The Commoners are on track for another banner year with the release of their highly anticipated third album, Restless. Released by Gypsy Soul Records on Friday 5th July 2024, the band’s new album features ten tracks that grip your senses and make you groove.
Speaking from their studio space in Canada, frontman Chris Medhurst is overjoyed with how the year has been progressing so far. “2024 has been good, and in a lot of ways, it’s been a mad dash, it’s been hard work. But from that, we’ve got what I think is a really good album coming out,” he says. “We’ve got a tonne of plans for the future. It’s hard work and lots of grind, but we are starting to see the fruits of that labour.”
Perhaps you caught The Commoners on tour in the UK last year when the group shared the stage with the dynamite partnership of Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton. Reflecting on the tour, Chris said: “It was an incredible experience. It’s always daunting when you’re meeting new people, especially overseas, that you’re going to be touring with for quite some time. But their camp, and then personally, were both great to us. I remember them coming in introducing themselves and saying hi to us pretty much right out the gate and being very hospitable. And I mean, getting to play in those venues was a great experience, it felt like those were the kinds of venues that suit our live show, and the kind of music that we play really well. That was an excellent experience and a great learning experience.”
He adds: “We had done a lot of preparing to be on those bigger stages and put our set together with the time allotment that we had and took all of those things into consideration. And I think it ended up going really well. And then also just having the opportunity after our own sets to watch Sam and Jesse play and seeing how they paced their set through that longer time and seeing where the peaks and the valleys were and how they sort of put everything together as a live show. Getting to watch that every night on tour was really a masterclass in how to curate things. I think we’re going to take a lot of that knowledge now into these headlining shows that we’ve got coming up in the UK.”
With their new album Restless in the bag, the group can’t wait to get the record out to their fans. “We are honestly really positive and excited about it. We wrote the album in about two weeks shortly after our first tour in the UK with Troy Redfern. We had to sort of take a break during the recording process to then do that second tour with Sam and Jesse Dayton. And when we got back, we really got to have toured some of those songs at that point, played them in a live setting, lived with them, and then carried on with that recording process. So, it really felt like a natural progression as a band. And I think it fills a lot of the spaces where there may be songs that do things that we haven’t done as a band,” explains Chris. “We really listened to our previous album, and the sets that we had been playing previously, with the songs off that record, and tried to figure out where the holes were in our live performances.” He adds: “Going forward into this record, we really went in with the intention to fill in a lot of those gaps. And I think the results made it a unique record, while still being very much a Commoners sound, but not being repetitive. We still got to progress as a band and explore new ideas, while maintaining the integrity, we are musically.”
So far, the band have released several tracks from their latest offering, each of which has garnered a strong response from radio here in the UK. “Both with Devil Teasin’ Me and our new singles that we’ve put out, we’ve gotten a great reception from Planet Rock fans over in the UK, and with different publications. So, it’s been exciting to see the amount of love that we have received. And we haven’t even released the record yet. I think based on that, there’s going to be a lot of songs on this record that people are going to be really into. And it’s going to really resonate with them. So, I’m looking forward to that, because it’s one of, if not, the best part about making music is getting to see how it impacts other people. And it still blows my mind that there are people across the ocean who are into what we’re doing and listening to the things that I write down. So it’s really cool.”
With such a strong response to the band’s new music, The Commoners are going to have to make some difficult decisions regarding their setlist on their forthcoming UK run. “We’ve actually just started that process of getting everything ready for some of the upcoming shows we have in May. And we’re going to be working out our set through those shows and then the shows that we have in June, and we should really solidify the concept of what we want to do in a live setting by the time we get to the UK,” explains Chris. “It’s going to be fun playing a whole lot of songs that we haven’t gotten to tour yet.” He adds: “There’s going to be a lot of emphasis put on making the live show a really unique and memorable experience for people.”
With their new album set for release in July, the band have got their sights set on what comes next. “We’ve got a lot of stuff lined up that’s not 100% yet. We’ve got a lot of fun stuff coming up like Planet Rockstock. And we definitely are going to have some big plans for the Fall. They’re not solidified yet, so I can’t really give too much information. But hopefully, there will be some big things for the Fall. We’ve got plans for the Spring and the Summer now. And we’re just going to keep on keeping on, making music, playing, and having a good time,” concludes Chris.
The Commoners new album “Restless” is released on July 5th by Gypsy Soul Records via www.thecommoners.ca. The band tour the UK from July 19th until July 28th including festival performances at Maid Of Stone and Steelhouse.
Interview by Adam Kennedy
Photo Credit: Paul Wright