“WHEN YOU WRITE A MELODY, IT'S LIKE YOUR SOUL TALKING”

Sam Fender was ten when he started on guitar – playing Nirvana and Oasis songs on a Peavey Strat copy. 17 years later, he’s a major star acclaimed by Elton John and Paul Weller. He tells TG about the creative process and the gear he used for his new album Seventeen Going Under...

- Grant Moon

Sam Fender is a happy man. “I’ve bought my first ever daft guitar,” he says with a cheeky grin. It’s just a few days after his triumphant sets at Reading and Leeds Festival and he’s still a bit ‘groggy’, but when he brandishes his brand new acquisition – a beautiful 1959 Fender Jazzmaster – he visibly perks up.

“I got the record deal and got a bit of money,” he says, “so I was like ‘Right, I’m gonna get myself a really nice guitar’. I love Les Pauls, Strats and other Fenders, but this has got that brightness that I’ve always wanted – that heartland rock, Tom Petty twang. Sometimes with my Strat I feel like my chords are p*ssing in the wind, whereas this feels like it’s got more bite.”

It’s a fitting token of the 27-year-old’s current run of success. In September 2019, his debut album Hypersonic Missiles debuted at No.1 on the UK chart, winning the Critics’ Choice Award at the Brits, Fender garnering wide acclaim for his direct, indie-style rock and earthy, meaningful lyrics. The tour for that album was cut short by the pandemic, and over the enforced lockdown hiatus Fender hunkered down at his home in North Shields, and wrote the material for his second album.

From its yearning title track, to urgent cry from the heart Aye, to dark, seventh-chord heavy The Leveller,