Alright, alright. New music from Sam Fender is here and just in time.
Sam Fender is pleased to share a new track, “Alright.” The song was recorded during the initial recording sessions for Sam’s number 1 charting second album Seventeen Going Under, and lands now during a triumphant Summer of festival performances, and ahead of Sam’s first US live dates since 2019.
Sam Fender: “‘Alright’ is one of the first tracks from the Seventeen Going Under era. It was always a favorite of mine and somehow didn’t make the record. It’s about growing up and the theme of cheating death.”
LISTEN TO “ALRIGHT” HERE
SAM FENDER NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:
7/28 - Lollapalooza Festival - Chicago, IL
7/30 - Danforth Music Hall - Toronto, ON
7/31 - Osheaga Festival - Montreal, QC
8/5 - The Fonda Theatre - Los Angeles, CA
8/9 - Irving Plaza - New York, NY
9/7 - Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island - Chicago, IL *
9/8 - Theater at Xcel Energy Center - Saint Paul, MN *
9/10 - Pine Knob Music Theatre - Clarkston, MI *
9/12 - Capital One Arena - Washington, DC *
9/14 - TD Garden - Boston, MA *
9/16 - Madison Square Garden - New York, NY *
9/22 - Wonder Ballroom - Portland, OR
9/24 - The Showbox - Seattle, WA
9/25 - The Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, BC
* = w/ Florence + The Machine
On July 30 Sam returns to North America for a string of sold-out headline shows and festival performances. The tour stops in Los Angeles on August 5 and New York City on August 9. Sam has also confirmed a slot at Lollapalooza in Chicago (July 28) and Montreal’s Osheaga Festival on July 31. Additionally, this Fall Sam will be supporting Florence + The Machine on select dates of her U.S tour including the stop at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Michigan on September 10th. All dates are listed below.
In the UK Fender just played one of the most talked about, show-stealing of performances at Glastonbury, this weekend will play his own 40,000+ sold-out headline date in London’s Finsbury Park.
Fender’s forthcoming tour marks his first visit stateside since the release of his critically acclaimed album Seventeen Going Under (Geffen) whose title track has been a worldwide hit. In the U.S. the song is currently #17 at Alternative radio and #12 at AAA. Guitar World called it "an infectious indie rock lungbuster that is up there with the very best of his repertoire."
In addition to “Seventeen Going Under” Sam has also released the singles “Get You Down,'' and “Spit Of You,” which he performed on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon late last year. The clip was shot in Low Lights Tavern, a 17th century pub in North Shields, England, where Fender used to work as a bartender. Watch the performance here.
Seventeen Going Under debuted at #1 in the UK charts and won Fender the Brit Award for Best Alternative/Rock Act in February. While a more intensely personal record than his 2019 debut Hypersonic Missiles, on it Sam has lost none of his acute sense of observation. Like only truly great songwriters can, Sam turns his own experience into art that speaks to, and resonates with all of us.
Alternative Press included Sam in their “14 Modern Artists Who Are Continuing To Build The Legacy Of Indie” feature and Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan included the Seventeen Going Under in their “albums of note” and “honorable mentions” lists, respectively. Riff call the album “elegantly constructed” and AllMusic say “while the subject matter here is more personal, it sticks to a palette of lush, guitar-based band arrangements and doesn't shed any sociopolitical awareness.” The album was highlighted on Uproxx’s “Indiecast” podcast and they call it “uplifting and powerful.” Sam landed on the cover of the first-ever issue of Rolling Stone UK and they call the album “stunning.”
About Seventeen Going Under
Back in the spring of 2019, this writer sat down with Sam Fender as he was still piecing together Hypersonic Missiles, the sky-scraping debut which six months later would go on to top numerous charts and mint Fender’s status as the most important songwriter of his generation.
Through the prism of an acutely aware kid from a council estate in North Shields, tracks such as Dead Boys, The Borders and Leave Fast yearned for escape while finding poetry and drama in the lives of those surrounding their author. They were songs with their eyes - and their hearts - wide open. As he sat in the afternoon sun, Fender reflected on the viewpoint within his songs with typical North Eastern self-deprecation.
“I find it easier to write about other people because I can be completely honest about them,” he pondered. “I can’t be completely honest about myself because everyone would think I was a miserable c**t.”
Fast-forward to 2020 and like the rest of the planet, Sam Fender was faced with little more than the four walls in front of him. There were no old boys propping up the bar at The Lowlights Tavern or Poundshop Kardashians to draw inspiration from. Instead, for the first time as a songwriter he had to turn his gaze to himself.
