Sam Fender‘s third album, “People Watching,” has been a long time coming — and it didn’t come easy.
The 30-year-old British musician hit a career high in 2021 after the release of his sophomore record, “Seventeen Going Under,” which catapulted him to mainstream success thanks to its cathartic title track about his rough upbringing in the Northern town of New Shields. After a whirlwind year supporting the Killers, Rolling Stones and playing to 45,000 people at London’s Finsbury Park, Fender desperately needed a break. Citing mental health concerns, he canceled the remainder of his U.S. tour for 2022. But that didn’t mean he stopped writing.
“We’ve been working on some of the songs for ages, you know?” Fender tells Variety over Zoom on the eve of the album’s release, noting that the band started recording one track, “Wild Long Lie,” three-and-a-half years ago.
In fact, Fender says he had a whole other album essentially finished, but decided to wait it out due to the nature of his deal with Polydor Records. “If you release two within a certain amount of time it only classes as one anyway, so I was like, ‘I’m just going to take my time with it,’” he says. “I think it’s good to not be in people’s faces all the time. You see it with some acts, they just keep pumping stuff out and people get fatigued.”
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That time allowed Fender to join forces with the War on Drugs frontman Adam Granduciel — in one of his first instances producing for another artist — adding onto previous sessions helmed by Coldplay and Arcade Fire producer Markus Dravs. A year ago, Fender and his band spent four weeks at Granduciel’s L.A. studio crafting what would become the fully-formed “People Watching” — a continuation of Fender’s honest, anthemic songwriting combined with Granduciel’s fuzzy, wall-of-sound sonics.
Nearly four years after “Seventeen Going Under,” the 11-track “People Watching” ruminates on Fender’s meteoric rise and his desire not to abandon his loved ones back home. “There’s an element of guilt that comes with the success as well,” he says. “You never want to forget where you come from.”
Below, Fender dives deeper into the themes of “People Watching,” recruiting Andrew Scott for the title track’s music video and the state of rock music today.
How did you get in touch with Adam and get him to work on the album?
We have a saying up North, “shy bairns get nowt,” which means shy kids get nothing. I just thought, he’s one of my heroes, the worst thing he’s going to say is no. So I got his phone number off somebody in the label and gave him a call and we spoke for like an hour and a half on the phone just about music — Tom Petty, R.E.M., the Waterboys, the Replacements — loads of stuff that we loved. It was pretty instant, the friendship, and then he agreed to do it. When we went out there [to L.A.], it was the best fun — four weeks of just playing with old analog synths and trying to steal all of his recording techniques.
How did you approach the songwriting on the album?
Some of the songs were very much lyrics first, like “TV Dinner” was sort of a poem really. You could see the rhythm in the writing, but I had no melody for it or chord structure until I sat down at a piano and figured it out. Then on the other hand, you’ve got “Arm’s Length,” which was completely music-driven. You can hear us chatting at the beginning because really, it fell out of the sky. We started recording and it was just a silly guitar riff at about 9 o’clock at night, and by 3 o’clock in the morning it was a finished song. So it was one of those — all the music, lyrics, everything was done in that six-hour window. You have songs like that that just come out of nowhere, and there’s others that you labor over. “People Watching” took a while, like I had half of that song for months and months, and then once I got to America [on tour] I figured out what I was going to do for the chorus. But I tried so many different choruses and melody ideas until I landed on the one that we stuck with, which gave it that sort of stadium euphoria that it needed.
I know the album’s title track was inspired by your late mentor, Annie Orwin — tell me more about her and what she meant to you.
It’s a very personal one. Annie Orwin was like a surrogate mother and mentor. She used to run an acting class in the community center when I was a kid, so I met loads of my good friends from there. I’ve got ADHD, so I’m quite hyper and it gave us a focus and she gave us real confidence. Because I think with ADHD, until you’ve got someone who can see your potential and actually invest in you, it’s quite common for you to grow up thinking that you’re just a fucking idiot. So she was the first person to really instill that belief in myself.
