RICHARD WALTERS
SHARES NEW SINGLE & VIDEO ‘BIG JOY’: STREAM HERE
‘GOLDEN VEINS’ ALBUM DUE FOR RELEASE JUNE 12th
TOURING UK IN SEPTEMBER
THE WAITING ROOM, LONDON – SEP 30
Oxford-based singer-songwriter Richard Walters is sharing a new single and video, ‘Big Joy’, taken from his incoming fifth-album ‘Golden Veins’, due for release June 12th via Cooking Vinyl. The new album will be the latest addition to an extensive, decade-long back-catalogue that boasts four albums (including his critically-acclaimed debut, ‘The Animal’), four EPs and numerous standalone singles and collaborations – one of which being Richard’s new project LYR with author and poet laureate, Simon Armitage. In support of the new album Richard will head out on a UK headline tour in September that will culminate in a show at London’s The Waiting Room on Sep 30th.
On the new album Richard’s songs find a perfect equilibrium between tender dream
pop and huge almost-kaleidoscopic walls of sound. ‘Big Joy’, out today with an accompanying video, is as infectious and emphatic as they come. He says of the track:
“It’s a song about the amplified happiness we’re surrounded
by in the modern world, the endless outdoing of each other… Everyone’s joy seems to be bigger and more important than your own, it sometimes feels like an unbreakable cycle of gloating, and maybe the only thing to do is breath and live and focus on your
own mood and health.”
In late 2016 Walters found himself in a strange place.
“I’d been making music since the age of 18, frequently
full-time but occasionally not, and had hit something of a writer’s roadblock. Partnered with a slightly jaded perception of the music industry, I felt I’d come to the end of my creative run. I started considering my options and making moves away from the
making of music.” In September of that year, however – one month before
the release of Walters’ fourth album, ‘A.M.’ – he and his wife found out they were expecting a baby. That, naturally, changed everything.
“That was like a total rewiring for me,”
he admits. “I didn’t have time to explore my options
anymore, I just had to do what I knew, what I hoped I was good at. I went slightly mad around that time, pushing myself to write more, record more, network more and make it all line up. And it did; that was the start of a truly creatively fulfilling time in
my life.”
The ‘Golden Veins’ of the album’s title refer the Japanese art of ‘Kintsugi’ (the process of repairing broken pottery with lacquer) which, as well as being the name of the album’s lead single, Richard uses as a metaphor for his relationship with his wife, his newfound sense of creativity and inspiration and the very nature of being human. “When she and I got together ten years ago,” he says, “I was a mess; I was taking too many drugs, drinking too much, not living as well as I should, and as a result I felt very fragmented. I was broken and she put me back together. But it’s also about rediscovering the joy in life and music again. Kintsugi is an artform that highlights imperfections and for me, when I meet new people, I’m always relieved to find out that they’ve got flaws too. Those small cracks make us more interesting and stronger.”
‘Golden Veins’ is the sound of both an artist and a person reborn, re-inspired and re-invigorated, and a heartfelt reminder of just how beautiful and powerful and necessary a thing that can be.
RICHARD WALTERS TOUR-DATES
Sep 28th – Bristol – Louisiana
Sep 29th – Manchester – Castle Hotel
Sep 30th – London – Waiting Room
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