The Waterboys are gearing up to drop their 16th album, Life, Death And Dennis Hopper, on April 4 via Sun Records, and it’s shaping up to be a true beast of a release.
This 25-track monster isn’t just an album. It’s actually a tribute to one of Hollywood’s most infamous rebels, Dennis Hopper, told through a kaleidoscope of folk-rock storytelling.
It also has some of the greatest feature’s I’ve seen on an album in a long time. We’re talking Bruce Springsteen. Fiona Apple. Steve Earle. Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes. Even Kathy Valentine from The Go-Go’s is in on the action. The album’s first single, ‘Hopper’s On Top (Genius)’, lands this Friday (January 10). If that doesn’t even slightly pique your interest, I’m not sure what’s wrong.
Lead singer Mike Scott clearly isn’t holding back on this one. In true Waterboys fashion, the album swings between Hopper’s chaotic personal life and the cultural shifts of the period. “The arc of his life was the story of our times,” Scott said in the press release. “From Rebel Without A Cause to Warhol’s studio, through the counterculture and civil rights movements, all the way to his insane ’70s spiral and his comeback in the ’80s – the guy lived every bit of it.”
The album doesn’t just skim the surface of Hopper’s legend; it dives headfirst into it. Tracks like ‘Kansas’ featuring Steve Earle take us back to his childhood roots, while ‘Ten Years Gone’ with Springsteen. There is even a track entitled ‘Letter From An Unknown Girlfriend’ featuring Fiona Apple, an artist who as we all know seldom releases music. Scott calls it “a whole lot more than just Dennis – it’s about the strange trip of being human.”
The guest list is stacked, but this is still unmistakably a Waterboys record. Produced by Scott alongside James Hallawell and Brother Paul Brown, the album promises everything you’d expect from a band that’s always pushed the boundaries – and then some.
MORE IN Music