She used to always get really annoyed that I never mentioned her in acceptance speeches for awards and things like that. She’d be like, “Why haven’t you mentioned me? You’re supposed to be mentioning me!” When she passed away in November, not last year but the year before, just before I went off to America, it felt like the time to write something for her. I looked after her, I was holding her hand when she died and I spent five days in her palliative care home. She didn’t want to be alone, so it was a really intense five days because you don’t know when they’re going to go, and sometimes they’ll hold on and then… so there were a lot of sleepless nights. But it was an honor to be there as well. So I wanted to just write about that time, I guess for myself and in some way for cathartic purposes. But also because she had such a profound effect on not just me, but loads of other kids in the Northeast.
Andrew Scott stars in the music video for “People Watching,” which is quite cinematic and beautiful. How did he get involved?
Well he’s obviously a well-known, brilliant actor, but there’s two things that really sealed the deal for me. One, he really wanted to do it. He got his agent to basically say, “We really want you to consider Andrew for this because he really wants to do this.” So that’s always a good sign [because] you know they’re going to put their heart and soul into it. And also, I think it was important for him because he’d lost his mother and it meant something to him. Obviously, he’s done a fantastic performance. It’s so beautiful — I got emotional the first time I watched it. And why wouldn’t you want Andrew Scott? He’s gorgeous.
I also want to talk about “Chin Up,” which to me was about the pains of growing up and leaving home and comparing your life to others. What inspired that track?
My life changed drastically over the last five years and all of my friends, people back home are very much living the same life. Some of them are very affected by what goes on in the country, such as the cost of living crisis, and some of them are affected by drugs and addiction issues. I guess there’s an element of guilt that comes with the success as well. You never want to forget where you come from, you never want to leave behind the people in your hometown. So I think just sort of telling their stories is one way that I can keep home in my heart, you know? But it’s about the sort of duality between their life and mine — my job’s a doss, really. So I suppose I’m sort of berating myself in the first half of it. There’s a little bit of self-loathing for feeling bad about anything, you know what I mean? You almost feel like you don’t have a right.
You’re also not afraid to critique those systemic issues on songs like “Crumbling Empire.” Why is it important for you to be vocal about these topics?
I never intend on it being full-tilt protest or anything like that. It’s more just commentary — it’s whatever I’m thinking at that time. There’s no overhauling message, I just think it’s impossible not to talk about these things in the current climate. The world’s in a very dangerous place at the moment. I don’t really have an agenda or anything and I don’t have the answers, that’s for sure.
It feels like the big rock bands that maybe inspired you have diminished over the years, or stopped writing with their hearts on their sleeves. Why do you think that is? Has rock music become too “cool”?
I think guitar music certainly, there’s not a lot of that kind of lyrical content. But I would say there’s not a lot of guitar music being listened to; there’s not a lot of guitar music that even gets its foot in the door these days. I think because of the nature of the economy. The grassroots music scene has been fucking decimated over the last 10 years. The music industry has become very inaccessible for working-class people. I mean, it kind of always has been to some extent, but I feel like it’s worse now. Like the new touring rules to do with Brexit and also just the cost of living crisis, the fact that you don’t make any money from touring at the lower levels anyway — it’s a financial nightmare for somebody to actually try and be in a band. There’s probably a load of kids out there who are writing songs 10 times better than me that will never be fucking heard.
Do you see any solutions or way forward in that?
This is my forte isn’t it, I like to point at problems and don’t have any fucking solutions. So I don’t know. I guess supporting your grassroots venues is a good place to start. But like all of these things, the change has to come from the top. It’s hard because a lot of the major labels got put on the market, and a lot of people are walking away with very hefty payoffs. So it’s like anything in the world, isn’t it? If things were distributed a little bit more evenly, then maybe things would be better.
Going into touring again next month, do you feel like you’ve found a better balance that works for you or is it still a work in progress?
Still a work in progress. I’m still trying to figure it out. It’s tough because people dangle carrots in front of your face all the time and go, “If you do this and do this, then this will happen and then you’ll get this and this will make it better.” So you’re trying to do everything that you can to keep everybody happy, but also maintain your vocal health and your mental health. I’m figuring it out though. I think we’re going to do better this time. I’ve got a great band and great friends, I just need to make sure I don’t tire myself out too quickly, that’s all.
This interview has been edited and condensed.