He has been playing the guitar and collecting songs since his early school days. At the end of the 90s, during a stay in Canada, Makel began to write songs regularly. He doesn't allow himself to be pigeonholed when writing lyrics and composing, neither linguistically nor musically. But the songs have one thing in common: they tell stories from life. Not infrequently they come from his patients, whom he sees every day as a surgeon. For a long time, these lyrics and melodies remained something like his personal diary.

 

It was only after years of composing in a quiet room that he began to present his songs to the outside world. First in the form of street music. 2016 then followed the first official gig in a Biel club under the name "Martin Keller & Friends".

In 2020, the first album, "Fast Train", was released. Many more songs followed and are in the making.

Today "Makel & Friends" with singer and cellist Christina Dubugnon, drummer Andi Kiss and Sam Makel, singer, guitarist and songwriter, are an ambitious live band. They are complemented as needed by bassist Markus Wahlen, accordionist Coralie Minder or saxophonist Rolf Brügger.

The "modern troubadour" is and remains unconventional. Even today, he prefers milk to beer backstage. And: Makel has even dedicated a song to his favorite drink. And it's further proof that everything works a little differently for him. After all, almost every musician in the world has sung about whiskey on ice. But "Milk on the rocks?"... only Sam Makel would come up with that.