There comes a point in the lives of many people when they look up from their game of Edward Fortyhands and realize that they’re the oldest person sitting at the beer pong table. Their friends have long ago lost interest, grown-up and moved on to a fabulous lifestyle of lawn maintenance and RRSP contributions.
While musicians get a little leeway in the growing-up department, often professionally so, as Dave Sampson approached his thirtieth birthday he began to notice that, unlike his friends, he was without a designer dog of his own.
“All My Friends” might be a hooky pop-fueled song about the fear of getting left behind, or lost entirely as pursues an entirely different direction in life, but Dave Sampson, fortunately, didn’t have to go it alone. He shares writing credits with Nicole Ariana and Dylan Guthro for this catchy, quirky, and nostalgic look at all the reasons we may, or may not, want to graduate to mortgage payments and childcare.
“I wrote this song when I turned 30 and realized all my friends were growing up faster than I was; having kids, buying houses and designer dogs, and following pretty specific and similar paths,” says Sampson. “I had to write an anthem for all the thirty-somethings out there just livin’ their damn lives!”
“I wasn’t quite there yet or ready to settle down. Still not there… But, I’m also lucky to be where I’m at and have a successful career with this.”
Sampson notes that “All My Friends” was written just before the world went topsy turvy. Although that particularly unexpected event has meant both a serious hiatus for serious life planning as well as a growing disparity between those who had managed to settle down into their own homes and those doomed to be “renovicted,” Sampson says that the song’s message of simply missing your friends is just all the more relevant… even if you have set a new record with a 74-week streak as the home tournament, singles division, Flip Cup Champion.