New single, “I Am,” out May 9, 2024
Recent International Songwriting Competition Semifinalist
Stream and download “I Am” here:

About Simon

Songwriter, contemplative, quest guide, and psychotherapist Simon Spire sounds the murmuring depths of the soul through songs that traverse the ground between layered alt-pop and singer-songwriter introspection. A three-time award-winner in the USA Songwriting Competition, Spire has been featured on MTV, NBC, AOL, Voice of America, and radio stations throughout the U.S., while also featuring in the New Zealand Top 40 radio airplay charts. Having left his beloved New Zealand homeland for the alluring horizons of Los Angeles, followed by the seismic creative vortex that is New York City, he now finds himself living atop a wooded and humble ancient mountain in North Carolina where he writes, guides, communes with owls, dodges snakes, and misses the ocean.

About “I Am”

If you like unexpected journeys, here’s a New Zealander whose earlier career produced charting radio singles and award-winning songs, who then embarked on years of inner and outer questing, and whose new song, “I Am”—recently selected as a semifinalist in the International Songwriting Competition—brought him right back home to the music of his soul.

“I Am” carries in it the wisdom of those years. The song distills the essence of a life given wholeheartedly to one’s muse and to the mysterious calling at the core of oneself. Smoldering and celebratory, apocalyptic and euphoric, its mantra-like “I don’t care” verses invite the listener beneath the many layers of familiar experience and into resonance with their own heart, their own “I am.”  

“‘I Am’ is an expression of the bittersweet release of one’s soul-starved persona and the liberatory surrender to our genuine depths,” says Simon. “I also sometimes experience it as a rejection of the oppressive and numbing forces of our world and a reclamation of our wholeness.”

It's a fitting reflection of the territories Simon has walked in recent years since he left Brooklyn for the quiet woods of North Carolina, including vision fasts, working in social entrepreneurship and sustainability institutes, and graduate studies in depth psychology. A committed meditation practitioner of 20 years, his roles have included contemplative teacher, nature-based quest guide, and licensed psychotherapist, and he’s developed programs to support young adults, professionals, those struggling with addiction, and people suffering from a breathing condition known as “air hunger.”

Having returned to his songwriting and production roots with the added maturity of the years, his days are now brimming with new creations. “I feel this song marks the beginning of a new chapter for me. The essence of the song, the freedom of self-production—I can feel it drawing me into a new creative space, a new terrain on this artistic path.”

Press inquiries: Black Panda PR: amanda@blackpandapr.com

Praise for Earlier Releases

Simon Spire is as enigmatic as they come…He allows the listener to step into a world that is wholly evocative–and quietly apocalyptic…Mind-reeling aesthetics; brilliant guitar pop. Dig Boston.

Indie pop perfection…Simon Spire is going to be a star. Performer Magazine.

An exciting emerging songwriter…heartfelt and wise. PopMatters.

After listening to this album, one hopes that this musician will be the future of indie pop…it would be for the benefit of the genre as well as the industry. The Aquarian Weekly.

Check out Simon’s previous release, “Uncomfortable,” along with an accompanying essay he wrote, published in Kosmos Journal.

“I Am” currently featured in these playlists and blogs (thank you!!):

WHUP Hillsborough radio interview with Mr. B (interview portion only; opening song and discussion are excluded due to radio and copyright laws)

MUSIC FOR ALL

SOMOS GRANDES

F SHARP MINOR - Ride Into The Sunset

A ZIG ZAG PLAYLIST - Indie Pop Paradise

ISLAND MUSIC - Sad Music

KATJA - Indie Melancholy

SAMYULA - Relaxing Background Music

NAGAMAG (and playlist here)

ROADIE MUSIC (and playlist here)

PLAN ARTERIA - (and playlist here)

RADIO CASTOR - (and playlist here)

“I Am” lyrics

I don't care about anything, I've left it all behind
I don't care about everything I wanted from this life
At first I didn't trust my eyes, but now I've seen it a thousand times

I don't care to try no more, to try is just to lie
I can't bear to fight no more, I've battled all my life
And when I'm here, with nothing left, the music comes alive

I am
I am released
I am
I am free

I don't care about anything, my appetite is spent
I just don't have the drive I had to push and crawl ahead
But in the end, I have to say, I like it better here

I don't care for all the lies I told and I believed
I just don't have the will no more to live them like I did
And now they're gone, well I can see it's easy to be me

I am
I am released
I am
I am free

I don't care to win the war, in fact I lost it all
I must admit there was a time I wanted nothing more
There comes a point you see that it's a fight that's never won

And I don't care about my dreams, though it's no easy death
But waking up is better than continuing the mess
It's everything to me to say I'm all that I have left

I am
I am released
I am
I am free

“I Am” Credits

Written, produced, recorded, and mixed by Simon Spire.
Vocals, instruments, programming — Simon Spire.
Live drums — Massimo Majorana.

Prior Releases