Rise to fame was mad – it was too much, too fast but what I signed up for, reveals Sam Fender

“I WATCH people on the way back home,” sings Sam Fender on the soul-bearing title track of his new album. With its widescreen ambition, driving intensity and visceral lyrics, People Watching can’t fail to draw familiar comparisons to Fender’s “biggest hero”, Bruce Springsteen.

A few years ago, he noted that Springsteen had “never stopped writing about people” and had “never stopped writing about home”. The same thing applies to the refreshingly candid, fiercely committed Geordie. In the case of The Boss, he wrote about his New Jersey stomping ground with its hard-up inhabitants in dead-end jobs who dreamed of better lives (usually involving desperate lovers escaping in fast cars down endless highways.).

On Fender’s radar are the people like him who grew up in terraced houses on the banks of the River Tyne. People from the old fishing port of North Shields where he was born and people from nearby Newcastle where his beloved Magpies play in the Premier League.

So, in People Watching, he’s “back in the gasworks” and witnessing “everybody on the treadmill running under the billboards out of the heat”. I contend that this song, and the rest of his dazzling third album, marks Fender’s coming of age as a major artist in his own right.

“It’s just a collection of songs about the human experience,” he says with self-deprecating charm in the illuminating album biography. Clearly the product of a musician on a creative roll, it is the distillation of 70 tracks, of which 50 were recorded to some degree, before Fender selected his best eleven.

And let’s face it, his high, free-flowing tenor bears little resemblance to what he calls Springsteen’s “growl”. When Fender burst on to the scene in 2019 with his debut album Hypersonic Missiles, he told SFTW: “If anything, I am the s**t version of Bruce.

“I will never be him. I will always be Sam Fender. But I will always nod to my heroes.”. Factor in that People Watching was co-produced in Los Angeles by another Bruce superfan, Adam Granduciel of The War On Drugs, and you’ll understand why that “nod” is present and correct here.

“Not only are The War On Drugs one of my favourite bands but it turned out we love the same stuff,” says Fender. “You can hear Adam’s touch on everything, particularly the synths, all these layers and little melodies.”. But now just consider the heart-rending narrative that comes with the People Watching song. It is 100 per cent Fender.

In the biog, he opens up about his visit to a palliative care home “understaffed and overruled by callous hands” as his dear friend and mentor, Annie Orwin, passed away. “She was like a surrogate mother to me,” he says. “She ran a drama group on Saturdays for kids in the community centre and was the first person who ever really believed in me.

“As I grew up, we became friends. We’d share a bottle of wine and just bitch about the world. She was larger than life and I loved her to pieces. I’ll always end up writing about Newcastle. “When music started kicking off for me, she’d always be like: ‘Why haven’t you mentioned me in interviews?.

"When are you going to thank me in an acceptance speech when you’re winning those awards?!’”. In the song, Fender speaks directly to Annie when he intones, “I stayed all night till you left this life” and later sums up his feelings with “and I hold you in my heart till the day I die”.

It’s personal, devastating but also life-affirming with its reflection on a loved one who had his back long before a successful music career beckoned. After shooting the video for People Watching, Irish actor Andrew Scott (Ripley, Fleabag, All Of Us Strangers) talked of the song’s profound effect on him.

“Sam’s masterpiece of a song has become a true friend to me,” he admitted. “Working on it was truly cathartic and I’ll always be grateful to Sam for his extraordinary talent, and for the other artists who made this film, and of course to my mum who I will hold in my heart till the day I die.”.

For Fender, who hit 30 last April, the past six years since Hypersonic Missiles have been a one-way trip to rock’s top table. He’s supported Springsteen and the Stones but now strides stadium stages as a worthy headliner. In June, he’ll play three nights at Newcastle United’s ground, St James’s Park — which as his website tells us, in his Geordie accent of course, have all “sold oot”.

Fender will come armed with a collection of vibrant new songs to comfortably slot in among favourites from his first two albums. He’s already been performing People Watching’s four singles — the title track, Wild Long Lie, Arm’s Length and Remember My Name.

Though he divides his time between London and Newcastle, there’s no doubt where inspiration for his latest compositions comes from. “I’ll always end up writing about Newcastle,” says Fender. “Even though I’ve effectively moved out, I still spend so much time there seeing my mates.