The Zutons Stream 'The Big Decider'

04-06-2024

(Prescription) The Zutons are today sharing a new single from their forthcoming album The Big Decider, out 26th April. The album's title track is out now. The band are also sharing news of a first live return to North America since 2006.

The Zutons have so far shared two previous songs from their highly-anticipated comeback album - 'Creeping On The Dancefloor' and 'Pauline' - each of which carried with them breezy sun-kissed melodies and earworm riffs. New single 'The Big Decider' rides a feel-good stomp through a song about grabbing opportunity with both hands.

Lead singer and guitarist Dave McCabe says: "Ian Broudie told me the demo of Big Decider brought a tear to his eye and that's why he said yes to working with us again, he'd been retired from producing for over a decade so we're proud to say we brought him out of retirement. It was one of the first songs we wrote for the album so getting that reaction from Ian made me feel like we were doing something right. The song is about taking chances in life when they come along, but also about being careful and learning from your mistakes in the past. For me it's like a fair ride to Vegas, and hopefully a win at the end."

THE ZUTONS first album together for 16 years, The Big Decider, is out 26th April and was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with legendary songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers, alongside the band's original producer Ian Broudie. The multi-platinum selling band released three studio albums between 2004 and 2008, scoring 9 UK Top 40 singles including two Top 10s with 'Why Won't You Give Me Your Love?' and the all- conquering 'Valerie', the latter a triple-platinum hit for Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse.

The Big Decider comes into view as an album of stark significance to the band, completed by Dave McCabe (guitar, lead vocals), Abi Harding (saxophone, vocals) and Sean Payne (drums, vocals). Written against the backdrop of a decade and a half's worth of lived experience, it is born under the weight of family tragedies, lives lost and created, reality checks, and home truths faced up to and stared down. Wrestled into shape under the kind of steam that only decades-long friendships - with all their messy fall-outs, make-ups, breakdowns and ultimately love - can muster, The Big Decider became the sound of water passing under the bridge, and love for music, love for each other, and love for creating together becoming the most important thing of all.

Curiously, the pandemic seemingly fast-tracked the process of the band's next phase. As McCabe characterises that time, shortly before he went into rehab: "We were all living together in our own little bubble, plenty of booze and mushrooms and a lot of bonding! It was necessary." It was McCabe's subsequent time in rehab that truly sparked a turning point in the positivity of the new album and the joyful experience of putting it together. Harding says: "Dave has been through an awful lot in the last few years, and these things have obviously really impacted him. But his songwriting has only got better. Now he spends more time on his songs. He's in touch with his own and others' emotions, and that all goes into the songs. It has been so nice to watch him grow. I'm so proud of him."

Talking about the new album, lead singer and guitarist Dave McCabe says: "Working with Nile was just an amazing experience, he gave me a confidence that I've never felt before making a record. He's very laid-back as a person and a good listener. On the song 'Disappear' , I wrote a spoken word piece about The Zutons travelling the stars and galaxies asking the most powerful question in the universe, "Why?". I asked Nile if he'd read it out over the top of the end section of the song, thinking he'd just say no. But he jumped in the vocal booth with his chain around his neck and his sunglasses on and did about 20 different takes, all in different styles of himself. It was mind-blowing! It was as though he really does travel around the universe in some spaceship and just makes music in his spare time. He's just one of the coolest people I've ever met.

It was great to reconnect with Ian Broudie on this record as well. He told me the demo of Big Decider brought a tear to his eye and that's why he said yes to working with us again. It was one of the first songs we wrote for the album so getting that reaction from Ian made me feel like we were doing something right. The song spoke for itself."

Long-anticipated, authentically hard-won, scorchingly self-aware and truly worth the wait, The Big Decider is the sound of a band channelling what Abi Harding describes as a lifetime of "great chemistry and great connection". Or, as Sean Payne puts it: "We had a genuine feeling of a shared vision. In the past we haven't really said how we feel, or we've taken each other the wrong way. But this album was different. We really didn't feel good until it was just how we wanted it."

As sunny as it is poignant, as heartfelt is as it triumphant and - for the band - as liberating as it is cathartic, The Big Decider reminds us that the magical songwriting smarts of The Zutons has been absent for too long. They are The Zutons, they are back, and they're here to uplift your 2024.