Steven Adams & The French Drops return with Bring on the Naps – a celebration of the daytime snooze. It’s the most upbeat, cheerful song from Adams for years; self-referential in the style of Jonathon Richman, hinting of a Crooked Rain-era Pavement, with a loving embrace of a few ‘classic’ musical tropes chucked in for good measure.
“We threw a lot at it; some sax, my kids, some bum notes. It’s more fun than a song about sleeping should be. My kids are singing on it because they were always around when I was writing it and I got them to sing on the choruses so I didn’t have to. When we first started recording I was belting it out, like a budget Axl Rose, but I loosened up.”
The accompanying video was shot and edited during lockdown, with a roster of nearly 50 friends, associates and grudging accomplices, including:
The artists Dan Hillier, Tom Leamon and Babak Ganjei. The folk musicians Emily Barker, Lukas Drinkwater, John Smith, Martin Green (Lau) and Inge Thomson. Actors: Tom Price (who’s also a Magic FM DJ), Finlay Robertson, Dave Kelly and Kirsten Slenning. Indie rock musicians Dan Mangan, Darren Hayman, Justin Young (The Vaccines) and Mark Boxall (Mammoth Penguins). Legendary Spanish, Valencia and Middlesborough midfielder Gaizka Mendieta. Comedy writer Joel Morris and TV critic Julia Raeside. Adams’s in-laws. Three dogs. Some kids.
Bring on the Naps is the first track taken from the forthcoming album Keep It Light, out 21st August 2020.
Steven Adams is a “national musical treasure” (The Guardian) who fronted country pranksters The Broken Family Band throughout the 2000s before calling time on that band at the height of their success.
He’s been ploughing his own furrow ever since, with multiple name changes (Singing Adams, The Singing Adams, Steven James Adams, Steven Adams & The French Drops), and a series of albums ranging from DIY indie rock, intimate folk and – with 2018’s Virtue Signals – experiments in krautrock and politically-charged widescreen pop.
Keep It Light is released 21 August via Fika Recordings
Pre-Order it here https://shop.fikarecordings.com/album/keep-it-light