The Vernon Spring Interview: Growing up in North London, Playing with Amy Winehouse, and Working With Opia Community
INTERVIEW
By Serenna Zingg
4/20/26
Courtesy of Spotify
At a time when much of the industry is preoccupied with acceleration, Sam Beste’s (better known as British composer/musician The Vernon Spring) restraint feels almost subversive – suggesting that lasting power may not come from chasing attention, but from knowing precisely when not to.
Most artists function on a sharply serrated tip of existential neuroticism, often describing in interviews that they “make music because they can’t function without making music.” This general temperament frequently results in vignetted spiritual thesis-statements cornered into definitive tracks: attempted musical cinema despite a commonly held disbelief in dogged subscription to any one set of convictions. Beste harnesses a different strategy entirely: rather than wrangling music to his will, he coexists within and alongside it.
Growing up in North London, Beste was ensconced in an unorthodox jazz scene. His experience within the city’s musical ecosystem found him routinely reconsidering his style, playing alongside the likes of Amy Winehouse and Beth Orton. This “sink-or-swim” collaborative environment sharpened his jazz instincts while softening any individual pedantry toward technicality; a forcibly developed nimbleness that now lends itself to fundamentally communal records, and to working with unconventional labels.
Beste largely credits his current success to the atmospheric conditions that chiseled his preexisting talents from a young age. “Growing up in London provided many opportunities to get involved in different musical circles,” he says. “That’s how I met Amy – we both shared an interest in jazz. There weren’t many teenagers deeply into jazz at the time, and we both grew up in North London, so we naturally crossed paths through those scenes. We performed together and I played with her throughout her career, with some gaps in between, while I continued developing my own work alongside that. It took some time before I began releasing my own music under The Vernon Spring, which started around 2019. By that point, I had already accumulated a lot of experience through collaborations and supporting other artists. Everyone’s path is different.
I started releasing music during a time when digital platforms like Spotify and Apple Music were already central. My experience has been that music finds its own path through the world. Up until this recent release, I was essentially self-releasing everything through my own label with very little financial backing – just putting the music out. Because people consume music in so many different ways now, it has gradually found its audience. In terms of genre, I don’t really think in those terms. I draw from many different musical traditions.
I do feel that audiences are generally more open-minded than institutional frameworks sometimes give them credit for. That's been my experience. In terms of self-releasing versus working with a label, it’s still early days for me. I’m very used to doing everything myself, so it’s been quite moving to have a team helping bring the music into the world – supporting decisions around artwork, strategy, and other aspects. There are so many layers of decision-making involved, and having people to collaborate with makes a real difference.
That said, self-releasing also has its own appeal. There is an enormous amount of music in the world now, and it’s more accessible than ever. That creates a paradox: while the process is more democratic, it also means there is far more competition for attention. In the past, music journalists and gatekeepers played a larger role in deciding what reached audiences. Now, with digital platforms, music can find its own audience in more decentralized ways. Because of that, independent artists often need to experiment more to stand out; with so much music available, capturing attention requires both creativity and adaptability within an extremely saturated landscape.”
Despite enjoying the creative self-direction that releasing under his own label afforded him, Sam found himself compelled to join OPIA Community in 2023 - a three-pronged record label, traveling festival circuit, and community hub.
“I met Ólafur Arnalds of OPIA Community at this really beautiful festival called Sounds from a Safe Harbour in Cork, Ireland in 2023. They have this residential festival where you’re invited to stay in a hotel for a week and collaborate with different people. That year, there were about 70 artists working in different groups.
Ólafur was also invited that year, he couldn’t make it this time, but two years ago he was there, and that’s how we met. I think he had started Opia quite soon before that, since it’s a relatively new label. Not long after, I finished my album and started looking for different places to release it. Through that initial connection at Sounds from a Safe Harbour, we began discussing releasing it through Opia.
I was also drawn to the sense of community they’re trying to foster. I have my own label in the UK called Lima Limo, and everything I’ve released prior to this has come out through that. This is the first time I’ve worked with other labels. This record came out through Opia, but in the U.S. it was released with RVNG Intl., and in Japan with another label.
They’re a really great label in the States, so it ended up being released through three different labels across different regions. Because I also run my own label, I was interested in how similar their ethos was, a group of artists supporting each other. That was something that really resonated with me. From what I understand, it started as festivals before becoming a label. I think they do events in different places each year; Berlin, Utrecht, and so on. I performed at one in Utrecht, where they essentially take over an entire space and run a festival over the weekend. It’s an incredibly ambitious project, and very inspiring. The core idea is always to center community - bringing people together to meet, collaborate, and support one another.”
Beste’s newest record releases in full on May 8th; the collaborative project UnFamiliar Sun is perhaps his most arid and peripheral study of how jazz-electronica can best serve spoken word delivery. More so than ever, Beste has clearly developed the clairvoyance to know when his instrument is most effective in sharply punctuating foregrounded lyricism – and when, as he seems most aligned, to take the most scenic route possible.
Presave UnFamiliar Sun
