Sam Fischer turns failure into success with breakout hit “This City”

Louis BrowneAustralian singer/songwriter Sam Fischer has his first big hit with “This City,” a song that, ironically, he wrote about his initial failure to set the music industry on fire. Sam moved to L.A. with hopes of musical stardom, but then his re…

By ABC Audio on August 6, 2020

Louis BrowneAustralian singer/songwriter Sam Fischer has his first big hit with “This City,” a song that, ironically, he wrote about his initial failure to set the music industry on fire.

Sam moved to L.A. with hopes of musical stardom, but then his record label dropped him, and he struggled for years. He became disillusioned with L.A. and the music industry in general, so he wrote “This City.” But now, the song’s success has made him look at the positive side of things.

“‘This City,’ I wrote in a super-dark place and it has become my light to get out,” Sam tells ABC Audio. “…[E]ven though the city has beaten me down and has broken my heart again and again, I’m still here.”

It was Sam’s fans who helped him realize that, though.

“When I wrote that song, I was in such a rough place mentally…it was such a sad song to me,” he explains. “And it was my fans that almost redefined the song for me. They made me see that it’s about hope…and it’s been amazing. My fans have given me my career.”

But now that Sam’s song about failure is a success, he’s frustrated that the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing him from going out there and playing it — his scheduled tour with Niall Horan was cancelled.

“Without sugarcoating it, it sucks,” he admits, adding, “I’ve been working hard for a lot of years, and it’s rough that I’ve gotten to this point and [I’m] not able to experience having such a big song.”

“My dream is to play a song to a crowd of thousands and have them sing my song back to me,” he admits. “[It] gives me chills, thinking about that. So even though we have to wait a little while, it’s O.K.”

By Andrea Dresdale
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