Sam Buckingham

Update, 3rd March - New Stretch Target 💜

We did it!! We reached the goal with three days to spare! THANKYOU SO SO MUCH 🙏 I'm so incredibly grateful for your support and I'm SO excited to share this album and all the rewards with you 🙌 

Because we've still got some time up our sleeve, I've set a stretch target for the campaign 🎯

The main goal is reached, so we're in the clear for CD & Vinyl pressing yay!

But, if you still want to pledge and get the album + extra rewards, I want to be 100% honest about where your money will go. 

So far, I've paid $16,832 in marketing costs for the BEAUTIFUL MACHINE tour.

I've paid some of this in cash and a lot on a credit card.

So, I would LOVE your help to cover some of those costs, to help keep my touring viable (and make sure I don't have to pay interest on the card 😬) 

I know that amount sounds WILD - but, so far, 26 shows are on sale (more coming too!) so, divided up, it's not a lot (so far... the number keeps increasing every day 😹). For each show I have between 100 - 300 tickets to sell so, overall, the tour needs a lot of promotion.

My main source of tour marketing is paid ads on Facebook & Instagram (you've probably seen them - apparently i follow people around on the internet 😹) and they work! But, it means paying a lot of upfront marketing costs, often for months, before I earn anything back from playing a show.

(then there's venue hire, production, travel, accomodation, booking fees, agent fees etc etc 🫠)

So, in the spirit of helping me release and share this album, this stretch target feels like the next logical step. I LOVE coming out on the road to meet you all, and share the songs and stories live 💜 So, any help you can give to help cover those bills means I can keep doing more shows this year and into the future 🎉

THANKYOU for all your support & encoragement with this campaign. This is fan funded, community powered art in full force and it's the most beautiful thing 😭 I appreciate you so very much xxxSam

BEAUTIFUL MACHINE IS AN ALBUM ABOUT LIVING ALIGNED WITH OUR TRUE NATURE

And by that I mean who we are as indivuduals AND who we are as a collective. As humans. As animals brilliantly evolved to live in harmoney with eachother and the natural world (because we ARE the natural world).

If that sounds like a vibe you want to be part of, read on..... 

Hi, I’m Sam 💜

I make music, and I would LOVE for you to help me release and share my new album BEAUTIFUL MACHINE.

I wrote BEAUTIFUL MACHINE while hiking, walking on the beach, lying on the couch in my underwear and on long drives to see my family (while someone else was driving, of course). They mark a new chapter in my songwriting career, and in my life.

I turned 42 last year. I’ve been falling deeper in love with my body. I've been falling deeper in love with the Earth. 

And in a time when we’re seemingly obsessed with building ‘bigger and better’ technology, all I can think about is how the natural world is so brilliantly designed — it’s the most beautiful machine we’ll ever have. WE are the most beautiful machines!

So, this album is a love letter to myself, my body, the earth and all of humanity. It's an invitation to come back to that wonder for the natural world - ourselves included - and to take care of it accordingly. 

I created this album in a way that was completely new for me... my producer Clare LOLLIES Reynolds would send me the music - already written and recorded - and I would take myself off into nature, on an adventure, or cuddled up on the couch and focus on writing the lyrics and melody. It felt important, for this album, to be completely free of any production decisions... instead, I wanted to dig deeper than I ever had before into expressing the beautiful, weird, difficult, joyful experience of being a human.

This 👇 is Beautiful Machine, the title track for the album (and it's not out until March 6th so ooooh you get a sneak peek 👀)

SOME FUN FACTS ABOUT THE ALBUM

I recorded all the vocals at home, in the spare room of my house, where I keep all my music gear & merch for touring. So I was surrounded by boxes, with blankets & mattresses all around me (to pad the sound), and everything closed up to keep external sounds out. It was HOT so i recorded most of the album in my underwear 😂

I wrote a song called I Won The Prize for the album, which is about how wonderful my partner Flávio is 🥰 Then i decided that i didn't want any love songs on the album so I scrapped the entire lyrics and melody and wrote a new song, with the same music, called Dancing With The Devil. THAT song is about grappling with a reality where I'm actively taking part in systems that I don't agree with, in order to share my art. 

For another song, I Thought I Couldn't Do It (but i did!), I wrote a bridge section that sounded like cheerleading. I had SO MUCH fun writing it, and it felt really true for the song, but it also felt really new for me - which felt vulnerable, and I questioned my choice 100 times while I was recording it. 

I thought about scrapping that section entirely - or at least toning it down a little - but that felt even more not "me". So, instead of toning it down, i dialed it up 😂 I aked my producer, LOLLIES, to add an air-horn into that section so it REALY felt like a pep rally, and I recorded multiple layers of myself making chatter underneath my singing, saying things like "oh my goooood is she really doing this?", "I can't believe she thinks this is cool" etc. Hilariously, when i fully committed to that feeling of "cringe" and even blatantly pointed out my own insecurites about it, I felt free - and it's now one of my favourite moments on the whole album. 

Ah fk it. I'll just show you the song! 👇

WHY CROWDFUNDING, WHY NOW?

I’m a self managed artist, and I’m releasing the album through my own label Serious Gelato Records. Staying independent means I own all the rights to my music (super important) and being self managed means there’s A LOT of work for me to do and HEAPS of upfront expenses to pay. 

I've had no support from the government to create this album. 

