Nashville singer-songwriter Will Hoge has announced details of his new album ‘My American Dream’ which is due out on 5th October via EDLO/Thirty Tigers in the UK. It’s described as “the fiercest, angriest, and most heartfelt collection of songs he’s released… Eight songs of rabble-rousing political commentary that turns a critical eye on the crisis of conscience and culture threatening to tear apart his country, the album is Hoge’s impassioned portrait of what he holds dear — and what we all might risk losing.” If you order the album now you can receive two tracks in advance ‘Thoughts & Prayers’ and the album opener ‘Gilded Walls’.
The former was the first song that Hoge completed, inspired directly by the spectre of school shootings and the inept response of politicians. It’s an acoustic ballad in which he asks; “Why don’t you do your job up there? Keep your thoughts and prayers”. You can watch the video below. The album’s topics range from border police to political corruption to anti-intellectualism. Poverty. Gun control. A broken education system. Indifference to others’ suffering. Each of these things weighed on Hoge, who says laughing: “Those things kept me up at night — and this record was less expensive than therapy. Silence couldn’t be a part of my deal anymore”.
Hoge will be touring the UK this December, supporting Thirty Tigers labelmates Lucero for five specials shows. The solo tour kicks off in Glasgow on the 5th, moving on to Manchester, London, Brighton and then to Brighton. He will also return with his band in 2019 for further dates that will be announced soon.
With ‘My American Dream’, Hoge hopes that others will follow his lead, see the world through someone else’s eyes, and maybe begin to fix the mess we’re living in. “I don’t want to write songs telling people how they should feel” Hoge says. “If anything, maybe there’s a 16- or 17-year-old kid in the small-town South who has rumblings of these feelings but doesn’t have anybody in his little community to go, ‘Hey man, think about it like this for a second. Here’s another group of people’s perspectives'”.
Will Hoge 2018 UK Dates supporting Lucero
05 December – Glasgow, Stereo
06 December – Manchester, The Deaf Institute
07 December – London, The Garage
08 December – Brighton, The Haunt
09 December – Bristol, Thekla
