The viral video for Sammy Adams’ major-label debut single “Blow Up” is a pretty accurate look at what life is like for this rising young artist. Adams reels off lyrics asking “What’s it gotta take for a young kid to blow up?” to a hypnotic head-nodding beat and a recreated sample of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” (a nice nod to Adams’ Boston roots). The clip captures the 24-year-old performing for ecstatic crowds everywhere from roof-raising club gigs, to jubilant college shows, to massive outdoor festivals, including Lollapalooza and Bamboozle, where ten thousand people turned up at the Jumbo Stage just to see him.

A boyish-looking, sandy-haired charmer from Cambridge, MA, Adams fell in love with music as a kid. “My dad played drums in a rock band for 25 years and my mom sang back-up,” he says. “They loved music — everything from the Rolling Stones and the Beatles to Led Zeppelin and Canned Heat.” Adams began playing piano at age seven and learned to improvise at age 11. “Everything changed for me at that point because it was my type of thing,” he says. “I didn't have to read sheet music of someone else's song. I could come up with my own.”

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