Sam Fender has given an update on his new album, admitting he “rushed” to release ‘Seventeen Going Under‘.
Fender gave the update in an upcoming appearance on Sky Arts’ Johnson and Knopfler’s Music Legends, which sees Brian Johnson and Mark Knopfler interview musicians including Fender, Tom Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Nile Rodgers, Carlos Santana and Emmylou Harris.
In the forthcoming interview (as per Music News), the Geordie musician said of his next record: “We have been recording and recording and making loads of stuff but it got to the point where I thought, ‘We don’t need to get this out yet. We need to get it right’.
“For the second one [‘Seventeen Going Under’], we rushed to get that out and the third one we started rushing and I thought, ‘No, we have got to take the time’.
“I want to do the best I possibly can. I’d rather it be late and great than early and shite,” he added. “What we have got so far I am absolutely over the moon with but I want to give it that bit more time and more thought.”
Fans have been expecting Fender’s third album since he shared some mysterious QR codes ahead of his 2023 Newcastle homecoming gigs, which turned out to be special edition Newcastle discs of his upcoming record.
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He also spoke about his next record in an interview with NME about his huge Newcastle gigs, describing his new music as “very pretty” with a strong “singer-songwriter” vibe.
“If I try and force myself to write stadium songs, we could end up fucking it I think,” he admitted. “Instead, I want to write about the stories that I have and the place that I’m mentally at in my life at this point. And I’ve had a lot to write about.”
The singer last released ‘Seventeen Going Under’ in 2021, which NME gave four stars. “If ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ was the sound of a young boy kicking out at the world, ‘Seventeen Going Under’ sees Fender realise that it can kick back a lot harder, and he counts every blow and bruise. But he seems to have found that time passes and that most wounds – even the deepest – will eventually heal, if he can allow them to,” it read.
Since then, Fender has gone on to release singles including 2024’s soulful ‘Iris‘, taken from the Jackdaw soundtrack, and his Noah Kahan collaboration ‘Homesick‘. He has also teased new music with The War On Drugs frontman Adam Granduciel.