After more than 30 years in the game, Australian rock icons You Am I are still serving up quality content, sharing “The Waterboy” as the first taste of their forthcoming 11th album today.
The first new You Am I track since the release of their Porridge & Hotsauce album back in 2015, “The Waterboy” sees the group at their powerful best, combining the slick rhythm section with Tim Rogers’ famed vocals as he sings a song of inspiration.
“On the Waterboys album Modern Blues I found a Mike Scott song called ‘I Can See Elvis’,” Rogers recalls. “It just killed me, I couldn’t stop listening to it. Mike is a big-hearted person, he really puts it all out there and I like that. I was on the New South Wales south coast listening to a Scottish guy living in Ireland singing about Elvis and that led to the four places line.”
Rogers soon sent the track to his bandmate, guitarist Dave Lane. “The first time I heard the song it hit me right in the guts,” he explains. “It packs such an emotional punch.” Before long, “The Waterboy” took form in the midst of the global pandemic, with Rogers and Lane sending a demo of the track to their bandmates – bassist Andy Kent and drummer Russell Hopkinson – to record their parts in Sydney
“What they did was very different to what I had imagined for the song and made it so much better,” Rogers adds.
“The Waterboy” is set to appear on the group’s new album, which is currently on track to arrive later in the year. The first You Am I studio album in six years, Hopkinson explains that the secret to the band’s success isn’t just their friendship, but their resilience, with 2020 undoubtedly throwing something of a spanner in the works.
“There was an idea that we would be able to be together at some point to finish the record. Fate had a way of making sure that didn’t happen,” he explains. “Yet we’ve made an album since the last time we were all together in a room, made the best of the situation to create this piece of art.
“It has been a cathartic experience which is what we all needed after a year when those have been few and far between if you are a touring musician.”
Though details regarding the new album are yet to be unveiled, You Am I are set to return to the live stage this April with a special show at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on April 19th. Tickets to the show go on sale from 1pm on Wednesday, February 24th, with full details available below.
You Am I’s “The Waterboy” is out now.
You Am I Live at The Enmore
Thursday, April 15th
Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW
Tickets: Ticketek
