Sam Fender says the music industry is “rigged”: “It’s 90% kids who are privately educated”British singer-songwriter Sam Fender has slammed the current state of the music industry, calling it “rigged” and dominated by artists from privileged backgrounds.
In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Fender expresses frustration over the lack of working-class representation in the industry: “The music industry is 80 percent, 90 percent kids who are privately educated,” he says.
“A kid from where I’m from can’t afford to tour, so there are probably thousands writing songs that are ten times better than mine, poignant lyrics about the country, but they will not be seen because it’s rigged.”

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Fender, who recently released his third studio album People Watching, also admits to feeling conflicted about his own success, noting how many of his friends back home are still struggling “on the bones of their arse”.
“It’s because their stories won’t be told in the current climate,” he adds.
Referencing the song TV Dinner and its lyrics (Like Winehouse/she was just a bairn/They love her now/but bled her then) from his latest record, Fender highlights the industry’s tendency to build artists up only to tear them down.
“It was wild. I wrote that, then Liam Payne died,” he says. “You think of the amount of times he was getting dragged through the press and he didn’t help himself, did he? Bless him. I remember watching some videos he was in and being, like, ‘God, what a tit.’ But the reality was that he was just a young lad, famous far too young, who had addiction trouble – and everyone hit him with the pitchforks.”
“It was wild. I wrote that, then Liam Payne died. You think of the amount of times he was getting dragged through the press and he didn’t help himself, did he? Bless him. I remember watching some videos he was in and being, like, ‘God, what a tit.’ But the reality was that he was just a young lad, famous far too young, who had addiction trouble – and everyone hit him with the pitchforks.”
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