Award-winning Northern Irish singer/songwriter Foy Vance has released “Hair Of The Dog”, the latest track off his forthcoming album Signs Of Life. The song is available to stream and download starting today HERE. Signs Of Life is due for release on September 10 via Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records/Elektra Records. The album is available for pre-order now HERE.
Signs Of Life is the sound of a beloved singer-songwriter at the peak of his powers. It’s also the sound of a man, a husband, a father, a sinner, a drinker belatedly coming to terms with his demons. Namely, after years and years of almost constant touring, an addiction to alcohol and painkillers. In the bluesy, woozy “Hair Of The Dog” Vance tackles the subject head on, listing his self-medicating crutches while confessing :You no longer make me happy / You no longer make me smile / You take everything that’s good within me.”
“I had my first extended period off the road for twenty years, and I realised: wow, I drink two bottles of wine and at least a half bottle of vodka a day,” Vance explains. “I’d start the day with codeine to get myself sorted, and I’d smoke joints throughout the day. I’m showing all the signs of death, getting ashen, grey, smoking more, drinking more, smoking more I hit a wall.”
“The idea for Hair Of The Dog had been around for a while,” he continues. “I was smiling as I wrote it. I thought it was a bit too on-the-nose, but then, the situation is on-the-nose. And the feel is a tip of the hat to the woozy-ness of the beginning of this journey. I want it to make you almost feel a bit seasick.”
“Hair Of The Dog” follows previously released tracks “If Christopher Calls,” “Time Stand Still,” “Signs Of Life” and “Sapling”. Upon its release, The New York Times featured “Sapling” in The Playlist and Clash Music applauded the song as “An instant fan favorite a song about renewal and survival” The album’s early tracks have received additional praise from Entertainment Tonight, Americana UK, and more.
Vance will celebrate Signs Of Life’s arrival with An Evening With Foy Vance, an intimate tour of the UK and US, including stops in Los Angeles, New York, and Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium. Remaining tickets for the largely sold-out run of shows are available now HERE.
Signs Of Life was recorded in three locations: Vance’s Pilgrim studio at home on the shores of Loch Tay in Highland Perthshire, another recording set-up in a nearby Dunvarlich House, and at Plan B’s Kings X studio in London. The album was written and played more or less entirely by Vance, with assistance from young Northern Irish producer Gareth Dunlop. Serendipitously, Dunlop had been inspired on his career path by a chance encounter with Vance in a coffee shop 18 years ago.
Commenting on the album’s timely subject matter, Vance shared, “Signs of Life is about re-emergence me in my own soft revolution, the world re-emerging in what we’re about to see as we hopefully go back to some semblance of normality. But just life in general flowers growing through the cracks in Chernobyl. Life finds a way, doesn’t it?”
