A young singer/songwriter who has gone from playing in fans' living rooms, to rocking at the BBC Electric Proms and Glastonbury, Sam Isaac is making waves on the acoustic music scene.

The 21-year-old from the sleepy West Midlands town of Malvern has been tipped as a top act to watch out for in 2008 by BBC Radio 1's Huw Stephens alongside the likes of The Ting Tings and Late Of The Pier.

Sam puts his success down to hard work and dedication.

Stopping on the motorway to chat to me mid-tour, he says: "There was no big break. I spent all of last year on the road gigging. I was dedicated to being a musician and news of my music spread by word of mouth."

Playing alongside the likes of Kate Walsh, The Pigeon Detectives, Edwyn Collins and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Sam clocked up an impressive 200 gigs last year. Amazingly, a quarter of them took place in fans' living rooms.

"It was borne out of necessity rather than anything else," says the flame-haired crooner. "Back in the day when I was booking my own gigs, it was really difficult to get venues. Playing fans' houses was easier because I didn't get messed about so much. I preferred to play to 20 people in a living room than going to a pub and playing to no one, or turning up to find the gig had been cancelled.

"Fans would pay my petrol money, offer me a meal and put me up for the night. I lost thousands of pounds doing it but I loved the DIY aspect of it and it did get me noticed."

These days, Sam sadly doesn't have time to play living rooms and, as he points out: "I've now got a five-piece band which I don't think would fit".

However, he does hope to do it again some day.

In the meantime, Sam will be performing in the living room-like intimacy of Komedia's Studio bar in support of his new single, Fire Fire.

Describing it as upbeat, optimistic pop he says: "It's about being too cowardly to deal effectively with family feuds. Like all my material, it's quite personal because I think it's really important to write music people can relate to and that's not filled with vague statements about nothing. But I like to keep the words quite cryptic too, so people can bring their own interpretations to it and take something personal from it."

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