Sam Fender has penned a 'love letter' to the North East after releasing a new collaboration track with another popular artist. 

The 'Hypersonic Missiles' musician, who hails from North Shields, has never shied away from declaring his love for his hometown and Newcastle United Football Club - but has gone one better after posting online about his love for growing up in the region.

Using his experiences of growing up on council estates and the upbringing he had to work into his songs has seen him become one of the top artists in the UK over recent years. 

The success of his two albums 'Hypersonic Missiles' and 'Seventeen Going Under' has seen him play huge shows across the UK and internationally. 

The Northern Echo: Sam FenderSam Fender (Image: PA MEDIA)

In June last year, the North Shields musician played two massive homecoming gigs at Newcastle’s St James’ Park.

In front of a sell-out 50,000 crowd, the 29-year-old singer-songwriter played the biggest gig of his career, later admitting he had been “terrified”.

The Ivor Novello winner released his debut solo album Hypersonic Missiles in September 2019, following it up with second album Seventeen Going Under in October 2021.

In selling out St James’ Park, Fender followed his hero Bruce Springsteen who played to 76,000 fans over two nights at the stadium in 1985.

However, more recently, he has collaborated with popular artist Noah Kahan - which has seen the pair release track 'Homesick'. 

In the new track, which came out on Friday (January 19), Fender sings about the fallout and riots in Newcastle in the 1990s - and overlooking the 'static cranes' in Newcastle. 

Alongside a clip from the music video of 'Homesick' - he captioned it with a 'love letter' of kind to the North East. 

The post from the musician read: "I cut my parts in North Shields, on the banks of the Tyne, literally overlooking the ‘static cranes’ that I mention in my verse; it’s a stone’s throw from the estate in which the riots took place in the early 90’s.

"It made me proud of my hometown, and my people. The Geordies are a hilarious bunch, resilient and impermeable to hard times and hard drinking; my hometown is a constant source of inspiration."

The post then goes on to praise Noah Kahan, who Fender says: "@noahkahanmusic is a great lad, a canny chanter and a mean wordsmith. I love the track, and I can’t wait for people to hear it."

In turn, Noah also spoke about Sam's inspiration on him when he was writing music. 

Writing his online post, Noah said: "When I first heard Sam Fender’s music, I stopped what I was doing, started “dead boys” from the beginning and listened 4 more times.

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"It was everything I loved about a song. I followed this artist like a crazy person, checking every day to see if he had dropped new music. Reading every lyric and looking for his interpretation of what they meant. I must have listened to Hypersonic Missiles 1000 times before Seventeen Going Under came out, and I had never felt so connected to a song.

"I come from a very different place than Sam did, that much was clear in the lyrics, but it felt like I had grown up the same. The nostalgia, pride, bitterness, confusion, and anger that Sam wrote about feeling was so similar to what I was feeling about my childhood and my hometown at the time.

"This song was the final push for me to start writing about my own experiences."