Old Sap Authentic Folk

If you appreciate authentic folk, folk rock and Americana music, you’ll find affection for the music Old Sap makes – especially on his latest project, Marble Home. The poet/musician rambling, story teller was born in Chicago, went to college in St. Louis, back home to Chicago and then joined the Montana conservation corp. After about six years there, he found his new roots in Ashville, NC where’s he’s been since 2017.

Sap started as a spoken word poet in high school, “I’ve been on stage my whole life,” he shared. “One time in home room in high school I started singing “Bohemian Rhapsody,” then somebody dared me to walk next door to the other class and sing the entire song out loud in the hall way,” he remembered. “I did that and nobody beat me up – and I just realized I could sing whenever I felt like it and nothing bad would ever happen – that’s probably when the music bug caught me.”

In college, Sap was an acting major, and took voice lessons every semester. “When I got out of college I remember sitting on a train with my friend singing a song to myself – he said, ‘hey, what do you need to do to make yourself sing better?’ – so it didn’t come all that fast for me,” he laughed.

“I picked up the banjo that year after sitting around in my parents basement wondering what to do. I saw the Avett brothers play and thought, ‘I should probably pick up a banjo.’ It just grew from there, honestly.”

Saps parents are Irish/American, so he used to go to a lot of Irish fests as a kid, and points to that experience for launching what has become the base for his sound now as a professional musician.
His latest project, Marble Home, was released in early February, and features several area musicians who helped collaborate on this album.