FATHERSON are delighted to announce an extensive UK & EIRE tour this Autumn, with tickets on sale 10 AM this Friday (6 July) from the Fatherson Website. The tour will follow the release of the band’s third album ‘Sum Of All Your Parts’ which will drop on September 14th.
Sometimes you just have to rip it up and start again. Come early 2017, Fatherson – comprised of vocalist/guitarist Ross Leighton bassist Marc Strain and drummer Greg Walkinshaw – found themselves at a turning point. Digging up their roots and decanting to a new studio home in Glasgow, they longed for a change. The new album is the result, and their most assured record to date.
Forming in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in early 2010, Fatherson immediately captured hearts with their raw, honest alt-rock sound. Inspired by Scottish stoicism as much as their own personal turmoil, debut album I Am An Island and its 2016 follow-up Open Book were masterclasses in full-throttle rock songwriting, and garnered support from (and tours alongside) their north-of-the-border brethren in Biffy Clyro, Frightened Rabbit, Idlewild and Twin Atlantic, as well as further runs alongside the likes of Kings Of Leon, Augustines, Enter Shikari and more. Open Book jumped straight in at No.2 in the Scottish album charts as well as performing strongly in the U.K. Other recent highlights include packing a 12,000 person tent at T in the Park
“When you’re away on tour for a long time and you haven’t been back home, there’s a realism in people, especially in Glasgow, that’s very refreshing to come back to,” says Strain of that Scottish connection, “I think the music encapsulates that quite well.” It’s an attitude that Leighton’s songwriting feeds off, too. “There’s an element of not being allowed to be too big for your boots,” he explains. “Your ego will get pummelled out of you as soon as you get home, and that’s good grounding”.
That no-bullsh*t, heart-on-sleeve approach is integral to Sum Of All Your Parts. Where before, Leighton admits to masking his thoughts and feelings behind metaphor and anecdote, this time around he pulled back the comfort blanket. “I think this is the first attempt at being a bit more specific, lyrically,” he says. “I was listening to a lot of Frank Ocean, who’s very specific with his lyrics, even though it’s very ambiguous. You might never know what it actually meant, but you can extrapolate something that’s a bit more personal. It’s less of a generalisation on the whole – it’s like, ‘I feel like this about this, and you can understand it or you can not’.
Sum Of All Your Parts’s sonic and lyrical experimentation has allowed Fatherson to break free of the British rock mould they’d found themselves being placed in. The opening one-two of ‘The Rain’ and lead single ‘Making Waves’ is testament to that fact – within ten minutes, Sum Of All Your Parts skips from hypnotic, looped piano, through storming post-rock passages, to the soaring pop nous of that first-released single.
Recorded live and in chronological sequence with Claudius Mittendorfer (Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, Weezer), Sum Of All Your Parts fizzes with a youthful energy, reinvigorating the group from the get-go. “A big part of this process was trying to capture that feeling of when you play a song together for the first time, and you look at each other in the face and get that smile that you can’t get rid of,” explains Walkinshaw. “We weren’t so concerned about some of the pop sensibilities – it’s a little bit more raw, and a little bit more loose, and a bit funner, at points.”
Harking back to the innocence and innovation of those early days, while taking confident strides forward, the result is Sum Of All Your Parts – a record that finds Fatherson reborn.
LIVE DATES
12 Jul – London, Lexington
13 Jul – 2000 Trees Festival
14 Jul – Middlesbrough, Westgarth Social Club
Autumn Tour
02 Oct – Belfast, Voodoo
03 Oct – Dublin, Whelans
04 Oct – Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club
05 Oct – Manchester, Night People
06 Oct – Birmingham, Sunflower Lounge
08 Oct – Nottingham, Rock City
09 Oct – London, Scala
10 Oct – Norwich, Waterfront Studio
11 Oct – Brighton, Patterns
28 Oct – Newcastle University
02 Nov – Glasgow, Barrowlands
Tickets – store.fathersonband.co.uk
Fatherson are:
Ross Leighton – Guitar/Vocals
Marc Strain – Bass
Greg Walkinshaw – Drums
FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.fathersonband.com/
