NEW YORK — Being quieter than everyone else is not the fastest way to get recognized in the music world. But it’s worked well enough for Sam Beam, the singer better known as Iron & Wine. Over the course of two acclaimed albums and a handful of EPs, the 30-year-old South Carolina native has whispered, murmured and sighed his way through one heartbreaking melody after another. His music has drawn comparisons sonically to Nick Drake and thematically to Flannery O’Connor, with its lyrics full of God, death and claustrophobically close-knit families.
But good luck getting Beam to talk about where it all comes from. In a recent phone interview from his home in Austin, he was as polite as can be while making it clear he’d rather spend time with his wife and three kids than field questions. “I don’t mind doing interviews,” he claims, unconvincingly. “I just kind of put all my energy into the work instead of the rest of the dog-and-pony show.”
The national press might have overlooked Iron & Wine had it not been for the band’s inclusion on the “Garden State” soundtrack. Beam’s songs soon turned up on episodes of “Six Feet Under” and “The O.C.,” and three of them made it onto the “In Good Company” soundtrack.
At the moment, he’s busy touring for his latest album, “In the Reins,” seven songs written by Beam and recorded with the Southwestern rock band Calexico. They play Webster Hall together today and Tuesday. And who, exactly, does one find in the audience at an Iron & Wine show? “Kids, but at the same time a surprising amount of older people, too, which is fun. It’s changed kind of a lot since we had that song in the movie,” Beam says of “Garden State,” with typical understatement.
Beam, who taught cinematography at an art school in Miami before turning to music full time, allows his writing lends itself to film. “It’s more about describing something instead of explaining it, the way a screenplay does,” he says. “I think it’s a more creative way to write than to lay everything on the table.” As to whether he might want to score an entire film, he says, “I’ve had a couple people ask, but honestly, I don’t have the time.”