U.K. singer-songwriter Sam Fender was the musical guest on The Tonight Show on Thursday night, performing his song “Will We Talk?” The track is featured on his forthcoming debut album Hypersonic Missiles, out September 13th.
“Will We Talk?” proved to be a good choice for the Tonight Show stage, with no less than four guitarists (including Fender himself) and a string section providing backup to Fender’s passionate vocals. Shouting out New Order in the first line – “Blue Monday/Blarin’ loudly out the speakers” – Fender’s stage presence leaned more towards Springsteen than new wave, injecting the yearning message of the song into his wide stance and urgent guitar-playing.
The Tonight Show performance marked Fender’s second U.S. late-night performance of 2019: The emerging rocker previously played a pair of tracks on Jimmy Kimmel Live in March.
22-year-old Fender is notably one of the few true singer-songwriters who’s climbing the modern-day pop charts. “I have nothing against co-writes and the importance of them in our business, but Sam’s lyrics shoot straight from the heart — you can feel that,” Owain Davies, Fender’s manager, told Rolling Stone in April. “It’s a massive factor for sure. These are deeply personal stories.”