Sam Fender: ‘We Need To Create A Society Where Talking About Your Problems Isn’t Seen As A Weakness’

Within the past year, singer-songwriter Sam Fender has received the prestigious Brits Critics' Choice award, sold out shows across the country – and, in the process, saved a man’s life. That's not exaggerating. Sam’s breakthrough hit, Dead Boys, is all about losing one of his friends to suicide.

The song is so powerful that, after hearing the song on 5Live, a suicidal man decided to enrol for CBT. Afterwards, Ben* emailed the station – and presenter Nihal Arthanayake arranged for Sam and Ben to meet at one of the singer’s gigs in Brixton. The meeting was then eventually broadcast on the station earlier this year.

But, despite the song’s subject matter, Sam was never expecting the song to actually save lives. ‘I just got that email and I was like, this isn’t fucking real,’ he says. ‘Like, you know what I mean? I was really fucking scared and I was just like, I don’t have any resolutions for this guy. That song was written about my mate who killed himself.’

Sam pauses. ‘To think that that was the trigger for me to write a song, which then stopped a man from driving his car off the road. In a really, really bittersweet way, it’s like my mate saved his life. That gives me a lot of peace.’

The song still elicits strong reactions, raising conversations about toxic masculinity{ =nofollow}. Fans contact the singer directly through social media, sharing their own experiences. ‘I had a young lad the other day who was like 16, and he was messaging me on Instagram,’ Sam says. ‘I try to talk to some of my fans – especially the young kids – bleeding your heart out on your Instagram. It’s hard to switch off. Obviously I can’t talk to everyone because I’d lose my fucking mind. But it’s intense, you can’t really turn away, if it’s some kid like totally bleeding their heart out.’

I ask what’s the toll of sharing that emotional weight with other people; how does he deal with other people pouring their hearts out in his DMs 24/7? ‘It’s one of those things that I didn’t really prepare for. I don’t really know how I deal with it,’ he says. ‘I try to talk to as many people as I can.’ He pauses again. ‘I’m not a therapist, I’m just a singer-songwriter – the majority of people I just say thank you, but when people are like “Your song stopped this” I’m like “Fucking hell, I’m glad I wrote it.”’

The singer is just one of many, many musicians – and celebrities – who are helping to break the outdated taboo surrounding mental health. But, as a society, we still have a long way to go with lowering the rates of male suicide. According to The Samaritans statistics from 2017, men are three times as likely to take their own lives than women, and so I ask Sam why he thinks it’s so important that people - particularly in his industry - are speaking out. ‘There’s far too many who think that the only way they’re able to get out of a situation is to end their life. We need to be creating some landing pads for these people, and creating a safe sort of society where talking about your problems isn’t seen as a weakness.’

Sam is hailed as being a socially conscious songwriter, previously covering his hometown Newcastle’s synthetic weed epidemic (Spice) and the negative onslaught of reality TV on society (Poundshop Kardashians - ‘everyone on Instagram is 10/10 mega babe.’) He says, though, that he doesn’t intend to write political songs.

Another – unreleased – album track is called White Privilege. ‘I’m the narrator who is white, it’s just kind of talking about Brexit and ranting about social media,’ Sam explains. ‘It’s very confessional and self-deprecating as well ... it mentions staring at beautiful people [on Instagram] and wanting to be anyone but yourself, but it’s also kind of taking the piss.’ He stops. ‘That’s such a white privilege thing to say, like you’re sat there on Instagram wishing you were fucking pretty.’

His stance on Brexit was that he wanted to remain, fairly obviously perhaps, but still, he clarifies that, in case you weren’t sure. ‘With Brexit, obviously I was a remainer. But like I’m just kind of over it now. Because there’s fuck all I can do about it… The pensioners have spoken.’ He laughs, and says something I won’t repeat – because it will, most definitely, get taken out of context.

He is amiable and funny (even though when we spoke, he was massively hungover) yet he’s not afraid to speak his mind, even if, sometimes, that could get him in trouble.

He might not be cautious in interviews – ‘I need to watch my mouth sometimes’ -–but he is slightly more worried about the album coming out. ‘I’m a softie mate, I take it to heart,’ he tells me, speaking about criticism. ‘I don’t know man, there’s a lot of good tunes and I’m really excited about it, but I’m quite a sensitive soul so I don’t like reading my reviews or anything.’ But, when his music is creating such a positive impact, who cares about the reviews anyway?

Hypersonic Missiles is released on September 13.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call The Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.

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