But I HAVE had amazing support from my fans already. 

In July last year, 364 fans took a "pay what you want" offer to get a digital download of my very first album Daydreamer, helping me raise $6635 towards the recording, mixing & mastering costs (because even when you record vocals in your house you still gotta pay your producer, recording, mixing & master enginners 💰)

That amount didn't actually cover all the costs so, in December last year, 50 new fans joined my membership community on Patreon to help get the album mastered (and get super duper early access to it). 

Now, I'm calling on my fans again to help me cross the finish line. 

📣 I need your help to press this album on CD and Vinyl so I can share it with the world. 

YES! CD and Vinyl! Physical items! So you and other humans can hold it in your human hands. And read through the lyrics. And smell the recycled paper 🥰

I'm not pressing it on CD and Vinyl with some pie in the sky hope that someone will care. I sell vinyls at shows when I'm on tour and, believe it or not, I sell CD's every day on the good ol' internet. It's probably why a lot of you are here. Hi new fans that bought my DEAR JOHN cd! i love you!

🍭 ADDED BONUS: If we get enough pre-orders, this album has a genuine chance of debuting on the ARIA charts. No album of mine has ever done that before 🙊 Can we make it happen for Beautiful Machine? Let's see 🔮

As soon as we reach the $12,500 funding target on this campaign, I'll start sending out your Cd's, Vinyl and other rewards. 

(I can't send them out before we reach the target because this is an all or nothing campiagn. If we don't reach the $12,500 goal then I don't get ANY money and no one gets charged or gets their order.)

HOW DEVASTATING WOULD THAT BE??????

I set it up that way because $12,500 is genuinely the dollar amount that I need to press on CD & Vinyl and cover camaign costs.

Here's the breakdown 👇

PRESSING BEAUTIFUL MACHINE ON CD $5000

I'm pressing many many copies, so I can sell them at many many shows, online, and probably out the boot of my car 😂

By helping me press the album on CD, this crowdfunding campiagn has a long term impact - you're making it possible for me to keep earning money from these sogs well after the launch date has passed 🙏

PRESSING BEAUTIFUL MACHINE ON VINYL $5401 

I'm pressing hardly any Vinyl compared to CD's because vinyl costs about ten times more to press than CD's 🫠 BUT, at shows, people buy Vinyl even more than they buy CD’s! so I absolutely want to have vinyl available. This campaign is helping keep vinyl alive which I think is a wonderful thing because music should be something we own a piece of, cherish, take care of and listen to intentionally. Also, how gorgeous is that crackly, touchy feely feeling that happens when you put on a vinyl?? 💜

Pozible fees (5% of 12k) $625

Transaction fees $300 approx

Extra Packaging, Shipping & Item Costs $1174

(eg paying my friend Lexi to help me pack all the orders; extra postage fees when packages are returned and I have to resend; and a small portion of the upfront costs to make the other reward items -- eg t-shirts and printing prints)

A note on shipping 👇

shipping is calcualted at checkout accoriding to what you ordered + whether you're in australia vs overseas (I've kept it as low as possible). 

I've individually priced the shipping for each reward based on weight, location and packaging.

BUT. I can't calculate exact costs for overseas shipping.

And I really don't want y'all to feel put off or put out by big shipping fees.

So, I've found a happy medium (I hope) where each person who pledges pays for the majority of their shipping & packaging, and the magic of crowdfunding (the extra $$ i've accounted for above) covers the extra few dollars per person, as required.

The $250+ reward tiers have free shipping because y'all are giving me lots of your cash money. Thankyou!

IMPORTANT DATES

When the crowdfunding target is reached - All physical rewards for pledges will be posted 

From then onwards - all rewards will be posted within 3 business days of your pledge coming in

March 5th, 2026 @ 11pm (AEDT) - This crowdfunding campaign ends

(You have to pledge before 11pm on Thursday 5th March or you'll miss out!)

March 6th - final orders will be sent

Also March 6th - BEAUTIFUL MACHINE is officially released!

Mid March - Non physical rewards (Behind The Machine, Bragging Rights Forever, Creative Compass, Angel Investor, House Concert) will be arranged

Remember, It's an all-or-nothing crowdfunding campaign.... if we dont reach the $12.5k target your credit card doesn't get charged, and none of us get aaaaaaaaanything 🙀

But we will reach the target! Because you're a legend, and I have heaps of rewards on offer that I just know you'll love 💜

So, check out the rewards to the right (on pc) or in the Rewards tab (on mobile) and find something that makes your insides sing ✨

JUST IN CASE YOU'RE WORRIED

I chose crowdfunding to raise this money because I've launched three successful crowdfunding campaigns in the past. All of those campiagns were with Pozible and they are the absolute BEST to work with. Amazing customer service, transparent and low costs and very user friendly (for me and for you). 

I can vouch for Pozible and, because I delivered all the rewards on both of those past campaigns, Pozible can vouch for me!

Also, they don't charge your card unless the goal ($12.5k) is reached (before 11pm on 5th March 2026). So you can be 100% sure that the project is going ahead, and that you'll get all your rewards, before any money leaves your account. 

I couldn't have gotten this far without already receiving the support of a big handful of my fans 🙏

YOU are an integral part of this next chapter.

Thankyou SO MUCH for pledging, and helping make this album release possible (pozible!) ...... I will work my beautiful butt off to make you proud x