Sam Fender - People Watching

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Sam Fender is a singer and songwriter from the town of North Shields in England. He won the Brit Award for Best Rock and Alternative Act twice. His most recent album is called People Watching, and just like his first two albums, it went to number one on the UK album charts. To help produce the album, Sam enlisted Adam Grandusile, the singer and frontman of the Grammy winning band The War on Drugs. For this episode, I talked to Sam and his bandmate Joe Atkinson,

from people watching, and the long journey that it took to get made. From Sam's kitchen Can I just ask you each to introduce yourselves? Yeah. I'm Joe Atkinson, I play keyboards for Sam and help him in the studio with the production and stuff like that. Yes. And we've known each other for ages. Yeah. When did you first meet? Probably fourteen. Yeah. We used to be in rival bands. When you were fourteen years old? Yeah.

If there was ever like a a local band competition, it would always be like us two pitted against each other. 'Cause where we live, no shields, it's like I love it. It's the best town in the world, but it's not connected to the music industry or anything, you know, it's a fishing town. Back in those days, was your relationship mainly about playing music together or did you hang out otherwise as well?

I think with us it's like we all grew up together, you know? Yeah. And like w we are family really. Like Joe's just like a brother to me. So what was happening in your life around the time when the first ideas for people watching started coming to you? I was back home and Somebody who was very, very close to me. She's called Annie Owen. She was an actor. And she was like my surrogate mother. She got sick and she was sick for quite a long time. And how did you first meet Annie?

So when I was a kid. My grandmother was like, He's hyper and we should put him in something that'll you know, that he can express himself in and do some subsho put me in this local community centre acting class when I was like thirteen. And that was like my grandma would pay for that. And I think it was only like a fiver. And some kids actually didn't even pay. Like she was like a community hero, honey. And um

I had quite a low self-esteem when I first met her. I was getting bullied in school and I didn't really have a lot of confidence and she gave us pretty much I think all of the confidence that I have. So I did like loads of little bits of acting and stuff when I was a kid, like just sort of community theatre stuff. But it made us be able to go on stage and do what we do, you know.

And you know, there was loads of plans. Like we had a plan, like when I was a kid there was a we were planning to move down to London and she was like, you know, we can try out your music and your acting down there. She was always really supportive and she was the first person I think in my life to that ever

made me believe that this was like a viable thing to do as a career. You know, she was always like, you're a star kid. So she meant a lot to us, you know. She became like one of my best friends. And even once the acting stuff stopped I was like still, you know, really good friends with her in my twenties and I used to go around to hers and she had periods where she was a lot better and and periods where like her cancer was under control and

You know, we used to just drink a bottle of wine and bitch, to be honest, like most of the time. She used to always go, You never mentioned me. in any of these awards. It's like you get an award and you don't mention my name at all. And I used to be like, well, I'm sorry. Like you she's like, I should be the first person you think of. whenever you get an award for something and I was like, oh Jesus, I've I'm I'm sorry, you know. Was she joking or was she? I'm not sure we're serious.

Well she was joking, but she was there was definitely an element of the She was like, no, you see she was serious about it. And then, not last year, but the year beforehand, I basically got a call off my other good friend Joe, who was also like one of her proteges. And he was like, You know, I think I think this is gonna happen. It was really bizarre'cause I went to see her. And the whole plan was I was gonna get her out of the care home.

And she was seemed in fine spirits and I think some doctor came in and basically was really negative and she just started deteriorating really quickly. So she said, you know, she didn't want to be alone. So I was like, Well, we'll s I'll stay and so did Joe and

And so did our wonderful nieces. We just slept on the chair next to her, you know, for like five days, in and out to trying to do shifts and would go home for a couple of hours to try and get some sleep and it was really, really like grueling But like beautiful thing, like it was a I was it was an honour to be able to be there with her at the very end, you know. Yeah. You know, uh she died you know, in my arms, you know. Like I I I held her hand.

And um whoa, I just you know it is, I haven't actually spoken about it. Like And it was like but it was it was beautiful in the end.

So I had this piano chord progression. You know, I've got this little piano which I got from like a school. And we just put a load of pin tacks into the keys, which make it sound like metallic the hammers are obviously metal hitting metal. Recursive sound. Really because of really bright. Kind of like a an old honky tonk piano. And I've got that in my kitchen. And I was like, what's this song about? It's definitely about something. And then Annie died.

