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Aug 10, 2022 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Gina Leslie

As Mr. Sam & The People People, New Orleans singer/songwriter Sam Gelband makes songs with a simple intention: to bring people together. As he explains, he makes “music to phone a friend to,” inspired by strains of New Orleans rhythm & blues, indie rock, jangle pop, and folk. Gelband and company debuted back in 2020 with their self-titled EP, and later next month they are back with their debut LP, People People People People!

The band have already teased the record with its title track, and today they’re back with their new single “Pictures of Us,” along with an accompanying video, premiering with Under the Radar.

“Pictures of Us” is a sweet and nostalgic tour through Gelband’s warmhearted songwriting, with his honeyed vocals tracing the outline of joyous moments and treasured memories that have gone by. It’s a breezy and sunny work of songcraft, carried by muted guitar lines, lilting background vocals, and chiming melodies. Meanwhile, Gelband’s lyrics find him both reminiscing on moments of nostalgic joy and holding close to the people who made those moments special一“Just come to me and I will show you / Pictures of us / When we were so happy / We all had each other / That was enough / And now that we’re older / We still have each other / So I will let old pictures fade.”

Gelband says of the track, “I spent my adolescence sitting in a shack with my best friends, trying to find ways to make each other laugh, move each other, help each other grow. We made sense of the world through each other, with each other, for each other. I find that nostalgia is sometimes a strange addiction - it can be a resignation to an idea that we no longer experience love as we once knew it, but when I look at my life and the good hearts that surround me, I know that the love I was shown in those earlier years taught me how to love better now. Pictures take on a life of their own, they remind us not just of what we once had, but that the love we see inside the frame is still possible.”

Check out the song and video below. People People People People! is out September 23rd.