Just weeks after the release of their first new single in six years, iconic Aussie rockers You Am I have returned with news of their first new record in just as long.
Titled The Lives of Others, the album is the group’s 11th full-length release, and serves as the follow-up to 2015’s Porridge & Hotsauce. In late February, the group unleashed “The Waterboy” as the first taster of the upcoming record, with frontman Tim Rogers and guitarist Davey Lane working on the track in Melbourne, while lockdowns and border closures saw bassist Andy Kent and drummer Russell Hopkinson wrapping up their parts in Sydney.
“I was going fishing in the morning, staying in a cheap hotel, and all these folk songs came out, for no reason really but as wordplay,” Rogers says of the New South Wales south coast trip which inspired the songwriting process, while noting that their new record is undoubtedly an unexpected one.
“I got a job bar tending. I didn’t tell the guys about it but I couldn’t envisage us making a record together again,” he admits. “I couldn’t get out of the funk I was in. Then I talked to Tex Perkins about it and he is wonderful about cutting though my over-dramatic stuff.”
While Perkins advised Rogers not to play for six months, 2020 made live gigs an impossibility anyway, ensuring that the only thing the group could do to keep sane while carving their own respective paths through the year was to make music.
“Isolation brought a sort of purity of thought or expression in not being around the usual references and outside input, or any other human for that matter,” Kent explained. “The notes and ideas just flowed. But you can’t make good rock’n’roll alone so when Russ and I got in the room together it was on.”
“It’s not the ideal way to make a record but it worked,” adds Rogers. “I can be a bit of a pain in the neck with either my unbridled enthusiasm or brain-draining depression. For the others I think a bit of time away from me was good, let them loosen their shoulders a bit.”
You Am I’s The Lives of Others is on track to be released on May 14th, with the band set to return to the live stage next month for a show at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre, and in Melbourne for the recently-announced April Sun festival.
You Am I’s The Lives of Others is released on May 14th, with pre-orders available now.
You Am I – The Lives of Others Tracklist
1. “The Waterboy”
2. “The Third Level”
3. “Rosedale Redux”
4. “Manliness”
5. “DRB Hudson”
6. “We All Went Deaf Overnight”
7. “Rubbish Day”
8. “Readers’ Comments”
9. “I’m My Whole World Tonight”
10. “Lookalikes”
11. “Woulda Been Me”
12. “The Lives Of Others”
You Am I Tour Dates 2021
Thursday, April 15th
Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW
Tickets: Ticketek
Thursday, April 22nd
April Sun, St Kilda, VIC
Tickets: Moshtix
