Sam Fender on cancel culture: “If you’re not admitting you have flaws, you’re a fucking psychopath”


Sam Fender has spoken about cancel culture, criticising how it’s predicated on people being perfect.

The singer-songwriter, who this week announced details of his new album ‘Seventeen Going Under’, told NME in his Big Read cover interview that he is uncomfortable with the way people sharpen their pitchforks without recognising nuance and flaws.

“I didn’t want to start on ‘cancel culture’ because I don’t want to sound like Piers Morgan [and] I fucking hate that cunt,” said Fender, when asked by NME to share his views on the matter.

“But there is a degree of it which lacks redemption; people fuck up. Everyone is a flawed character. If you’re not admitting that you have flaws, then you’re a fucking psychopath. The left-wing seem to be that way and the right-wing are fucking worse than they’ve ever been. Politically I have just lost my shit.”

Fender, who continues to live in North Shields – a working-class, former shipbuilding town in England’s north east – was asked about other political issues elsewhere in the interview. He was queried on the outcome of the last UK election in 2019, which saw the so-called ‘Red Wall’ crumble as working-class voters in the north defected from Labour to Tory.

Sam Fender
Sam Fender. CREDIT: Jack Whitefield

The musician explained that he now feels oarless politically, confused by shifts in voter patterns but also cognisant of why it happened.

“The polarity between the left and the right has me feeling like I have no identity,” he said. “I’m obviously left-wing, but you lose hope don’t you? Left-wing politics has lost its main votership; it doesn’t look after working-class people the way that it used to.

“Blyth Valley voted Tory just north of here. Now, that is saying something! We’re in dire straits when a fucking shipbuilding town is voting for the Tories – it’s like foxes voting for the hunter.”

Earlier this week Fender released the title track off his new album, ‘Seventeen Going Under’, which arrives on October 8 via Polydor Records.

Produced alongside Bramwell Bronte, Fender’s upcoming LP will see him “turning the mirror on himself; his adolescence and the trials and tribulations of growing up”.

His debut album, ‘Hypersonic Missiles‘, reached Number One in the UK albums chart upon its release in 2019.