British indie rock darling Sam Fender has been going from strength to strength over the past couple of years, and with his latest album, the stadium-ready yet still intimate People Watching, the singer-songwriter and guitarist has undoubtedly cemented his name in rock music history.
In 2021, the then-27-year-old artist, fresh off the release of his sophomore album Seventeen Going Under, spoke to Total Guitar about his journey so far – and how he picked the electric guitar as his instrument of choice in the first place.
“It was a ‘divorce’ Christmas present,” Fender revealed. “My parents got divorced, I got a TV off my mom and a guitar from my dad: a Peavey Strat copy with a Peavey practice amp. And it’s still a great guitar – I play it from time to time.
“Dad’s a great rhythm guitarist, and he showed me some basic chords and set the guitar up nice."
The humble rig provided him with the perfect tools to get started on his guitar playing journey, but also proved to be an important learning curve that he was keen to share with aspiring guitarists: “Get your guitar set up, so it’s not like you’re battling bits of cheese wire! My brother was a musician; drums was his first instrument. I think I got into music as a way to be close to them.”
And while the Peavey spent a year untouched, a 10-year-old Fender finally started making use of it by learning the likes of Nirvana, Green Day and Oasis.
“I was flying by the time I was 13, learning all the hard rock stuff like Led Zeppelin and Guns N’ Roses,” he reminisced. “I got Slash’s autobiography when I was 12, and learned all his solos – I had this one blues lick that I used to just rip over the top of every song.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Fender talked about the chords underpinning some of his most beloved tracks, what he learned from Jeff Buckley and Steely Dan, and the power of descriptive songwriting à la Springsteen and Suzanne Vega.
