Sam Ryder: A surfing accident changed my life

Sam Ryder - Eurovision runner-up, human ray of light and possessor of pop's most piercing falsetto - is a man who emanates serious surfer vibes.

From his long blonde locks and laid-back demeanour to his tie-dye shirts and total lack of cynicism, he seems like he'd be perfectly at home performing a cutback or hanging 10 on the crest of a wave.

And that was true until four years ago, when he was almost killed in a wipeout.

"I was surfing in Hawaii and my board snapped. Then I got hit by a wave and I very nearly drowned," he says.

"It pushed me down so far into the water. And the turbulence of the water, the power, is incredible. Fighting against it, you feel like you've been hit by a bus."

With his muscles pummelled and his body battered, it took Ryder a week of bed rest to recover. Time in which he re-evaluated his life.

"Obviously, the golden rule in surfing is 'never underestimate the sea', but until it goes wrong, you can't fathom it," he says. "You're like, 'I am insignificant in this body of water'.

"But that day was important to me because I wanted to be very good at surfing and ride the big waves - but [the accident] put me back on my true purpose.

"I was like, 'You can't do the thing you love most, which is music and singing, if you're at the bottom of the sea'."

The rest of the story you probably know. Ryder built an army of 14 million fans on TikTok during lockdown, thanks to his covers of Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan and Britney Spears.

He was promptly signed by Parlophone Records, then selected by Dua Lipa's management team to represent the UK at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest.

His song, Space Man, written in just 10 minutes, recalled the classic 1970s rock sounds of Queen and Sir Elton John, and ultimately earned the UK its best position at Eurovision since 1998.

"Eurovision was like being in a church," he recalls. "In that arena, there was so much joy and togetherness."

Success came relatively late in life. At 33, Ryder is older than chart contemporaries like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, but he has been making music for just as long.

"When I think back now to those years, I'm flabbergasted," he says of his pre-fame days. "What the hell was keeping me going? The crumbs of hope were so few and far between."

He made his debut in 2006 as the singer with rock band The Morning After, whose '80s-indebted power chord anthems arrived just as the music industry pivoted away from the rock revivalism of The Darkness and towards the R&B-infused pop of Justin Timberlake and Rihanna.

When The Morning After split in 2010, he became a stand-in guitarist for Christian rock group Blessed By A Broken Heart, then ed US hardcore band Close Your Eyes (as Sam Robinson), replacing original singer Shane Raymond.

"I ed them, I think, because I wanted my friends to see that I was still doing something cool. Like, 'Don't worry about me, I'm still almost making it in music. Look, I'm on tour in America. That's impressive, right":[]}