INTERVIEW
Will Macnab | 30/09/2025
When I catch Sam Ryder, he’s out walking near his home. “I’m just on a little walk for the call,” he says.“If that's okay. Get those steps in. I need to move. It's been so hectic lately. If I don't move my body, I think I'm gonna, like, pass out.” There’s something so wonderfully ordinary about Sam, this man who has sung on some of the biggest stages in the world, who can belt a note high enough to split the sky, needing to walk around the block just to stay grounded.
And it makes sense. From the very beginning of our conversation, movement, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, becomes the thread that winds its way through everything Sam says. He talks about being the “smiley, over-excited, like-an-actual-dog” kind of person who he has always been, buzzing with energy. “That was kind of always what my college tutors would say,” he laughs, “that I was just overexcited to an annoying point. But that’s who I was; I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world.”
But life has a way of pressing pause on even the most relentlessly upbeat spirits. When Sam describes the making of his new record, he doesn’t shy away from the stormier chapters of his story. “Life just started throwing some more punches,” he admits. “And they were landing all of a sudden.” He paints an image of what that felt like, likening it to watching a thundercloud drift closer and closer over the years. “In the far distance was this little thundercloud. It’s miles away, nothing to even worry about for now, and then I didn't keep an eye on it. And then in the last couple of years, I looked up, and it was directly overhead.”
What strikes me about Sam is how openly he confronts that shift. Not masking it, not trying to package it in tidy, polished soundbites. “I lost a lot of my self-confidence and faith in myself,” he tells me. “The internal dialogue was so cruel to myself over the last year or so… just making this record and trying to navigate what my purpose is.”
That honesty threads directly into ‘Heartland’, Sam’s second album, due October 17th. If his 2022 debut, “There’s Nothing But Space, Man!”, was his arrival – joyful, sparkling, filled with possibility – then ‘Heartland’ feels like the long look inward that follows. Introducing the album back in March with the bright falsetto-led “White Lies”.
Following his rise to stardom, Sam became wary of the way industries, and the internet, demand confession, pushing artists to “ring that emotional flesh online.” Sam shakes his head at the thought: “As soon as you’re trying to trick people into falling for your exaggerated emotional story… God leaves the room.” Instead, he talks about intention, about writing from a place that doesn’t manipulate but seeks something truer, more lasting. “It’s like looking at the stars,” he says. “You don’t look straight at them; you look a little to the side, and then they appear.”
Shirt, Rob’s Rack @robsrack. Jeans and belt, Nudie Jeans @nudiejeans. Bracelet, Giovanni Raspini @giovanniraspini.
Still, mental health is never far from our conversation. He returns often to the importance of support systems, his family, his roots, and the countryside life that gave him a “golden age” to grow up in. “I always knew my life in that phase was golden, you know? I mean, my granddad’s alive. My mum, dad and sisters are healthy. We're all sat around the table; it felt like the golden age of my life. And I'm not saying that there haven't been storms to weather, because there absolutely have,” he says softly.
That foundation of joy is what makes the contrast of distance now, “Me getting to this point invited different challenges. I don’t get to see my family anywhere near as close as I did before,” he reflects. “The thing that was the source of so much of my joy and balance, I don’t get to see as much anymore.”
Many songs on ‘Heartland’ emerge from that tension between joy and distance, optimism and doubt, and youth and the awareness of mortality. “The recording and the writing of this new record, there were a lot of things that started happening which really kind of define where I'm at. I'm 36 now, and that means everyone’s six years older now. There are health issues, and there are things that make you very aware of mortality.” Sam is also deeply aware of how industry can distort self-worth. He describes stepping into the world of fame as being invited into a house. “And I myself am older; I'm starting to realise that you really need to be careful with this house that you’ve been invited into.” He warns, “You only ever want to be a guest in this house. Because it will change you completely if you’re not careful. You can’t rely on it for joy or identity or validation… This isn’t real life. It’s nowhere close to it.”
Jacket and trousers, Closed @closedofficial. Vest : Sandro @sandroparis. Belt : All Saints @allsaints.
That line sticks with me, because the truth is, Sam Ryder’s real life, the life beneath the lights and magazine covers, is one of constant questioning and constant recalibrating. How do you make something meaningful in a world that feels “vacuous, sensationalised, and yassified”? How do you square the fact that your art, which puts “a roof over my head”, might simultaneously be a lifeline for someone else? Is that an equal exchange, or does it leave a lingering unease?
He doesn’t claim to know. “These are things I don’t have the answer to,” he says, his voice quiet but steady. “They’re just things that are constantly in my mind at the moment.”
We circle back to the topic of mental health, of learning to speak kindly to yourself, and Sam becomes animated again. “That internal voice is not you,” he insists. “It has your voice, but it’s not you.” He explains the way gratitude can be tested: how every piece of good news is often followed by a snag or a sting in the tail. “There is darkness wherever there is light, because otherwise there’d be no balance. So every time someone is succeeding or at a point in life where they feel blessed or happy, there's always going to be a certain amount of that opposite. You can either listen to it and feed the beast, or you can ignore it and remain humble and not over celebrate that blessing in the moment.”
It’s a beautiful, grounding perspective, and it reframes the inevitable setbacks of life not as cruel interruptions, but as reminders to stay balanced. He’s aware, too, of the endless striving that plagues so many of us, this “reek”, as he calls it, of ceaseless ambition in creative industries. “There’s always this desperate fear of losing what you have,” he says.
Toward the end of our conversation, I ask him what brings him joy, not the shiny, surface kind of joy, but the kind that makes your heart swell unexpectedly. He pauses, then smiles. “I always get quite joyful when I notice the first day the seasons have changed. It doesn't have to be any particular season. Every season, I really get excited. And I love it,” he says. He describes driving home at 3:30 in the morning, watching the light shift, and feeling the air turn autumnal. “It wasn’t summer anymore, not really. But it wasn’t autumn either. It was just this little window in between. And I just thought, I love everything that this season brings.”
It’s such a Sam answer: hopeful, observant, and poetic. What truly lights him up isn’t the noise of celebrity or the metrics of success. It’s like a walk to steady the mind, the company of family around a table, or the first hint of autumn in the air. And maybe that’s why people connect to Sam Ryder the way they do. Not because he’s this perfect or endlessly upbeat being, but because he allows himself to be human, joyful, questioning, vulnerable, and resilient. Because even in the storms, he keeps walking.
Words Will Macnab
Photography Ruben Davies @rubendavies
Styling Millie Cullum @milliecullum
Grooming Lois Gaskin-Barber @lonewolvescreative
Photography Assistant Clayton Duran @claytonduranretouch
Styling Assistant Kezia @kezwr_
HATC Creative Alice Gee @alicesgee
Shirt, Caroline Dickinson @caroline.dickinson_. Jeans and belt : Nudie Jeans @nudiejeans. Shoes : Vagabond @vagabondshoemakers. Necklace : Giovanni Raspini @giovanniraspini.