And I was like going through all of that and then it was like, oh, it's Annie's song. I was doing a demo on my phone, my garage bands, but I don't use a microphone or anything. I just I don't have it plugged into any gear. Cause I'm like I'm like an idiot when it comes to tech. So I'll just go like Tssh in the fucking loop at like a bajillion bars. I'll record a piano for two bars and then just copy and paste that along. And then I'll find a base. What I tend to do is find a loot.

so that I can listen to it and then eventually the lyrics come and the melody forms around it. When I walked back from the care home back to my house, I was people watching, you know, like that was my my sort of escapism was just watching people pass by and seeing what was going on in their lives and I was obviously thinking a lot about life and death at the time and how such a big character like was about to leave this plane of existence.

You know, everything just keeps moving, the world keeps turning and everybody's still living their lives and going through their struggles and you know, and I think at the time I was also thinking about Britain being you know, the cost of living crisis was a lot in the news at the time and

You know, there was an element of guilt that I had because we're doing well and and a lot of the people that we know back home are, you know, struggling to even feed their kids and so you know it was all of that was kind of swimming in the in the atmosphere.

Joe, do you remember the first time you heard this iPhone demo? Yeah, we went into the studio sleep of sounds and Sam was playing it to us and we were just like, Wow Me and Dean and Drew was there as well and we were like, Wow, this is awesome. Sam, when you played the demo for them. Did the sort of grief and the th feelings that you were feeling about Annie's passing did they still feel fresh at the time?

Yeah, it was mega fresh'cause it was only in November, you know, aside from Annie as well, like there'd been a lot of Death in all of our lives. Yeah. So I think the band connected to it because we'd all kind of lost people and friends and it was I think that's the only way we know how to sort of deal with these things and process these things. As an artist, like that's how you deal with these things. Joe, did you know how much Annie meant?

To Sam. Yeah. But unfortunately I'd never met Annie in my life. But Sam would always fondly talk about her and even when we were kids, I remember him being like, I'm going to do my acting thing. Wanna see Annie and stuff and Yeah. So obviously it you know, it it did strike a chord because I knew how close they were. And why sleeper sounds? Why were you working there?

It's a decent space to just to write things and get things moving. You know, you just sat there doing it and it it just comes together really quickly. And I like to work fast. Because I feel like a lot of the time with a song, you've got to strike while the iron's hot. Because if you don't, you lose that energy and that the excitement for the song. There's nothing better than when you're like it's like you're chasing a song. I feel like you're always chasing them down.

You're like, let's get to the next bit, right? Okay, let's record this acoustic. Let's put some synths in. Who's playing drums here? That's true. That's true, yeah. Because Even though I could imagine Or just something. as a tribute to grief. I mean like that feels maybe like a natural place to go. What was it about this kind of tempo that felt right to you about what you were writing about?

Well, I wanted it to be like that feeling of liberation when you're kind of getting over grief or like coming to the more accepting phase of grief. I think because I was so desperately wanting to get there myself. I wanted the music to get us there as well, I guess suppose, you know? Yeah. Sounds wanky saying that, you know what I mean?

No, no, no. Annie was such a larger than life person and I wanted something to be more celebratory and have that kind of euphoria because she put so much euphoria into the world and In my world, especially, you know, as a young lad and like I wanted that to be reflected in the music. But I never got the chorus. So this course, the original course, this just wasn't good enough for you.

Yeah. I was like, Oh I've gotta get it right. I can't make it like it can't be crap. Do you know what I mean? It's it's about Annie.

So it kind of just sat like half a song for like a few months. Yeah, a little while, yeah. For quite a few months. Normally the songs come together so quick. And this one was such a bastard. We needed somebody else to kind of help get it across the line. I mean, we could have done it ourselves, really, but it was like,

We're at this point in our career where like we're really lucky that we could like pretty much call on anybody and the label would back it. So it was like, I wanna work with one of my heroes. Do you know what I mean? And I was like, why not? We have a a saying in Newcastle where we're from. It's uh shy bands getting out, and that means like shy kids get nothing. So I just asked the label, I was like, can I ask Adam Graniseal from War on Drugs?

And they're like, Yeah, of course we'll get his number and then I just called him up and spoke to him about this idea. I sent him some songs. And he was like, he fell in love with them and he called back straight away. And then we were just on the phone for like an hour and a half talking about Tom Petty. Like, so it went from that to LA with Adam. My conversation with Sam Fender and Joe Atkinson came out of the

I have a new album of my own coming out on April twenty-fourth. It's been about fifteen years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Herway. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists.

and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. The features contribution. from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fenn Lilly, and the producer Phil Weinrope.

