Sam Fender’s best friend has joined his band and is “all over” his new album.
The 30-year-old star has recalled first meeting Brooke Bentham more than a decade ago – through a mutual friend who put on busking events in Newcastle – and confessed he “ripped off the way she sings”.
Alongside a series of throwback pictures of the pair jamming together, Sam wrote on Instagram: “The legend that is Brooke Bentham has joined the band!
“First time I met Brooke I learnt how to sing. Our mutual friend @paulstephenwalton ran just about every buskers night in and around Newcastle at the time, but it was in gosforth where I met Brooke Benthsteen. I walked in to the bar to the sound of the best cover of ‘dancing in the dark’ I’d ever heard, and from that moment we were best mates (and I ripped off the way she sings and played that cover to death in almost every gig I’ve ever done) but hey! It f****** worked!!!
“Anyway, 13-14 years later, she’s joined the band!
Her voice is all over the next album, it’s been an absolute pleasure singing with her again and I can’t wait for you to hear what we’ve made.
“Here’s some photos of me and Brooke when we were teenagers X
“Drop her a follow and listen to her solo stuff!!! (sic)”
The unveiling of his new band member comes after Sam debuted two tracks from the LP live at an intimate Devon concert.
The ‘Getting Started’ hitmaker played Plymouth Pavilions, in south west England, earlier this month as a warm-up for his headline set at Boardmasters festival in Cornwall, and he treated gig-goers to the first ever performances of ‘People Watching’ and ‘Nostalgia’s Lie’ from his upcoming third LP.
The singer and guitarist released his second LP, ‘Seventeen Going Under’ in 2021, two years after his debut ‘Hypersonic Missiles’, and didn’t want to “rush” his next record.
Speaking on Sky Arts’ ‘Johnson and Knopfler’s Music Legends’, he said: “We have been recording and recording and making loads of stuff but it got to the point where I thought, ‘We don’t need to get this out yet. We need to get it right’.
“For the second one we rushed to get that out and the third one we started rushing and I thought, ‘No, we have got to take the time’.
“I want to do the best I possibly can. I’d rather it be late and great than early and s****.
“What we have got so far I am absolutely over the moon with but I want to give it that bit more time and more thought.”