ISSAQUAH, Wash. — He plays through the pain to build something beautiful.
Sam Foster is making music that tells a story. His story, "My mental health took a turn for the worse and I really felt like I needed the songwriting,"
Foster has battled obsessive-compulsive disorder for much of his life. Quietly, at first.
Foster said, "The fact that I had OCD was something I wanted to tell no one."
But now, he sings it at the top of his voice.
Even though he was a straight-A student, a fear of academic failure gripped the teen, and sent him spiraling into deeply troubling loops of negative thought.
"Recurring, obsessive fears," said Foster.
When he couldn't turn down the volume on his OCD, he learned to sing it away.
"I think what's courageous is just having the will to fight back in the first place," Foster said.
The result is a body of work that makes sense of his struggle.
"The music gives meaning to it," he said.
Sam's story, bathed in the blues, has transfixed audiences from the stage at MoPop's SoundOff, to the Moore Theatre's More Music @ the Moore, a youth music program, where he and other young musicians were mentored by legendary Prince protégée Sheila E.
"It was a really amazing experience," Foster said. "It was collaborative, awesome."
Prince had passed away just a few days earlier.
Foster said, "She was able to shoulder that burden and just channel it into helping young artists."
Wherever Foster plays, his music is paired with a message.
"Sharing my emotions onstage and being vulnerable is something that's really important," he said, "because it helps people relate to you and it helps people ultimately relate to themselves."
Sam Foster may not know exactly where he's going. But he'll never forget where he's been.
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