Classic Radio X Sessions: Sam Fender in 2019

25 April 2026, 08:00

Sam Fender - Play God | Radio X Session | Radio X

Take a trip back to 2019 to see a young Sam Fender play songs from his stunning debut album, Hypersonic Missiles in the Radio X studios.

Cast your mind back to January 2019... and the time that the up and coming new artist Sam Fender performed a special live session in the Radio X basement studio.

At the time, Sam had released the Dead Boys EP and the Play God single, and was due to be named as the BRITs Critics Choice Award winner the following month.

The session captures Sam at the beginning of his journey, preparing for the release of his debut LP, Hypersonic Missiles, which would arrive in September of that year. It would be the first of three Number 1 albums for Fender, with Seventeen Going Under and People Watching also making it to the top.

The Radio X session features three tracks from the debut album, captured up close and personal.

Sam Fender - That Sound LIVE | Radio X Session | Radio X

Fender comes from a talented, musical family and started writing songs when he was 13.

He came to the attention of Owain Davies, Ben Howard’s manager, in 2013 and was signed to major label Polydor in the summer of 2018.

Watch Sam Fender play his Dead Boys track, a moving song about male suicide which you can find on the eponymous EP from November 2018.

Sam Fender - Dead Boys LIVE | Radio X Session | Radio X

At the time, Sam told Radio X: "I wrote that song purely as a reaction to losing a mate to suicide, and I didn't want to release it for ages because I didn't want to be seen as capitalising on a tragedy or using suicide as a way to be controversial.

"So for ages I didn't know whether to release it or not and then I just kind of played it to my internal team and kind of opened up about it. And people who I worked with who I never knew had experienced suicide would be like, 'my dad took his life when I was a kid".