“I didn’t have anyone to write about. I’ve always relied on that stuff. On hearsay, rumours, stories, gossip… gossip made mankind,” recalls Fender today from his studio in North Shields. “I didn’t want to write about Covid because fucking no one is ever going to want to hear about that ever again, so this time I went inwards.”
You don’t need to be intimately acquainted with his backstory to realise Sam Fender’s own life isn’t short of material to draw from. Press play on Seventeen Going Under and in the surging double-header of the title track and Gettin’ Started you can hear the beats of his own story, his journey from North Shields and his own battles pounding through the music’s euphoric rush. You can practically feel the wind blowing in your face as the motor starts running and the vista of a life unfolding opens up ahead of you.
“Some of the stories are autobiographical so they write themselves,” he says. “In a sense though, you’re writing about the human experience, but you do feel exposed.”
Like only a truly great songwriter can, Fender turns his own experience into art that speaks to, and resonates with, all of us. It’s why his songs mean so much to people. On the soaring Get You Down, he might be looking unflinchingly at his own failures as a partner, yet as listeners we can all recognise something of ourselves within its New Order-meets-The E Street Band jangle. Similarly, you don’t need to have experienced the same sort of relationship with a parent or family member that inspired the heart-crushing new single Spit Of You to enjoy the fact that it’s the most moving songs written about the relationship between a father and son for decades.
Though in relative terms Seventeen Going Under is coming under two years after Hypersonic Missiles, Fender’s songwriting is lightyears ahead here. Musically, the songs are far more nuanced, more detailed, and more textured than before. Be it the plaintive piano blues of Last To Make It Home’s closing-time regret, the modal strings that swirl around The Leveller’s pounding confusion, or the enormous boom and crunch of Long Way Off’s state of the world address, there’s a far wider scope of sounds and styles on display here, and the deftness with which Fender incorporates them is dazzling.
A great example of just how far he’s come as a writer is “Aye.” A track Fender sees as a follow-up to Hypersonic Missiles’ polemical broadside “White Privilege.” Compare the two to see how much more sophisticated he’s become as a lyricist, unafraid to move in grey areas and face ambiguities in a way that actually reflects what it’s like to be a human through these troubling and confusing times.
“Politics is so unpalatable at the moment and so polarised. The online world is becoming progressively more toxic. We're so conditioned to assign every person we talk to online to a camp that we've completely lost any human connection,” he says of the song’s feeling of being trapped within an echo chamber of fury. “The only thing I care about is people. I think we've got to fight the injustices in the world and one of them is the fact that we're being hoodwinked by the 1% permanently and we’re sat down here shouting at each other about some stuff on the news. It's a fucking cesspit. Everyone's fired up and pissed off before they've even begun the conversation.”
If the album’s first half largely mirrors Fender’s own story, its second deals with the toll life and your own feelings of self-worth can take. There’s a gentle feeling of joy within the War On Drugs-like “Mantra” as it speaks of the importance of learning to love and accept yourself, while the explosive, widescreen sweep of “Paradigms” is a powerful reminder that the toxicity than can unfairly extinguish lives is sadly still with us. The empathy within is palatable as Fender reaches out a hand, repeating the lyric “no one should feel like this''.
Perhaps the most important song on the record, however, is the closing track “The Dying Light.” A piano-led epic that revisits the bars and promenades of North Shields and sees the ghosts in the town still there, the dead boys that still keep growing in number, but comes to the powerful conclusion that as human beings we owe it to ourselves and everyone we love to keep fighting, that life will triumph. It’s a remarkable end to a remarkable album.
“This album is a coming-of-age story. It’s about growing up. It’s a celebration of life after hardship, it’s a celebration of surviving,” reflects Fender. “I think it’s fucking leagues ahead of the first one.”
About Sam Fender:
From North Shields, England, Sam Fender won the BRITs Critics’ Choice award at the tail end of 2018 and released his debut album Hypersonic Missiles the following year. He has appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon twice, as well as on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Late Night With Seth Meyers. In addition, Fender has been featured on CBS This Morning - Saturday where he spoke with CBS anchor Anthony Mason about his sudden rise in notoriety. He has sold out shows in both NYC and Los Angeles and in 2019 saw him play Lollapalooza in Chicago and with legends Bob Dylan and Neil Young at London’s Hyde Park.
A rare talent, the 27-year-old musician plays every gig as though it might well be his last, armed with this huge, cavernous vocal, guitar strapped on (a Fender, obviously), and fuelled by that seemingly old-school belief that great guitar music still has the power to change lives and influence people. Sam’s lyrics are observational, questioning, and socially engaged. He has an innate gift for disentangling heavy and important material. Rolling Stone took note saying “The 25-year-old’s uncannily mature songs tackle weighty topics without flinching.”