Popscene Presents....
SAM QUEALY
North American Tour
The SF debut of fab Aussie electropop artist now based in Paris!
Thursday, DEC 10
@ Brick & Mortar Music Hall
7pm doors, 8pm show, All ages
$20.00 advance, $25.00 week of show
Support TBA
SAM QUEALY
SAM QUEALY
biography (2025)
The sophomore album from Sam Quealy, JAWBREAKER takes its title from the timeless candy that shares the singular character of her music: a bold confection both addictively sweet and dangerously hard, widely beloved for its potential to wreak glorious havoc. In a stunning evolution of her 2023 debut Blonde Venus, the Paris-based singer/songwriter brings a new element of
disco to her gorgeously anarchic dance-pop, layering in lush grooves and heavenly melodies while fully matching the chaotic energy of the world around her. A brilliant collision of sensitivity and subversion, over-the-top bombast and hyper-femininity, JAWBREAKER ultimately affirms Quealy as a shapeshifting visionary who defies all convention.
Made with her frequent collaborator Marlon Magnée (co-founder of French rock band La Femme), JAWBREAKER came to life at their home studio and at Studio Ferber (a Paris facility where the legendary Serge Gainsbourg recorded in the ’70s). In a departure from the volatile
techno-pop of Blonde Venus, Quealy sculpted the album’s lavish sound with abundant use of live instrumentation, lending a potent luminosity to JAWBREAKER’s songs of lust and longing and self-celebration. “With the first album there was a lot of discovery and experimentation—I wasn’t
following any rules, and it feels very niche and underground,” says the Australia-born artist. “This album still has the nihilistic feel of the first record, but there’s a lightness and positivity as well.
When there’s so much depressing news all the time, I wanted to create something that makes everyone feel good.”
On the album-opening lead single “LONDONTOWN,” Quealy provides a perfect entry point into JAWBREAKER’s beautifully unhinged atmosphere, offering up a frenzied but feel-good anthem
of escape. “It’s a song about wanting to run away to somewhere new, which partly comes from
growing up in a small town and knowing there was so much else out there,” says Quealy, who hails from a beach town near Sydney. Hypnotic and high-drama, “LOVE LASSO” inhabits an
ominous romanticism in its portrait of what Quealy calls “a toxic love that you keep coming back to even if it’s bad for you.” Next, on the wildly fun “GIRLS NIGHT,” JAWBREAKER presents a
shimmering piece of synth-pop born from her deep affinity for playing with persona. “Even though
all my songs come from me, I’m not always writing in my own voice,” she says. “I’ve got a hundred wigs in my house and I’m always trying on different versions of myself, and with ‘GIRLS
NIGHT’ I wanted to take on the character of a Debbie Harry or Nina Hagen kind of rock-star girl.” And on “BY MY SIDE,” Quealy joins forces with Magnée for a sublimely dreamy love song, capping off their tender duet with a truly majestic guitar solo.
A multidimensional creative force, Quealy played a vital part in developing the music videos for JAWBREAKER, embedding each visual with the type of outlandishly striking images that
immediately become iconic (e.g., a whirlwind motorcycle chase in “LONDONTOWN,” a scene where she faces off against a pack of male bodybuilders in “LOVE LASSO”). As with all her
videos (as well as her mesmerizing live performance), Quealy infuses both visuals with frenetic yet highly sophisticated choreography—an element that spotlights the exquisite dancing prowess
she’s cultivated her entire life. After training in ballet throughout her childhood and attending a performing-arts school in Sydney, she began working as a professional dancer in Hong Kong at
age 18 and later lived in the Philippines and the U.S., at one point taking a job as a magician’s assistant on a cruise ship. Upon moving to Paris in the late 2010s, Quealy worked as a showgirl at a cabaret but soon pursued her lifelong love of music. “At first I was mostly experimenting with
writing lyrics, but during Covid I picked up guitar, learned piano, learned how to use Ableton,” she recalls. “It felt like I was able to take everything I loved—music, dance, performance art, fashion—and pour it all into one medium where there’s no rules or limits on what you can create.”
Before even releasing her debut album, Quealy earned acclaim from tastemakers like OfficeMagazine, who praised her “dystopian club bangers” and noted that her music “represents the
collective mindset of a generation that has come of age in an increasingly unstable world.” now gearing up for an extensive tour in support of JAWBREAKER, Quealy delivers a dazzling live show fueled by her outrageous charisma. “I have a strong masculine energy onstage but I’m
also very feminine to the point of being draggy, like I’m playing a caricature of a woman with my big wigs and heels,” she says. But despite the extravagant costuming, her stage performance
radiates a palpable authenticity. “I feel most like myself when I’m onstage, and a lot of my desire to make music comes from wanting to perform it live,” Quealy reveals. “When I’m onstage it’s like
I’m possessed—there’s so much energy coming through me and everyone else in the room. It’s this incredible exchange between the audience and me and my dancers, and we’re all there together to be unapologetically ourselves.”
