Sam Fender has announced the details of his forthcoming third album ‘People Watching’.
READ MORE: Sam Fender live in Newcastle: a star-studded Toon celebration
‘People Watching’ was produced by Fender alongside his bandmates Dean Thompson, Joe Atkinson, producer Markus Dravs, and The War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel – it’s set for release on February 21, 2025 via Polydor. You can pre-order the LP here.
A press release describes Fender’s album as “his next steps forward”, promising to provide “colourful stories and observations of everyday characters living their everyday, but often extraordinary, lives.”
The album cover photograph was shot by the late Tish Murtha – a renowned social documentary photographer – who grew up in South Shields and documented marginalised communities and working-class life in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Sam Fender ‘People Watching’ album artwork. Credit: PRESS
‘People Watching’ tracklist is:
1. ‘People Watching’
2. ‘Nostalgia’s Lie’
3. ‘Chin Up’
4. ‘Wild Long Lie’
5. ‘Arm’s Length’
6. ‘Crumbling Empire’
7. ‘Little Bit Closer’
8. ‘Rein Me In’
9. ‘TV Dinner’
10. ‘Something Heavy’
11. ‘Remember My Name’
The first taster of the album will arrive in the form of the lead single ‘People Watching’ which is set for release this Friday (November 15). The North Shields singer-songwriter shared a snippet of the song last week.
Fender thanked fans for “being patient” on an Instagram post and shared that the single artwork featured an image “from down the road in South Shields” shot by Murtha.
“It’s an honour to be able to use her art to help tell the story of the album,” he said. You can pre-order the single CD, which features B-side ‘Me And The Dog’ here, and pre-save the track here.
Fender revealed the story behind the upcoming single on his Instagram account and shared that the track is about somebody who was “like a surrogate mother to me and passed away last November. I was by her side at the end, slept on a chair next to her. It’s about what was going through my head, to and from that place and home.”
He continued: “It’s kind of ironic because she was the one that gave me the confidence to go on stage, and always used to be like ‘why haven’t you mentioned my name in your acceptance speech’. But now an entire song (and album) connects to her. I hope that wherever she is now she’s looking down saying ‘about time kid’.”
Sam Fender. Credit: Mac Scott
It was on August 3 that he first debuted ‘People Watching’ live, along with another unreleased song, ‘Nostalgia’s Lie’, with both set to appear on his long-awaited third album.
Last month, Fender teased that the album is finished and “mastered”, having shared a series of photos and videos from the studio on Instagram, and revealed he had input from Granduciel when working on the record.
While Fender left a gap of two years between his debut album ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ and ‘Seventeen Going Under’, there has been a gap of nearly four years between ‘Seventeen Going Under’ and his third LP.
But he admitted earlier this year that he “rushed” to complete his last album. In an interview on Sky Arts’ Johnson And Knopfler’s Music Legends, Fender shared: “The third one we started rushing and I thought, ‘No, we have got to take the time’.
“I want to do the best I possibly can. I’d rather it be late and great than early and shite. What we have got so far I am absolutely over the moon with but I want to give it that bit more time and more thought.”
Speaking to NME in September 2022, he shared some more thoughts on the album, describing his new music as “very pretty” and having a strong “singer-songwriter” vibe – adding that he wasn’t planning to write music just to fill massive venues.
“If I try and force myself to write stadium songs, we could end up fucking it I think,” he explained. “Instead, I want to write about the stories that I have and the place that I’m mentally at in my life at this point. And I’ve had a lot to write about.”
He continued: “I’m not living in my mum’s flat anymore, and that’s where a lot of the songs were written from the last record. But I’m still in [North] Shields, you know, I never left. I’m still friends with all the same people. All my family and all my friends are still all in the same boat, so there’s a level of guilt that comes with it when you feel like things are going good, because I’ve still got loads of pals who are living in dire straits. It’s always there.”
As for ‘Seventeen Going Under’, which was named Best Album In The World and Best Album By A UK Artist at the BandLab NME Awards 2022, NME gave it four stars, calling it a “bruising” second album and saying: “If ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ was the sound of a young boy kicking out at the world, ‘Seventeen Going Under’ sees Fender realise that it can kick back a lot harder, and he counts every blow and bruise.
“But he seems to have found that time passes and that most wounds – even the deepest – will eventually heal, if he can allow them to.”
This year has seen Fender share the song ‘Iris’, taken from the Jackdaw soundtrack, and his Noah Kahan collaboration ‘Homesick’.
His forthcoming UK and Ireland tour includes two nights at The O2 in London. £1 from every ticket sold for these dates will be donated to the Music Venue Trust in support of grassroots venues. Find any remaining tickets here.
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