I'm gonna be on tour playing in cities across the US starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album. With a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Simeen Nosrat, Jason Manzukis, Josh Molina, Min Jin Lee, Ken J. John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all gonna be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band.

The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can And get tickets for the shows on my website rishicash.co or check out. Song Exploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks.

Thanks to Wayfair for their support of Song Exploder. They have everything you need for your house or your apartment or wherever you live. I was just going through my old emails to look up all the stuff that I've gotten from Wayfair over the years, and even I'm surprised by how wide the range is. The first thing I ever got was a laundry bag. And then an outdoor light for my front door.

And more recently, I've gotten a couple rugs, a circular rug for under my dining table and one for outdoors. Right now in my cart, I've got these expandable bamboo dividers so that I can organize my dresser drawers. Honestly, you can find so much stuff there. And coming up, they've got Wayday, which is the sale to shop the best deals in home. We're talking up to 80% off with fast and free shipping on everything.

So head to Wayfair.com from April 25th through April 27th to shop Wayday. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. So Adam Grande Seal jumped in and then we went out to LA and started working with him and it was it was magic, you know? Yeah. I was sat in the house that we're staying in, we're like staying up in the hills and it was amazing. Like a bunch of Geordie boys in Hollywood. What the hell has happened? This is ridiculous.

Like in the beautiful sunshine. And I just sat with the guitar because I was like, I've got to get this song sussed out. I remember just sitting up on there, looking over the hills and looking across the city and all of that and I was just sat thinking about Annie and

Thinking about because she was an actor and she was like such a big movie buff, you know. Obviously being in Hollywood where like every bloody movie's ever been made. Uh I mean so I sat there thinking about her and just thinking, God, she would love this. She would love being here with me. And we're driving down Hollywood Boulevard and there was just so many homeless people on the street. And then it made us think of home because the homelessness is getting really bad back home.

So it was like bizarre because then, like, the first half of that song is all talking about walking back from the care home and watching people back there. And then it was like suddenly I was like out in LA and I was doing the exact same thing, you know. And then these lines just came out. No, somebody's darling's on the street tonight. That was inspired because Billy Connolly was the he did this TV show. He found this grave in Scotland and it said somebody's sweetheart.

in the village had found this random person that had no idea who this person was and somebody says well it's somebody's sweetheart and they buried that person as somebody's sweetheart which I think so beautiful. It's like no matter what who you are, where you go in the world, like you're loved by somebody. And that's what I thought when I saw all these people on the streets. Like I was like, That's somebody's darling, that's somebody's kid, you know? I remembered that as I was writing the song.

It took so long to get it right and then that was like this overwhelming like joy and relief that we'd got this chorus that was good. Such a great feeler. Totally, because we'd had that song for ages. Ages at this point. And we're kind of like we knew there was something so special within it. And after that we just straight the studio. Got true's drums down. Oh, he's so on it man. I mean he's so on it that I actually wondered if these were samples when I got the stems. No no that's Jews playing.

Adam was kind of like, Hey drill, can you just do like a straight just Debu tikata and he just rocked that. We overdubbed some toms, bugaka, bugaka, and then we started building from there. Did your ideas about that little riff change? Yeah, we wanted it to be a whirly, but then I remember like it doesn't quite poke out as much as we expected it to poke out. Yeah. So I'll double it and I'll do like a kind of Mark Knofler, dire straits style pick and pattern version. I love the tiny bend.

Which you obviously can't do on the Worlitzer and so there makes them more distinct as well. It sounds more like a band when there's like slightly different things happening. But we felt there was something missing in the high end and I wanted something that was gonna come out and sort of mirror the melody. So we had to figure out what it was gonna be. And I remember Adam thinking about that synth sound was and he was like Yeah, it's like dire straits. Yeah. He's like, hey, try this OB eight.

We got it, OBA. Literally we pressed like one sound and Sam was like, Oh my god, this is the sound Yeah. It just adds it's a lush like part of the palette, I think. I keep saying palette because Adam Week stole some of his terminology. Cause he's he always kind of looks at at it like he's painting. Yeah. He's like, Yeah, it's a let's go paint. We wanted to do acoustics and Adam was like, I want to get a bit more with like a rhythm. And he was like, I think we should just do it together.

So we set up a binaural head, Mike. We've seen them before. Yeah. So I love them. I mean spooky, aren't they? Like it's literally just like a human head on a stick. And the ears are the microphones. The ears of the microphones is nuts. So like we use that quite a lot to try and get a bit of that sort of like in the room feel. Adam sat on one side of it and I sat on the other side and we both did the whole song just one take, just jamming it out.

