Locals Only: Sam Heselwood on how a rugby injury led him back to songwriting

By Sarah Illingworth

NZ Herald·

22 Jun, 2023 07:00 PM5 mins to read

Sam Heselwood performs his song Home. Made with funding from NZ On Air. Video / Locals Only

When a severe neck injury halted Sam Heselwood’s rugby career, he turned to his other love – music. A silver lining in an otherwise dark scenario, songwriting has brought the 26-year-old hope and a new focus.

Though he’d enjoyed making music since he was young, Heselwood always felt pulled in two directions, and rugby usually won. But an accident on the field made it impossible for him to return to it.

“It wasn’t even a decision, I just got handed it,” he tells. “If you play rugby you will die, it was as simple as that.”

Sam Heselwood performs his song Home. Photo / Locals Only

The promising player ruptured the ligament that holds the C1 vertebra – the first vertebrae of the spinal cord, that supports the skull – in place.

“It moved 11mm forward, I was about 2 or 3mm from cutting my spinal cord off, so I was pretty lucky I got away with that,” he recounts. “My neck’s now fused, and there are a few rods in there. It’s all locked in and if something little happened hopefully it’s not going to move out of place.”

Having choices made for you can sometimes be a helpful thing. After months of recovery, during which he was cared for by his mum – to whom he pays tribute in the 1 million+ streaming ballad Book Full Of Answers – Heselwood picked up the guitar again.

“It was really weird timing, because it was a point where I knew that I was eventually going to have to choose between sport and music, but I don’t know that I would have made the right decision, or if I would have been able to make that decision,” he reflects.

Finding catharsis in songwriting as he grappled both with the grief of letting rugby go, and the restrictions of life during the Covid-19 pandemic, Heselwood discovered SOLE Music Academy in Ōtautahi.

He spent two years at SOLE studying various programmes, and released a couple of EPs online. He describes his time at the school as a “game changer”, not least in that it helped him to understand there are many ways to make a career out of music.

A thread throughout Heselwood’s music is the desire for men to allow themselves to be vulnerable, and talk about their feelings. It’s a sentiment that came from seeing the devastating effects that doing the opposite can have.

“My stepbrothers had a cousin, he wasn’t really my cousin but it felt that way,” the artist shares. “He took his life a while back. It was so crazy because he was the most popular in high school, he had a lovely girlfriend, an awesome job – he had everything going for him – and then he went and did something like that.

“It was obvious there was something a lot deeper going on that he didn’t feel like he could communicate. Then I guess, as you grow up you see all these males and can tell something’s not right, but they don’t feel like they can talk to you about it, or to their friends.

“Then I had another blow where one of my really good mates lost his little brother to suicide as well. That was actually when I released my first song, ‘Another One Too Young’. I wrote it about that situation – another one gone too young, all because he couldn’t speak out about what was going on.”

Heselwood now participates in a weekly gathering of male friends, who get together to talk about what’s going on in their lives.

“It’s a free time to have a yarn, we play some games afterwards and make sure that everyone’s getting everything off their chest,” he elaborates. “The more I’ve seen I’m just like, it’s such a shame we still have that stigma around not talking to each other.”

Heselwood has new material on the horizon, including the singles How’s Heaven and Home, the latter of which is a tribute to his partner of three years.

“It’s about how life is good right now but it doesn’t mean it always was,” he explains. “She makes me feel like I’m home wherever I am. Life’s good with her there.”