Sam Makel describes himself as unconventional. His producer calls him a “modern troubadour and storyteller.” He has also been labelled “perfectly imperfect.” Trying to put Sam Makel and his formation Makel & Friends into a neat box is difficult—if not impossible.

His large binder of song ideas has grown to more than 300 pages. The earliest sketches date back to his school days, when Sam began discovering the guitar and capturing songs. Writing music has a diary-like quality for him, says the singing surgeon, who occasionally weaves stories from his patients into his lyrics.

As a songwriter, Sam Makel truly gained momentum in Canada. It was just before the turn of the millennium that he spent an extended period in that vast and diverse country—the very place where he was born and took his first steps, before his parents moved back to Switzerland with their two-year-old son.

In Sam Makel’s songs, the distinctive traits of Switzerland and Canada come together—two countries deeply shaped by imposing landscapes and strong characters. His songs and stories speak of wide-open spaces and of a kind of solitude that, in the end, never lets you feel alone.

Together with his Friends, Makel tells his stories in Swiss German dialect, English, standard German, French, and even Spanish. Musically, too, the modern troubadour and storyteller defies categorization. You can hear echoes of French chanson, of course folk influences resonate throughout, singer-songwriter elements are present, and here and there a touch of Americana emerges. “Folk pop”? That might fit. But in the end when it comes to placing the ever-present cello into any stylistic drawer, words become hard to find.

Perhaps that is why Sam Makel prefers to let his songs speak for themselves—and his actions, or rather his quirks. While other musicians rely on rock ’n’ roll attitude, Makel celebrates himself as a “notorious milk drinker.” Milk instead of whiskey backstage? Why not! True to his motto, “Live unconventionally,” Sam Makel celebrates the fullness of life anew in every single one of his songs.