What do you get when you have a storied singer-songwriter introduced to the world of psychedelics reminiscing on the lives that surrounded his divorced-home childhood (the devil-may-care spirit of the north Floridians and the relatively privileged but pressured Catholic school student of Tennessee)? The answer is Briston Maroney’s guitar-heavy, explosive and engrossing new album, JIMMY, out May 2nd via Atlantic Records. At its core, the new record has Maroney stepping into the minds of the two worlds he straddles between, and ultimately letting them meld to life’s true masterpiece: simply being yourself.
With the album announce, Maroney shares two songs depicting these two worlds at work: “Tomatoes” and “Bullshit.” “Tomatoes” is a grungy portrait of post-adolescent confusion and willful idiosyncrasy that arcs into a defiant hook while “Bullshit,” is a three-minute encapsulation of all the conflict in JIMMY.
These two new songs come off the back of “Real Good Swimmer,” a masterful and magnetic rock song over which Maroney presents a snapshot of the people who he grew up knowing, as simultaneously hard and tender as Flannery O’Connor.
Maroney, whose catalog has been over 500 million streams, recently opened for The Kooks in Australia and is currently playing across the UK and Europe supporting Peach Pit. This summer, he’s hitting the road with the group for their co-headlining Long Hair, Long Life Tour which includes stops at New York’s Pier 17, Colorado’s infamous Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre. Tickets are available now, purchase HERE. Full routing below.
At least at first, Briston Maroney didn’t want to call his explosive and engrossing third album JIMMY. He wanted to call it Jellyfish, the name taken from a poem he wrote when he was nine: “Jellyfish/The whole ocean/But nowhere to go.” That was a year before Maroney wrote his first song and many years before he had the language to describe what he was feeling, depression. That poem was a pivotal moment for Maroney, since he suddenly understood that he could use art and self-expression—at that point, poetry; for the last two decades, mostly music—to help make sense of the turmoil in his mind, heart, and life. But Maroney eventually realized that the idea of the jellyfish was too hopeless for what’s actually happening on JIMMY, a song cycle about scraping the bottom of mental, social, and emotional barrels and holding on long enough to do what can sometimes seem like life’s true masterpiece: simply being yourself.
Maroney’s folks split up before he was a teenager. Like so many kids, he spent the rest of youth shuttling between two places. With his father in the small and quiet city of Knoxville, Tenn., he was relatively privileged but pressured, a Catholic school student on whom great expectations were placed. With his mother in north Florida, a landscape more raw and real than almost any other in the continental United States, he was surrounded by country folks who only seemed to give a damn about one another. They’d show up for oyster roasts and get red-wine drunk on Saturday, then be spiffy for church by Sunday morning.
Maroney didn’t fit in with either deme, really. He was the country guy who loved fishing at dams with his dad in Knoxville, the city slicker Catholic schoolkid back among the mangroves and slash pines. But he was drawn to the devil-may-care spirit of the Floridians, the folks who only wanted to look after each other and themselves. There was one man in particular—perpetually clad in denim shorts and a white Margaritaville T, occasionally a durag—that caught Maroney’s attention. Sure, maybe he was a redneck, but “he was a good friend who people loved,” Maroney remembers. He became the inspiration for JIMMY, for these songs about trying to be nothing more than yourself.
4/9 – Leeds, United Kingdom – O2 Academy ^
4/10 – Manchester, United Kingdom – Manchester Academy ^
4/11 – London, United Kingdom – O2 Academy Brixton ^
4/12 – London, United Kingdom – The Blue Basement
4/14 – Paris, France – Le Trianon ^
4/15 – Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia – Bürgerhaus Stollwerck ^
4/17 – Antwerp, Belgium – Trix ^
4/18 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg ^
5/3 – San Luis Opisbo, CA – Shabang Festival
5/20 – Philadelphia, PA – The Met Philadelphia *
5/22 – New York, NY – The Rooftop at Pier 17 *
5/23 – New York, NY – The Rooftop at Pier 17*
5/25 – Sterling Heights, MI – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill *
5/26 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater *
5/28 – Milwaukee, WI – BMO Harris Pavilion *
5/29 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island *
5/30 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory *
6/1 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre *
6/3 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater *
6/5 – Woodinville, WA – Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery*
6/6 – Burnaby, BC – Deer Lake Park, Festival Lawn *
6/7 – Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield *
6/10 – San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic Auditorium *
6/11 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre *
6/13 – San Diego, CA – Gallagher Square *
6/14 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre *
6/16 – Austin, TX – Moody Amphitheater *
6/17 – Dallas, TX – Gilley’s South Side Ballroom *
6/18 – Houston, TX – House of Blues Houston*
6/20 – Atlanta, GA – Synovus Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park *
6/21 – Charlotte, NC – Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre *
6/22 – Washington DC – The Anthem *
6/24 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway *
6/25 – Shelburne, VT – The Green at Shelburne Museum *
6/26 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage *
^supporting Peach Pit
*with Peach Pit