Did it change the way that you played to have him playing it with your It's just like for me that was like one of them it was really special. What made it so special? Because he's like my hero, isn't he? Do you know what I mean? It was like I was sat and I was thinking like I was like ten years ago I was in hospital. I was like living with my mother and me and my mum were both unemployed, didn't have any money. Black mould all over my r bedroom wall.

When I was in hospital, the Lost in the Dream album, Adam's album, I become obsessed with it. And that's all I listened to during that whole time that I was recovering. I used to listen to this album and dream about doing this as a job and being able to pay my bills and now I'm in LA. sat with the guy who made that album, playing an acoustic track with him, but both doing it at the same time. It was like literally one of my biggest heroes. It was it you couldn't write it.

Can you tell me about the horns that come in later? Oh my god. The reps. So the rift tones were basically uh a combination of our brass players, which is Mark Webb and Johnny Blue Hat, and then the war on drugs. Adam invited his mate John Natchez and they came as a trio. We started calling them the Riptones. Yeah. John Natchez is on Barry, Mark Webb Trumpet, Johnny Blue Hat on Tennis Sacks. Fuck yeah.

The solo actually in the tune, which comes in the outro, that was done on Johnny's first day to LA. Walked in Adam's studio, jet lagged. He walked in and just ripped that in one. How was it recording your final vocals for the song? So I get quite f fearful in in the studio in booths, like just s singing and I only really feel comfortable doing my vocals at home.

Because I just feel a lot less stressed. You don't have that like, Oh my god, it's we're against the clock. So I've always kinda done my vocals. Either like in the flat or like or in our place back home. So I stayed all night till you live this life but that's just love. Happy boo watch on the way back home. Hãy subscribe cho kênh La La School Để không bỏ lỡ những video hấp dẫn It's Brooke, the newest member of our band.

Under the billboards, out of the heat Somebody start it, start it straight tonight So me and Brooke have been friends since we were like seventeen. And the first time I ever heard her sing, she was doing a cover of Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen. and my jaw was on the floor. I was like, that's how you sing. Mm-hmm. I actually started trying to emulate her vibrato as we grew up together, which made me a better singer. Like I kind of learnt how to sing through book, really.

How do you think it affected the song to have her voice in there on those choruses as well? It's like singing with a family member or something, you know what I mean? It's like We have that. Yeah, is it telepathy? Yeah. I can sing anything and she'll just find a harmony m immediately, you know. Oh, I can't stop burnin' I've seen a whole town fall, happy boy Halloween back home. And then the middle eight didn't come until That was a bit later, wasn't it?

Yeah. I didn't have the lyrics for it and I was like, but I knew I wanted to round it off and m make it about Annie and and just kind of like a final gesture of love to Annie. Oh I was like, I can hear strings in this section. So what I normally do is I'll sing the parts and then I'll send it to Rosie Danvas. It's just string arrangement. She's just done everybody like she's the best. This was an Abbey Road. Yeah. Studio two? How big of an orchestra is playing that?

Wow. And it was going through the same compressors used by the Beatles.

The first half of that song is like, I'm down in the doldrums. I wasn't in a good way at the time. I was definitely drinking too much. Yeah, it was just it was loss, you know. I mean, grief hits you in so many different ways and and I think I was like kind of focusing more on the loss as opposed to focusing on the on the beauty, the beautiful impact she had on me in my life. I think that's where the song flips, being grateful.

That's the end result of grief a lot of the time is just being so grateful and it's that really painful love that you you'll always carry with you, no matter how long I live for, you know, I'm I'm always gonna remember any Do you feel like you have responded to Annie's request about uh you shouting her out in your speeches? Yeah, well that's that was the thinking, I think, you know, wherever she is now.

She'll be like kicking her heels away like, why didn't you do it when I was there? You know what I mean? Um but yeah, I think she would have liked it. I think she would have liked the tune. I don't know what I believe in, but I hope she can hear it wherever she is, you know. And now here's People Watching by Sam Fender in its entirety.

Visit Songexploder.net to learn more. You'll find links to buy or stream people watching, and you can watch the music video. You might also enjoy the episode with The War on Drugs featuring Adam Grandesile who co-produced the song. There's a link to that in the show notes too. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, and Kathleen Smith.

with production assistance from Tiger Biscup. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener supported, Heart of Stone Podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me about what I'm watching and listening to and thinking about, you can subscribe to my newsletter.

Which you can find on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at Songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishikesh Hirway. Thanks for listening.