Three time Grammy-nominated Brooklyn alt-renegades Highly Suspect will kick off a UK mini-tour with a gig in Glasgow. The trio will be playing tracks from their second album The Boy Who Died Wolf, which was released late last year.
The band — Johnny Stevens (guitar/vocals), and fraternal twin brother rhythm section Rich (bass/vocals) and Ryan Meyer (drums/vocals) — are building on a period of success that has included appearances at major festivals, tours alongside Catfish and the Bottlemen and multiple headling tours in the United States.
To record their latest LP, the band traveled far from their New York comfort zone to Bogotá, Colombia, recording with producer Joel Hamilton, who has worked with The Black Keys, Tom Waits and Elvis Costello.
“The title The Boy Who Died Wolf, it’s like, we were so young and now we’re adults,” says Stevens. “I went through a lot of issues that I had to sort out and sometimes I can’t believe that I’m alive. And now here I am traveling the world with my best friends, making music, and living the exact dream that we had set out to accomplish a long time ago … We’re learning a different lifestyle. And it’s good, it’s positive. But it’s also hard to let go of everything that happened in the past.”
“Normally we would record in New York or L.A., and when we’re in those places we just have too many distractions, too many friends,” Stevens said. “When you’re trying to make art.. pure art, it’s good to be secluded. So we were literally in a fortress, 20-foot walls all around this compound in the middle of Bogota.”
“The energy around you, the culture that you’re taking in, will affect the songs,” he continued. “We were really enjoying ourselves. So I think there’s a little more step to this album. There’s happier tones. There’s some dark stuff too but there are simply more uplifting moments on this album. I think we finally realized we are supposed to be here making music. That people like what we do. We had more trust in ourselves and each other and just let the music come out.”
Highly Suspect Tour Dates
4th March – Glasgow – St Luke’s
6th March – Birmingham – Institute 3
7th March – Manchester – Sound Control
9th March – London – KOKO