Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham has expressed his love for Sam Fender, praising his song ‘People Watching’.
The guitarist and singer has posted a video on his YouTube channel in which he sits with his son Will and watches Fender’s performance of the title track of his Mercury-winning third album, live from the London Stadium.
Will drew his father’s attention to potential similarities between ‘People Watching’ and early Fleetwood Mac records, to which Lindsey replied: “It’s hard to be objective about that, you know? I mean it did occur to me that maybe the guitar part was very much something I would do.”
“The general kind of limits that the song puts on itself is very much like what we would do,” he added. “It kind of holds a certain emotive space and never varies from there, you know, and he knows what that is and wants to hold on to it.”
Buckingham also declared his admiration for Fender’s breakout hit ‘Seventeen Going Under’, which he said was “great too”, but added that he believed ‘People Watching’ is “more of a complete song to me”.
“I’m just looking forward to what he’s going to do because he seems to be evolving,” Buckingham said. “I love the emotional tone he finds and holds. I love his voice. This is my favourite song.”
Fender recently used his acceptance speech at the Ivor Novello Awards to call on the music industry to find more fresh voices from working class backgrounds.
“I’m so fucking, so privileged to be doing this,” he said, choking back tears as he remembered his manager Owen Davies “walking into that pub that day when I was 18” while he was playing a set.
“As an industry, we cannot rely on people like Owen having to walk into the pub to find kids from fucking working class backgrounds,” he added. “All the way through ‘People Watching’, that year, my manager did his job always and looked after us, but he lost both of his parents that year and I just want to thank Owen.”
In a four-star review of ‘People Watching’, NME wrote: “Reflective, analytical and vulnerable, ‘People Watching’ does exactly what the title may suggest: takes stock of the characters, friends and loved ones who have made Fender the person he is today. He approaches each track with sensitivity as he looks back on his life so far – perhaps even with an inkling of guilt – and contemplates who he may be next.”
As for Buckingham, his alleged stalker and attacker appeared in court last week after pleading not guilty to seven criminal charges. Michelle Dick was arrested in Santa Monica in March after allegedly throwing an unknown substance at the musician.
