JAMIE LAWSON RELEASES NEW SINGLE ‘MATTER TO ME’, FROM HIS FORTHCOMING 6TH ALBUM ‘LITTLE WEAKNESSES’
Pre-order Little Weaknesses HERE. Released October 20th 2023
Get tickets to the Little Weaknesses Tour HERE
Listen to ‘Matter To Me’ HERE
Listen to singles ‘When It Comes To Love’ (HERE) and ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ (HERE)
22nd September 2023. Today, Ivor Novello award-winning singer-songwriter Jamie Lawson has released ‘Matter To Me’, the third single from his forthcoming 6th album Little Weaknesses, released October 20th. Following a four-year hiatus, Jamie has returned with his most poignant and heartfelt work to date. Chronicling the earliest years of fatherhood and a newfound creative energy, Little Weaknesses is a record that embraces brightness and brims with optimism for the future. Jamie will be bringing these new songs to the stage for the first time later this year on his Little Weaknesses Tour, which begins on 25th Oct at London’s St Pancras Old Church.
‘Matter To Me’ is a cheerful, sing-along anthem that Jamie describes as “a song about letting those who need to hear it know that you’re there for them”. Continuing the thread of togetherness and love that defined the previous two singles ‘When It Comes To Love’ and ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, it’s a track that unapologetically cuts through the bleakness of the past few years and whole-heartedly champions joy – a message embedded into each moment on the album.
Explaining the collaborative nature of the track’s production, Jamie said: “I wrote this with two incredibly talented young writers, Kaity Rae and Nina Sundstrom, both of whom I think are going to do very big things. We’d started a completely different, slow, emotional song in the morning and by lunchtime felt that we were completely stuck. Without much time left I suggested we start something new. Nina had a lyric idea, Kaity started playing these really playful upbeat chords and we were off and it came pretty quickly.”
This album sees Jamie balance fatherhood and music – something that’s enriched, not hindered, his creative process. “I’ve done bass takes on this record whilst running my son’s bath,” Jamie laughs. “I would know I had two goes through a song: I can do two bass takes and then go in, put the cold-water in. I definitely did that! Even 10, 15 minutes, I can do something. Even if it was just to listen to a song again. I learned to use that time efficiently.”
Jamie will be embarking on a 5-date UK tour later this year, beginning on 25th October in London. Speaking on his return to the stage, Jamie said: “It’s been almost four years since I last did my own headline tour. I thought it best to go back to the start. Small, intimate, acoustic venues, just you and me. I’m really looking forward to getting back out and singing for you so I hope you can make it along. And who knows? If it all goes well maybe we’ll do a few more next year!”
Jamie will be performing at:
Oct 25th – London – St Pancras Old Church
Nov 10th – Leeds – Mill Hill Chapel
Nov 13th – Manchester – The Lodge at Deaf Institute
Nov 30th – Newcastle – Cluny 2
Dec 1st – Glasgow – SWG3 The Poetry Club
Little Weaknesses is Jamie’s return to music after a four-year break that saw the birth of his son in 2020. “Originally, I had intended to take six months off when he came along. And then the pandemic hit, and I had what felt like three years off,” he says. The time away instilled him with a desire to re-wire his creative process, following a period of immense career highs that included performances at Wembley Stadium and Croke Park, and tours with Ed Sheeran (who called this album Jamie’s strongest body of work to date) and James Blunt. Fatherhood brought a new sense of direction and meant any music he left his young family to play, perform or promote had to fulfil him completely.
“Having that time settled me into a style of music that I wanted to make that I wasn’t making,” he shares. “Now, I would say this record is not that far away from the others, but it does feel much more cohesive. I remember listening to some playlists, like Lost In The Woods or Fresh Folk, and just thinking: ‘Oh, this is where I should be sitting. This is the music I love. This is the music I get the most out of.’ It’s all quite simple, but it’s all quite beautiful. And there’s proper lyrical content, something going on that makes me think about things. Those are the songs I wanted to write.”
Little Weaknesses is 14 tracks of concise, emotive, painterly beauty. It’s a record that sees Jamie wholeheartedly embrace collaboration, working alongside a close-knit group of artists and friends, including multi-genre violinist Isabella Baker who arranged strings for six songs and songwriters Simon Aldred (aka Cherry Ghost) and Jack McManus. The entire album was crafted in Jamie’s music room in his family residence in Manchester and recorded by producer-collaborator Tim Ross at his home studio in Twickenham.