Sam Fender has announced his third studio album, People Watching, and shared the title track. The English rocker co-produced the anthemic song alongside a musician that he deeply admires, The War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel. The song was inspired by Annie Orwin, Fender’s late friend and mentor. “‘People Watching’ is about somebody that was like a surrogate mother to me and passed away last November. I was by her side at the end, slept on a chair next to her,” Fender said of the song. “It’s about what was going through my head, to and from that place and home.” People Watching is out February 21, 2025 via Capitol Records.
Fender created People Watching alongside his bandmates Dean Thompson and Joe Atkinson across two years, working from London in 2023 with producer Markus Dravs and earlier this year in Los Angeles with Granduciel. “Figuring out where the hell to go after 17 took some working out but I got there in the end,” Fender wrote on Twitter, referencing his previous album. “This one is the next phase of growing up.”
The album’s artwork was shot by the late documentary photographer Tish Murtha, whose work captured working-class life in Newcastle upon Tyne. “It’s an honour to be able to use her art to help tell the story of the album,” Fender wrote of the photographer.
Alongside the album and single, Fender has announced a 2025 North American tour leg of the People Watching tour. Those dates begin at Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre in Vancouver on April 5, 2025. A special one night only underplay at New York City’s Webster Hall will take place prior on February 11, 2025. The North American dates will follow a sold-out UK/Ireland arena tour that begins in December. A sold-out European tour will follow in March 2025.
Fender’s first two albums, 2018’s Hypersonic Missiles and 2021’s Seventeen Going Under, both debuted at No. 1 on the UK’s Official Album Charts and have been certified Platinum in Britain. The songwriter has amassed over two billion global streams and won two BRITs, two NME awards and an Ivor Novello award.
Order Sam Fender’s People Watching now.