As Sam Fender continues to win hearts and minds in America, the North Shields talent shared with US audiences the touching story behind his single Dead Boys.
The 24-year-old singer-songwriter, who payed Dead Boys, Play God and new single Hypersonic Missiles on CBS This Morning on Saturday, was open about the tragedy which inspired the track and how he was initially "utterly terrified" about putting the experience into a song.
In an interview with the CBS presenter in New York, he told how he lost a friend to suicide a couple of years ago and wrote Dead Boys "as a reaction to that".
He said: "I read up on it and it's the biggest killer of men under 45, more than cancer or a car accident, so that was staggering for me".
When asked if he's been scared to put it into a song, he said he'd been "utterly terrified".
"I wasn't even sure about releasing it because it's very close to me," he said.
But Dead Boys is having a real impact in its reach and its video has been viewed more than million times.
Introduced as a "British singer-songwriter with a growing reputation on both sides of the Atlantic", Fender's impressive appearance on the show's Saturday Sessions segment follows his slot in March on The Jimmy Kimmel Show in America.
In the separately-recorded interview , which made reference to his "growing up in a small northern England town " and his admiration of US music-makers Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, he said his introduction by his brother to The Boss's Born to Run album had "changed my world" .
Of his phenomenal start to 2019, he said of winning the Brit Award s' Critics Choice: "Mad! What happened there?"
And he's seen his profile rocket, with sell-out dates in America and a meeting with Sting who attended a gig in Canada.
He added: "It's been a really surreal year that's for sure."
"In the last six months, things really flipped on their head."
Following his return home, Fender has a date in the diary for his North East fans: he will be playing Mouth of the Tyne festival on July 11 but tickets were snapped up as soon as the concert was announced.
Discussing his song-writing in the interview, he said the important thing was that: "I don't ever express I'm an expert on things".
He added: "I always write from the perspective of an early-20s kid who is trying to grasp an idea of what the hell is going on.
"I'm asking questions which most people are asking but just putting a melody and a song to it."
Following his TV air-time on Saturday, the singer took to Twitter to say: "Morning all! Thanks for having us."
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