Samantha Vaughn Biography
She sees herself as lucky.
She was born and raised in the Bay Area listening to Aerosmith, Kiss, Foreigner, Pat Benatar, Marvin Gaye, and the likes. She loves (LOVES) P!nk - duh - and is additionally influenced by: Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Queen, Led Zeppelin (so many more).
Family: mom and dad (divorced), one older brother, one husband, one pseudo-little bro, one pseudo-little sis, and constantly claims to be surrounded by amazing, loving people.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in British/American Literature, but couldn’t leave behind math and managed to minor in it. Besides wanting to be a queen in music, Samantha’s dream was to be an educator. She ended up working for a wonderful library system that provides and influences literacy for all ages, and also provides her, she says, with time to work on “this masterful project!”
Singer / Songwriter Fun Facts
Favorite meal: Mom’s lasagna and red wine.
Favorite color: Purple.
Favorite book: Love Anthony, by Lisa Genova.
Favorite workout: Muay Tai
Favorite tv show: Of all time? Friends for sure.
Favorite animal: Elephants - I have a thigh tattoo of one, and I cherish it.
Dislikes: Mean people and violence. No reason for it.
What instrument do you want to learn to play? Definitely bass! Anyone seen I Love You Man?
The Real Stuff
I grew up in a struggling household. Don’t most of us?
That’s the reason I started writing. “Don’t most of us.” Actually, yes, most of us do. We come from violent households, we come from manipulative backgrounds, we were raised in fear, we were raised in shame, we grew up without money, or with too much money. We grew up normal, handsome, or pretty. We grew up judged, edited, and molded. We grew up with happy times, sad times, real messed up times.
We all know heartbreak - either from death, divorce (parents’ or your own), or broken dreams. We get angry, angry at the world, angry at mean people (totally my beef with the world), angry at nice people, angry at fake people, angry at real people, or people who think they’re real. We all experience the world differently, we all cope with it differently, and we all go down different paths.
We all experience love.
I came from this place: single mom (for a while) until my dad had a car accident when I was 19 that, he can tell you, brought him back to life; sharing a one bedroom apartment in San Leandro, California with my mom and older brother, watching my mother struggle and work herself exhausted to buy a 2 bedroom home so that we had more space to grow up; watching my parents manage their new lives after divorce, watching and experiencing the brunt of what comes from anger and pain; wrestling with my brother and eating cupcakes out of a box until next payday (hell, we were fine with it); changing schools pretty consistently and moving pretty constantly; going to court and telling secrets to strangers who used them to make decisions for me and my brother; and watching struggle. I just watched struggle for so long. With the bad, came the good. But it taught me about life and how to be strong - which I discovered in my later years.
Fast forward a bit: I came from a place where I thought checking things twenty times before I left the house, still worrying about it, even crying about it, was going to be the rest of my life. My heart would just pound in my chest. I would get mad at myself, hit myself. I hated me. I couldn’t look in the mirror without wanting to hurt myself. I had so many dark obsessions.
The first time that I realized I was not alone was in a group therapy class for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I watched heartbreak, raw, unfiltered heartbreak in those class members’ eyes. What I thought was hard in life could have been a joke to them. But when I spoke, they didn’t laugh at me. They cried with me and nodded.
I knew, at that point, that I needed to let people know, somehow, that they are not alone.
I started singing when I was in college. I played Cass Elliot, Grace Slick, and Janis Joplin in a 60’s review on and off for twelve years. I was a backup singer in a country band for about 2 years, and decided I wanted more. So, I hopped on Craigslist and found Heartstone (then...unnamed). After developing some confidence (say that with a little sarcasm), I started experiencing the sensation of how much music changed people’s day. And not just the music that I covered. It was how I sang, and how I performed, and how I listened. How I wanted to sing, perform, and listen to people’s stories. And I started writing.
In January of 2018, I lucked out. Mike Cook, a producer and guitarist, approached me in a little bar called Toot’s Tavern after an old drummer friend of mine, Nils Primgaard, suggested he come hear me sing. Before this, I was having a pretty bad night with a newer first attempt band that wasn’t performing at 100% and neither was I. When Mike approached me, even though it was an off night for the band, Mike saw potential. And with that meet came the birth of my Samantha Vaughn’s first album (produced by the one and only Mike Cook) “I’m Not Broken.” From what I’ve learned, good things come from difficult times and this proved it.
