Sam Ryder: I lost my self-esteem, my positivity and my optimism

A couple of months ago, I found myself in a field backstage at Glastonbury standing next to Sam Ryder.

It was seven in the morning. Sam was just about to talk to Radio 2's Scott Mills, I was on a desperate hunt for caffeine.

"Alright, mate!" he exclaimed and stretched out his arms for a hug. (Sam Ryder gives great hugs).

The singer is always like this – bright eyed, bushy tailed, full of beans before breakfast - but at Glastonbury, he had an extra spring in his step.

"I literally handed in my new album on my birthday, two days ago," he beamed.

"I was full of hay fever but I was in my home studio, printing files, sending things off."

You can even hear Ryder's allergies on his new single, Better Man, after a last minute decision to scrap the original vocal.

"I didn't hear truth in it. It felt plastic," he explains, when we meet again in October.

"And, for me, the truth came when I was full of hay fever, six hours away from the deadline."

Ryder has poured everything into this record, called Heartland.

In a certain light, it's a gamble: Ditching the cheesy retro rock of his Eurovision smash Space Man for a more introspective, authentic sound.

Seen another way, it repositions him as an artist with more substance than the perma-grinning "bearded hippie with the big voice" (as one newspaper dubbed him).

"I understand that people would see me on TV or interviews and say, 'He's the most positive guy about'," Ryder says.

"But, for me, that's just manners. People have given you their time, so you turn up and you're happy to be there.

"Of course I'm not a one-dimensional human being. I go through all the same things that everyone else goes through."

In fact, the last few years did their best to wring every drop of positivity from Ryder's body.

When Ryder won second place at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, it was the culmination of a dream he'd had chased for half his life.

From the age of 16, he'd sung in dozens of bands, surviving "empty gigs and bank accounts", by taking jobs in construction and a vegan cafe in Essex.

Everything changed in the pandemic, when he started posting covers to TikTok, with a falsetto so astonishing it grabbed the attention of Alicia Keys, Justin Bieber and, crucially, the team who select the UK's Eurovision entry.

But in the whirlwind that followed his success in Turin, Ryder's debut album was rushed and underwhelming.

The Evening Standard said the music "offers no surprises and takes no chances". The Guardian called the album "so toothless it makes Ed Sheeran look like Nick Cave."

Fans disagreed, sending Ryder to number one and selling out his tour.

Then, on the final date, the singer discovered his record label had effectively sacked the team who'd signed, developed and worked with him.

In a display of solidarity, he left too, turning down the offer of a second album to go independent.

"It feels really empowering when you make the decision and you make the announcement, because everyone's rooting for you," he recalls.

But reality set in a couple of months later, when he tried to start work on a new record.

"You go to the tap, and it's not connected to the plumbing.

"You don't have the resources that you used to have: The manpower and the battering rams to move things along. So you start to think that you've failed and you're on a downward trajectory.

"And the biggest fear any human being will have when they've achieved a dream is losing it."

The crisis of confidence turned his world upside down. Ryder locked his phone in a drawer and entered what he calls "a state of depression".

"I lost my self-esteem, my positivity and my optimism," he says.

"I felt what I was doing was worthless. I felt I was worthless.

"Any time I was singing, I'd have the same internal dialogue you get on a treadmill at the gym: 'Give up, give up. It's probably easier if you stop there and just get off'."

For almost a year, he was solitary and withdrawn, even losing his belief in music.

"When there's so much pain and suffering in the world, you start to wonder what music can even do," he says.

"I've never in my life felt closer to wanting to give up. Where did that come from? I've never had that before, so I didn't know how to deal with it."

Two things helped him regain perspective.

One was recommitting to his faith. The other was his partner, Lois Gaskin-Barber, "who reminds me that so long as we have each other, we'll get through whatever life throws".

When they met 14 years ago, Ryder told Gaskin-Barber his dream was to live in Nashville, the spiritual home of country music. So that's what they did, uprooting their lives to a log cabin in the Tennessean woods.

It was the beginning of his recovery.

"I love it out there. I feel so inspired," he says.

"Everyone seems to be making music every day, and it's not this industrial thing of, 'Right, we're meeting at 12 o'clock in central London and we'll eat Deliveroo and try to write a chorus'.

"In Nashville, if you want to write, you go outside, go for a walk, or sit on a boat in the lake. It's my favourite thing to do."

Those long, solitary walks gave birth to Sam's new album, and it's a revelation.

There's a new maturity to his delivery, and his credibility, as the 36-year-old resists the temptation to let emotional burnout harden into cynicism.

On Armour, he acknowledges that his sunny outlook became a trap that prevented him from acknowledging doubt or disappointment.

"Take off all that armour / You can't carry all that weight," he sings over a delicate slide guitar.

Elsewhere, the title track makes the surprising decision to use the same phrase as Will Smith in the actor's notorious Oscars outburst.

"You'd better keep my name right out of your mouth," Sam spits at his critics. "'Cos I can do anything."

Full of shuffling drum beats and impassioned vocals, the album nestles perfectly beside the likes of Teddy Swims and Hozier, with a sound that Sam has christened Frontier Soul.

"I'd say it's a desert aesthetic with a soul vocal. Like a Tarantino soundtrack or a Nancy Sinatra album – the twang of the guitars, the sultriness of the production."

But while there are songs of struggle, at least half of the record is a tribute to his partner, especially on the yacht rock of Better Man; and the dreamily devoted Electric Marine Blue.

Which is just as well, because earlier this month Sam made the ultimate relationship faux pas.

"I was in the studio and Lois texted me, 'By the way, we forgot our anniversary'," he cringes.

Luckily, he made up for it with a luxury hotel break, courtesy of a recent concert booking.

"That's one good thing about this line of work," he laughs. "We used that experience as a little kind of getaway... You can really do wonders with eight hours."

It's a return to the cheeky good humour he's known for - because, Sam being Sam, he'd rather count his blessings than wallow in his feelings.

"I'm grateful I had those trials of the spirit because what is optimism, if it's not tested? It's fraudulent and even a little bit psychopathic.

"So I'm grateful to have had my positivity put under stress, because now I know what it's made of."