilst tackling a big climb, imaging I'm an ancient druid dragging a big stone up a hill, to sound tracking the beautiful and varied countryside and coastlines of the islands here with folk music of the region. I think it runs much deeper though and I'm enjoying figuring that out. Cycling is a rhythmic and cyclical pursuit, which grounds you with the natural world, and exposes you to the shifting moods of mother nature. Spending a lot of time outside, you start to become more aware of the way rain sounds as it lashes different materials, the way objects alter the pitch of the wind as they stand in its path, the swaying flora and songs of the fauna. With that sense heightened, I've found a lot more space to find new ways of feeling creatively fulfilled. To anyone reading this, I really recommend taking audio recordings if you're cycle touring. Videos and pictures take a beautiful snapshot in time, and the field recordings from those places in accompaniment can transport you back to those environments for years to come.

You have already been to Ireland and down to the west coast of England, what other adventures do you have coming up?

Not really sure to be honest. I’m enjoying meandering and having very loose plans. I’ve got a few milestones in the calendar which I'm using as anchor points to help guide the journey. I’m playing a festival in north Italy, so I'm thinking about riding out to that, but in the immediate future, heading up to the lakes for a little mission with some friends, then thinking about riding from there up to the Isle Of Skye. I fell in love with the Outer Hebrides whilst riding the Hebridean Way a few years back, and it’s been on my list for a while to explore the inner islands and the highlands. There’s definitely a lot of pressure on social media to be ticking off big rides with distance being a big focal point, riding the length of such and such, etc. My head isn’t completely removed from that world, it’s nice to sit back and look at what you’ve achieved, but when I thought about it more, I wouldn’t want a grand plan to dictate how I interact with my surroundings. It’s nice to feel you’ve got no time pressure, go and look at the stone circle, chat shit with strangers for a good hour, stop for a pint because the sun is perfectly hitting the beer garden.

Riding has always been a social element in your life, how have you found traveling alone?

It's no better or worse, just a completely different set of challenges each day. I find when I'm riding in a group, you've got your ecosystem pretty locked down. More bravado to take risks with wild camping spots, less engagement with strangers because you rely on each other, and familiarity with the people you’re adventuring with. That all changes when you’re riding alone, and you have to work a little harder to find comfort and happiness. There’s definitely a physical difference too. When riding with others I feel like I'm always altering my pace, and not necessarily sitting in a comfortable zone with it, as you speed up and slow down to match others. I’ve found my comfortable daily limit, around 80-100km per day with a fully loaded bike, and at my own natural pace which means I'm not worrying about recovery and stretching myself too thin.

People can follow your journey via your journal. How has the journaling process been for you?

It’s such a nice activity to come to at the end of a day of cycling. I did a masters degree looking at sustainability in music a few years back, and got introduced to the journaling process through that. I’ve always enjoyed documenting moments in the past, whether that’s touring with bands or adventures with friends, and writing feels like a nice new medium to explore. I still flirt with making reels on instagram and stuff to go online, but I’m always arguing with that voice inside telling me to put my phone down and enjoy the moment. Writing is a very slow and mindful thing to do, and you can’t be distracted or assaulted by advertising or stupid videos when putting pen to paper. I use ‘world building’ as a huge part of my creative process around making records, and with the journal I can really invite people in, tell stories about my adventures and communicate to them on a deeper level than through social media, where you’re formatting to fit the criteria of the platform to reach your audience.

If anyone is interested in reading about my travels and thoughts around creative health, then I run my journal through my ‘Buy Me A Coffee’ page, where you can also support my work and become a subscriber, etc.