The Buddhist and the punk: Sam Fryer, Gently Tender, and the magic of the walk
A creative slump. The memories, good and bad, of a past band, steadily slipping through cracks in memory. Sam Fryer finds himself lost in a field, with the glimmering lights of London, home, dying in the distance.
We join him in that field during the intro of ‘A Mound A Field’, the first song from Gently Tender’s new EP, This Was Once Fields. Just a couple of chords and some strong vocals, not unlike traditional folk music, that’s all the listener is met with as grass tickles the ankle, and the only light available is provided by stars. As bass creeps in, the lights of a distant city begin to creep out from behind a hill, and only when it’s in full view does the chaotic effect of this new EP truly take hold.
This was Fryer’s intention when making the album. During our interview, he reflects on his time in Palma Violets, the trauma he felt when that band broke up, how tricky it was writing music again once the dust had settled, and how going for long walks allowed him to quite literally reclaim his stride. But you don’t need a map to get yourself out of this field, just play the music and walk until the guitar kicks in. You’ll find your way.
“I refer to that moment as when I was in that creative slump. It was probably like 2016/17. I was just a little bit lost. I was like ‘I need to get better, I can’t just sit here and not be creative anymore, I need to exercise that part of my brain, I need to get out there’,” he said, “So, I decided to take myself to a Buddhist centre and meditate two times a week, which really helped. And then I lived right in the centre of London, in Elephant and Castle, and I decided just to take myself on the train. I went out to Kent, and I’d just start walking between train stations. If I’d spot on the map that there’s another train station that way, then I’d just keep walking. Slowly but surely, elements of my soul just started creeping back into me.”
We talk over WhatsApp, not video call, or face-to-face, just his voice and a profile photo, which fittingly is a selfie he took next to a big rock while out in the wild. These small pockets of nature, alongside remnants of humankind from years past, helped Fryer rediscover what it meant to be alive and feeling. Songs come easy when you feel connected with yourself, and for Fryer, connecting with himself meant, first, connecting with nature.
“I’d go to visit ancient sites, stone circles in and around south London, burial chambers, things like that made me fall in love with what it is to be human,” he said, “I love history, whenever I’m connected to history and the land, that’s when I feel my happiest, so when I’m not reading books about history or going on long walks or reading books about the country, that’s when things start to go wrong. I just need to keep on stimulating myself with things I love about humanity.”
And that explains Gently Tender’s debut album, in part. The calm nature of the record is a reflection of the natural environment that allowed Fryer to begin actually writing it. That, and a conscious step away from everything his former band had been associated with, which was chaos, more chaos and even more chaos.
“There was definitely a lot of trying to pull away from my past, which was very chaotic music with Palma Violets,” he said, “Everything was just total full throttle all the time, all of the shows, so there was an element of ‘I just need to step away from that for a bit’. I just needed to be compassionate with myself and take things slowly, and I don’t think, at that time, it was the right thing to do to go on making any sort of punk music. I needed to make something that was going to really heal me.”
And now, as we walk closer to the city, we have a combination of the two. This Was Once Fields is an album both calm and chaotic in nature. You can hear that Gently Tender debut, while equally catching ripples of Palma Violets throughout. Is this a back-to-basics approach for Fryer?
“I think it’s just being a bit sick and tired of being too quiet. Now I’ve come into my zone a bit more, finding my feet after that low period, I can really start to fight against people’s perceptions of my band,” he said, “We’re called Gently Tender, but it doesn’t always have to be Gently Tender, we’re just called Gently Tender. What happens if we’re the loudest band on Earth, you know? I’ll just say things like that to myself. I’ve got a really loud voice, so why not make it a loud project?”
In the same way that historical rubble and the London skyline can exist in the same frame, so too can Fryer’s past and present self, the punk and the waywarding Buddhist.
“I think it’s just about me exercising a part of my youth that I needed to exercise and bring myself back to a little bit more chaos,” he said, “It is about a walk, it’s about a walk to the city, a walk from serenity back towards the chaos, and so therefore, the whole thing is gunna be a massive journey. I’ve written loads of songs about the fields and loads of songs about the city, and I love both elements.”
And you’d be surprised that the key to a good walk and the key to a good song overlap with one another. It all comes down to patience, whether you’re taking step after step for a decent view at the top of a hill, or going to recording session after recording session in the hopes of a good track. So long as you let yourself breathe a little, good things will come.
“It’s very hard to pinpoint exactly how the songwriting process works because there is magical elements to it,” said Fryer, “There are also moments where you’ll be writing something that you don’t think has any relation to you but it just comes out of you, and you only identify with it in the future, and you realise ‘Oh, I was writing for myself in two year’s time’. There’s just these moments along the walk where you are more free. I don’t know, there’s just something about walking, and the monotony of the steps inside your brain and the way that it makes you feel, it opens up your mind to memories that you didn’t think you had. I’ve been able to draw so much inspiration from it because it opens up a completely different world to you.”
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