I had low self esteem when I started but one person changed that explains Sam Fender
Sam Fender has paid tribute to the person who he claims helped make him feel comfortable on stages.
Speaking on the Song Exploder podcast, which welcomes artists to talk about the process of creating a song from nothing to the final project, the North Tyneside local explained how one well loved community figure helped him during his early days of performing.
The title track from his newest album ‘People Watching’, which went straight to number one in the UK album charts, is inspired by the sam person, he went on to add.
“I was back home” explains Fender when asked about where the initial idea for the track came from.
“Somebody who was very close to me, she was called Annie Orwin, she was an actor, and she was like my surrogate mother. SHe got sick and she was sick for quite a long time.
“When I was a kid... my grandmother put me in this local acting class when I was 13 and my grandma would pay for that. Some kids wouldn’t pay. She was quite a community hero, Annie.
“I had quite low self esteem when I started, I was getting bullied in school and I didn’t really have a lot of confidence. She game us pretty much all the confidence I have.”
Orwin was maybe best known to those outside of the community as foster carer Lou Gallagher, who she played in Byker Grove for 17 years.
“It made me be able to go on stage and do what we do. She was the first person in my life to make me believe this was a viable thing to do as a career.
“She meant a lot to us and became my best friend. Even when the acting stopped I was really good friends with her in my twenties. I used to go round to hers and she’d have periods where she was going better and her cancer was under control.
“She always used to go ‘you never mention me when you get these awards!’
“Not last year, but the year before I got a call from Joe, another of her protégés. I went to see her and the plan was I was going to get her out of the care home.
“She started deteriorating really quickly. We just slept on the chair next to her. It was a tough but gruelling time. It was an honour.”
Fender explains how this went for around five days before she passed away in his arms.
The singer-songwriter explained the lyrics to People Watching came from his time travelling to and from the care home Orwin resided in, with the more upbeat tempo representing the “more accepting” phase of grief.
“Annie was such a larger than life person” he adds. “I wanted something to be more celebratory and have that euphoria. She put so much euphoria into the world and I wanted that to be reflected in the music.
The full episode is available to listen to through the Song Exploder Podcast website.