Ocean GroveOcean Grove’s Sam Bassal is more than just the drummer for one of Australian alternative music’s most consistent bands.
Behind the scenes he’s also becoming the architect behind modern Australian metalcore and his DNA is sprinkled across a number of major releases over the past few years.
As well as being the drummer and producer for all of Ocean Grove’s music, Bassal was the producer, mastering engineer and mixing engineer for Thornhill’s ARIA award winning album BODIES.
Other credits include a variety of producing, engineering and mixing across projects with Bloom, The Amity Affliction, Trophy Eyes, Northlane, Yours Truly, and more.
When The Music connects with Bassal, he’s sitting at his kitchen table where he’s set up an unassuming temporary DIY studio. He’s just got back from South America drumming for The Amity Affliction. Now he’s dived straight into writing new Ocean Grove “to keep the juices flowing” while also in between working on one of his biggest projects yet.
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“I’m currently mixing a song for a very, very big band that I can't talk about,” Bassal explains, remaining tight-lipped. “But it's one of the most exciting things that's happened to me yet.”
Bassal’s been playing instruments his whole life from a very early age. He was drawn to this world immediately and he didn’t really have too many hobbies other than playing and writing music. Instead of going outside to play he was working out how to capture and record music through the microphones for karaoke video game SingStar.
“I got a second hand MacBook for the first time and I would get the SingStar mics from the old PlayStation 2,” he recalls. “I would try and put them on my drum kit or on my little practice amp and try to record music that way.
“That was the first start, that was like, ‘Okay, I'm able to do that and then make little demos.’ They probably were horrible. But I think that definitely was like ‘Oh, I enjoy recording music and capturing ideas, and writing songs.’ Then as I've gotten older and kept doing it, it's kind of led me to being like, ‘No, this is my desired spot.’”
The first thing Bassal officially created and released was Ocean Grove’s EP Black Label. It was an EP that immediately put Ocean Grove on the map as a major Australian metalcore band.
“I do think that I did things before that, but it was so long ago that I actually can't remember,” he admits. “But that was the first thing, where – to the public at least – it was like, ‘Oh, this guy from this band produces and records’, because that's one thing in Australia; there aren't too many bigger producers in this world. There are a handful of people.
“It's awesome now, with access to technology and companies making it more accessible for anyone to write and record music, which is awesome. There's a lot of people sort of getting into it. I guess I’ve just been around for a while because I was one of the people to do it when there weren't too many [producers] going around.”
Thornhill opened the door to worldwide success overnight when they released their 2025 album BODIES. It enabled them to support one of the biggest bands in the world, Sleep Token, they won an ARIA, and they performed at some of the biggest festivals. Bassal is still seeing the carry-on effect his producing work on BODIES is having in his own career.
“It's crazy. I think it'd be fair enough to say things like that don't always happen,” he enthuses. “Doing albums with people that reach such worldwide success is something that as a producer and a songwriter you can only hope to be a part of one day.
“I owe Thornhill so much to my current situation where I'm placed in as a producer right now, I've been making records with people for 15 years and it's only taken BODIES to have such worldwide success for people to… it's given me life to the world really. Some of the people that have reached out to me based on my work on that record, I never would have expected or entered a conversation of them knowing my work, let alone maybe wanting to work with me as well.
“I'm so proud of those guys for that album,” Bassal continues. “But it's also just once again a mutual respect between the both of us. I want to help them anyway that I can, still in their future music. Because what they've done for me without even realising is also there as well.”
When he finds the time between production work and touring with Ocean Grove, Bassal has taken on the role of touring drummer for The Amity Affliction. He was also the mixing engineer on their latest album House Of Cards.
It was a pinch-me moment for Bassal who grew up listening to The Amity Affliction throughout school.
“If you would have said to me then that I could produce official music for The Amity Affliction, let alone play on stage with them every night…” he begins. “It definitely is very rewarding thing to think about for me, still.
“The introduction to them was for a fill-in drummer where they needed some help on a few tours and I got the call up for them. I just remember talking to them at one point – this was before Thornhill stuff and a few other projects had come out – and I kind of just dropped it to Dan [Brown, guitarist]. I was like ‘Yeah, I'd love to have a crack at doing some studio stuff with you if you ever feel like giving it a go.’
“A lot of the bigger bands will do things like test mixes where before they release an album, they'll sort of send it to quite a few producers or mixing engineers and they’ll do what they do to that music and whoever the band likes their job best gets picked,” he adds.
“I've been fortunate a few times where that's been me for Amity, where I've just done my thing to it and they’ve really enjoyed it.”
Bassal has a rich discography of work with Australian bands in the alternative music scene. 2026 seems like the year it’s about to expand worldwide.
“I’ve had a lot of stuff come out recently and will be coming out by the end of the year that is a lot more overseas than Australia, which is awesome that I was able to take some steps into that world,” he says.
“Now, it's on a platform where I am starting to work with some of the bigger bands from all across the world. But just due to timelines and things nothing's really out yet. So it's not super visible, but that is happening behind the scenes, which is awesome and I’m loving doing that.”
Australians have been spoiled by Ocean Grove. This year alone, they supported Poppy on her national tour in January and then they stepped in as Thornhill support in February, after Amira Elfeky had to unexpectedly withdraw from the tour.
Now they’re bringing the Oddworld Underground tour nationally with special guests Cane Hill, Deficit, and blinder. Although he’s currently working on new music, Bassal shares it may be a bit too early to hear anything just yet.
“This Oddworld album cycle for us was pretty vigorous, we just went non-stop touring,” he remembers. “I think we did three or four Euro tours, America, and non-stop Australia. I think, even the past few months has been a nice little break for us to just be human again and sort of catch up on home life and things that aren't really band related for the first time in a while. [After] almost two years of pretty heavy touring.
“As anyone in a band knows, when you have down time, you also know that that doesn't mean go home and slack off. It's like, it’s go home and you probably have to start thinking about new music for the next touring cycle. I've been working pretty hard behind the scenes cooking up some really cool stuff that is in its infancy stage now.
“But there’s some really cool vibes and some things that I'm excited about to give to the Ocean Grove fan base,” he adds. “Which has been very, very good to us for the last few years, I guess across a decade-long career, really.
Bassal laughs like he’s just now realised how long it’s been, but truly, it’s just getting started.
Tickets to Ocean Grove’s Australian tour are on sale now.
Ocean Grove – Oddworld Underground Australian Tour
With special guests Cane Hill (USA), Deficit + blinder
Thursday, August 13th – Amplifier Bar, Perth, WA (18+)*
Friday, August 14th – The Gov, Adelaide, SA
Saturday, August 15th – 170 Russell, Melbourne, VIC (18+)
Thursday, August 20th – Factory Theatre, Sydney, NSW
Friday, August 21st – Hamilton Station Hotel, Newcastle, NSW (18+)
Saturday, August 22nd – Princess Theatre, Brisbane, QLD
*Deficit and blinder not appearing
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
