Sam Fender

Few British songwriters have absorbed American rock as fully as Sam Fender. Born in 1994 in North Shields, he sings with a high tenor and an unmistakable Geordie accent, and his songs fuse the heartland rock he grew up on with a distinctly British sensibility. Learning to sing by listening to Jeff Buckley's Grace, he has collected five Brit Awards, two Ivor Novello Awards and a Mercury Prize.

He first drew notice by making the BBC Sound of 2018 shortlist, then signed to Polydor and released the EP Dead Boys. In 2019 he won the Critics' Choice Award at the Brit Awards, and his debut album, Hypersonic Missiles, opened at number one on the UK Albums Chart. Its follow-up, Seventeen Going Under, did the same in 2021, with its title track earning major critical and commercial success. The third album, People Watching, out in February 2025, won that year's Mercury Prize and also debuted at the top. Its single "Rein Me In", a duet with Olivia Dean, became his first UK number one and has spent a record 23 weeks there.