It’s going to be a Brits celebration in Geordie style for me

UNLIKE many of this year’s Brit Awards nominees, Sam Fender already knows he’s won.

The 24-year-old North Shields musician will travel down to the ceremony next week after seeing off competition from Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi and R&B singer Mahalia to win this year’s Critics’ Choice accolade, rounding off an absolutely tremendous 12 months in which he has completed a sell-out tour of the country (and announced another one!).

His 2019 dates will include a huge headline show at Tynemouth Priory as part of this year’s Mouth of the Tyne line-up, but before then there’s the small matter of the Brits, and Sam is determined to do it in style.

“It’s still massively, massively surreal,” he told The Chronicle.

“The past few months have just been insane. It will look like an overnight success story to the rest of the world but we’ve done so much to get to this point. I’d say I was definitely the underdog for Critics’ Choice, so to win it was incredible. I’d only had a record deal for a few months before it was announced; I was totally overcome.

“Being at the Brits will be crazy but we’re doing it Geordie style. We’ve hired a double-decker party bus to take us from the awards to the after-party.

“I’d love to fill it with Geordie legends like Sting, Brian Johnson and Alan Shearer – don’t know if any of them are free...”

Once the dust has settled on his Brits’ celebrations and the inevitable hangover has eased, Sam will put the finishing touches to his debut album, which will follow in the footsteps of his very well-received Deadboys EP, featuring Poundshop Kardashians, That Sound and the poignant title track.

“I absolutely can’t wait to get it out there.

“There’s a whole mix of flavours and genres on there. It’s epically loud and epically sad but it’s most definitely sad music you can dance to!”