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Early in October, the British model Sam Way<\/a> performed a short set from the stage of the Old Church in London\u2019s Stoke Newington, strumming his guitar and filling the room with his deep voice against a backdrop of soft lights and the mists rising from the surrounding cemetery. The five songs he performed made up the entirety of his Architect EP, out today, and marked the start of a tour across England he has just completed, playing a series of fourteen gigs to promote his new release. \u201c[Performing] live is an art, really it is,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cIt\u2019s about your relationship to the audience more than anything. That\u2019s what you need to establish, and it\u2019s not always easy. I\u2019ve played some gigs where you are just background noise in a loud pub full of people drinking on a Thursday night. Nobody knows my songs, they\u2019re original material, so if you\u2019re not listening, you\u2019re not going to get the story.\u201d But on that night a month ago, Way had the audience\u2019s full attention.<\/p>\n Way says that his path to music, and especially the new sound he is displaying on Architect, was a somewhat circuitous one. He was interested in acting as child, but, after starting to model after being scouted while shopping in the Oxford Street Topman nearly a decade ago, turned to music as a comfort as a lonely teenager new to the big city. \u201cWhen I first moved up to London, I didn\u2019t have an amazing social group, which I do now, and I spent a lot of time on my own,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWork was very temperamental, as that\u2019s the nature of the industry, so I had a lot of time on my hands and, to be perfectly honest, I was a bit depressed. It was about finding my feet and finding myself in a new place, and music was really a part of that.\u201d He worked on his music in his spare time even as his modeling career, which has included campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel, Levi\u2019s, and Diesel, grew.<\/p>\n Way eventually signed with a label\u2014which he later left\u2014and was connected with a producer and released a few singles, which he now describes as \u201cyounger, a lot more fun, a bit more folky, and a bit more poppy\u201d than his current music. \u201cI guess in a way, what I\u2019m proud of is the fact that I was kind of quite fearless about it,\u201d he says about jumping straight into the industry a few years ago. \u201cI understood that where I am is where I am and what I did is I made work and I put it out and I got myself to a certain level, and now I look back at that and I go, \u2018That was exactly what I needed to do right then with my music.\u2019 But of course you\u2019re always going to change as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n For his new EP, which he has funded himself, Way took greater control of the production process, producing an album he calls \u201cdarker and more atmospheric and cinematic.\u201d The lead single \u201cStargazer\u201d blooms with backing from a soaring string quartet, and the lush, full sound helped inspire the rest of the tracks, which recount lost loves and innocence with passion and carefully tempered nostalgia.<\/p>\n With Architect out, Way says that his plans now involve continuing to push forward. \u201cWhen you expend so much energy, there naturally comes a time where you sort of recollect,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019m going to be recording some new music in November, and the whole aim of this is to attract the right team to take the music where I know it can go.\u201d<\/p>\n Pick up Way’s Architect EP on iTunes here<\/a>.<\/p>\n