Image by Rob Ashton Baker.
English singer-songwriter Will Varley returns with his 7th album, ‘Machines Will Never Learn To Make Mistakes Like Me’, to be released 30th May 2025 on MNRK Music Group, home to the likes of The Lumineers, Gregory Alan Isakov & Shakey Graves. He is also on tour, coming to Southampton’s Joiners on April 4th. The date is already sold out, but returns may be available.
Coinciding with the announcement of ‘Machines Will Never Learn To Make Mistakes Like Me’, the first studio album since 2021’s ‘The Hole Around My Head’, Varley also releases new single ‘Different Man’, a tale of tour mishaps & bad fortune with the video featuring actor Gethin Anthony most known for his roles in the critically acclaimed ‘Game of Thrones’ & Netflix’s ‘Manhunt’ series.
“I did a lot of touring in the US and Europe over the years, opening for various bands and sleeping on rickety old tour buses that were close to being written off. This is a song about that, and it details some of the scrapes we got into” explains Will, “Like one night we went through a tunnel just outside of New York in the winter, but the bus was too tall to go through, so the air con units all got sliced off the top of the roof with two huge bangs. It was pitch black outside, and none of us knew what was going on, just that it was suddenly snowing inside. It was 3am and we had to drive like that all the way to Chicago with a mandolin case wedged into the ceiling to stop the snow coming in. That sort of thing.”
To celebrate, Will has announced a London headline date on Saturday 4th October at Dalston’s EartH plus a European tour.
Inspired by his natural habitats of the East Kent Coast and the US Midwest, these songs are rich, lyrical tales that speak of hard touring, relationships on the rocks and the rebuilding of minds. Featuring some very special guest appearances including Billy Bragg, Eleni Drake & Bastille’s Dan Smith, the album continues Varley’s decade long exploration of the human condition, this time focusing on society’s ever-present threat of impending apocalypse, how we marry this with the mundane and the minutiae of our everyday lives and how we can find hope.
Produced at his ramshackle studio deep in the Kent swamps, alongside long-time friend and collaborator Tom Farrer, the album’s pallet marks a significant change in musicality, bringing a rich and luscious production to many of the songs and bringing Varley’s lyrical landscapes to life in full colour.
“I wrote these songs in empty dive bars and hospital waiting rooms. I wrote them while sitting in maternity wards, hotel lobbies, motorway service stations and broken down tour buses in the dead of night.
This is an album about trying to be a hundred different people at the same time. About the fires you remember when you are alone in the early hours. About the dreams you had once and never thought you’d forget. About trying to raise children while the world is ending outside. About end times and new beginnings.
This is an album about hope, desperation and survival. Love and dependency. The things we do not know, the lives we do not live, and trying to find peace in whatever is left.”
UPCOMING UK DATES
25 MAR SHEFFIELD THE LEADMILL
26 MAR EDINBURGH THE VOODOO ROOMS
27 MAR GLASGOW DRYGATE
28 MAR NEWCASTLE THE CLUNY
29 MAR LIVERPOOL ARTS CLUB
30 MAR NOTTINGHAM RESCUE ROOMS
01 APR CAMBRIDGE THE JUNCTION
02 APR BRISTOL THEKLA
03 APR FALMOUTH THE CORNISH BANK
04 APR SOUTHAMPTON THE JOINERS (SOLD OUT)
05 APR BRIGHTON PATTERNS
06 APR MARGATE WHERE ELSE?
04 OCT LONDON EARTH