Wreckless Eric announces new album - listen to "Inside the Majestic"
Wreckless Eric has announced a new album, Leisureland, which will be out August 25 via Tapete. It’s his first album since 2019, and Eric had a particularly rough pandemic. “Covid hit me hard, damaged my lungs, gave me a heart attack – I almost died in the emergency room,” he says of the themes surrounding the album. “I began to feel extremely…mortal. I began to look at where I’ve been and where I come from. Maybe to get my mind off the ultimate destination.”
Leisureland is rich with imagery of seaside towns, as well as synthesizers, drum machines and other sounds not usually heard on a Wreckless Eric album. The first released song is “Inside the Majestic,” which is an instrumental. Eric sets the scene: “The derelict interior of the Majestic cinema: broken seats, rotting red velvet, fallen, gilt-covered plaster mouldings…the screen, ripped and lurching. It could be the theme for a budget TV soap. The music plays, the credits roll, mugshots of the cast of everyday characters loom and disappear – Mr Braithwaite played by a well-loved British character actor in his eighties with disquietingly perfect teeth; a genial young policemen, all sticky-out ears and Brillianteened quiff; an old sea salt; an antique dealer; a brace of lady dog breeders… Normal folk just like you and me.”
You can watch the “Inside the Majestic” video, and read more about the album from Eric, below.
Wreckless Eric has a few live dates on the horizon, including Kingston, NY’s Noise Salon on June 10, and dates with The Dead Boys and The Plimsouls in September, including Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus on September 27. He’s also got UK dates in November with Dr Feelgood. Check out his schedule below.
WRECKLESS ERIC ON LEISURELAND:
Before the pandemic I used to tour all the time – it was almost as though I was addicted to it – new places, new people. During the lockdown I couldn’t go anywhere. I think that’s why I started to invent a place.
Covid hit me hard, damaged my lungs, gave me a heart attack – I almost died in the emergency room. I began to feel extremely…mortal. I began to look at where I’ve been and where I come from. Maybe to get my mind off the ultimate destination.
When Standing Water first came along I had the British seaside town of Cromer in North Norfolk in mind. It quickly encompassed other seaside towns until it became its own place. British seaside towns with their stagnant boating lakes (filled in and set up for Crazy Golf) are a most peculiar contradiction – amusement arcades, unemployment. People flock in, spend money, but the locals don’t get rich, they pushed out. They end up on the Brownfield Estate, tucked away behind the out of town supermarket, where local children play on grassed-over landfills that seep methane gas.
I thought of my birthplace, Newhaven in East Sussex. My parents hated it – they couldn’t wait to leave. They’d moved there because of my dad’s job. I was born there and even though it might be a dump, it was where I came from, and for a young boy it was paradise – docks, cranes, cargo ships, fishing boats, a Victorian swing bridge, a steam locomotive rolling through the town centre… And the ferry service to France. I could see it, from the cliffs alongside the dull bungalow suburb where we moved when advancement made home ownership possible – the old Versailles steaming out of the harbour mouth and disappearing over the horizon to a distant somewhere else.
When I was growing up in South East England I didn’t know how the world was laid out though I had a pretty good idea that it was fucked-up. But my parameters were narrow – I lived an enclosed life. A walk to the end of the road, a bus ride, a train, a short walk to the school gates at the other end. Always the same bus, the same train, and the same walk. I got a bicycle and the possibilities widened – ride away from home for half a day, spend the other half riding back. Then I learned to hitchhike, I hitched rides to Brighton to see rock bands who sometimes came from America. I understood that the world was bigger than I first thought it was but I still hadn’t been much further than the end of the road.
I was dumb, but in my defence the information that might help me to become less dumb was not readily available – Peacehaven Public Library didn’t carry books by Jack Kerouac, and it never occurred to me to look at a map, or seek out a forward facing independent book shop because, as I said, I was dumb. I was also stoned, detached, confused, and waging a battle with the ancient neolithic settlement that lived under our house and threatened to climb on top of me most nights and crush the life out of me. I was a weird kid. We slept with our heads facing north.
When I was seventeen I gave up on trying to tunnel my way out of South East England, I learned to drive – it was easy, I was a natural. Since then I’ve driven all over the place and driven the length and breadth of the United States numerous times. I’ve been everywhere, man. I can tell you exactly how fucked-up it is.
I should tell you about the new album, but I can’t – you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. It shouldn’t be difficult. There’s a cough on every one of my later albums. This one breaks with tradition, it contains a sniff. There might be a small prize if you can find it, perhaps a weekend getaway for three people in Standing Water.
Welcome to Leisureland.
WRECKLESS ERIC – 2023 TOUR DATES
JUNE 10 KINGSTON NY Noise Salon, (electronic music)
JULY 29 SOUTHEND ON SEA Estuary Fringe Festival
SEPTEMBER 27 BROOKLYN NY St Vitus (The Dead Boys + The Plimsouls)
SEPTEMBER 29 PHILADELPHIA PA Ukie Club (The Dead Boys + The Plimsouls)
OCTOBER 27 LONDON The Lexington – details to follow
NOVEMBER
LEEDS UK Brudenell (with Dr Feelgood)
GLOUCESTER UK Guildhall (with Dr Feelgood) ,
