Sly Withers have announce the next huge chapter of their career with the release of their latest single ‘Radio,’ as well as news of their brand-new album, Overgrown, out October 28 via Dew Process / UMA. ‘Radio’ appropriately premiered with a national radio first play and interview on triple j’s Drive with Hobba & Hing and was quickly followed with the release of a brand-new video for the single.
To celebrate the release of Overgrown, the band will be hitting the road for a national tour kicking off in November. These will be their largest shows to date, with fans experiencing the new album for the very first time.
OVERGROWN 2022 ALBUM TOUR DATES
FRIDAY 4 NOVEMBER | THE GOV, ADELAIDE
THURSDAY 10 NOVEMBER | UC HUB, CANBERRA
FRIDAY 11 NOVEMBER | METRO THEATRE, SYDNEY
SATURDAY 12 NOVEMBER | PRINCESS THEATRE, BRISBANE
FRIDAY 18 NOVEMBER | NORTHCOTE THEATRE, MELBOURNE
SATURDAY 19 NOVEMBER | UNI BAR, HOBART
SATURDAY 26 NOVEMBER | DARWIN RAILWAY CLUB, DARWIN
SATURDAY 10 DECEMBER | ASTOR THEATRE, PERTH
Discussing the new single, the band’s co-songwriter and ‘Radio’ vocalist Jono Mata says, “The initial idea for Radio came about while I was feeling nostalgic and thinking about simpler times. ‘Radio’ talks about the feeling that your thoughts are getting lost in translation and you want to be heard but can’t organize the words to get your point across. I like to think that comes through in the song itself sounding a little frantic and all over the place.”
Co-vocalist and guitarist Sam Blitvich adds, “We had a lot of fun with this one. It’s a track that Jono brought in to us pretty much finished already, although we still had a lot of fun making a few small changes in the studio with Parko (producer Dave Parkin), especially in terms of getting the bass and drums grooving a little more in the verses. It was one of the first tracks we worked on with Parko and it really set the tone and excited us for what lay ahead with the remainder of the recording process.”
Featuring 14-tracks, the Perth outfit’s epic third studio album was produced with Dave ‘Parko’ Parkin (Spacey Jane), which resulted in the band expanding and elevating their sound to a huge new level, while still making sure to retain the core DNA of who Sly Withers are as a band. If 2021’s Gardens was the subconscious journaling of navigating adulthood and their early 20s, then Overgrown is the self-reflection of what their potential future looks like, for better or worse.
Sam shares, “We are so incredibly proud of this record. It was such a joy to make with producer extraordinaire Parko and feels like a really beautiful development on the sound we had already established. It felt like a sequel to Gardens in this sense so calling it Overgrown felt very appropriate. Thematically Overgrown feels relevant in the sense of us all being a bit older and a bit more aware of the constant need for maintenance in life as we age.”
Jono adds, “In my mind, Overgrown feels like the spiritual successor to Gardens in many ways. In its themes, Overgrown explores this next part of our lives with what I would describe as a more overarching view of consequences and responsibilities. It becomes more and more prevalent throughout how the decisions we made as early adults into our mid-20s are shaping us for better or worse and how those consequences effect the community we have built around us.”