BLOOD ON THE DRUMS Song Sorter

About BLOOD ON THE DRUMS

BLOOD ON THE DRUMS came in two halves. "The Thorns" - the first eight songs - dropped on June 12, 2024, and "The Roses" finished it off on July 17. The title is "a metaphor for how much I've given to my music", and he means it literally too: years of drumming have left his hands bleeding.

Where Superbloom looked inward, this one looks back. He spent a long stretch at home in Windsor, west of Sydney, before finishing it in LA, and it's about the family he left when he was young, addiction, and growing up without a father. John Feldmann, who produced the first two 5SOS albums, co-wrote and produced twelve of the songs. Matt Pauling did the other four - Breakup, Rebel At Heart, The Canyon and Endless Wave.

Straight To Your Heart was the first single, all '80s new wave, and the album's sound grew out of it. The Canyon opens the second half, and he's called it "a fearless unraveling of my relationship with my father." Lose You is his "comfort song", Indestructible was the last one written, and California Holds Her Breath, a song about addiction and second chances, is his favourite to play live.

He made a music video for all 16 songs, and the night after The Roses came out he played his first ever solo show, at the Belasco in Los Angeles. Four years after a debut he could only play to a camera, that one meant a lot.

Sixteen songs, about four minutes. Good luck splitting up the two halves.