TV Priest will release My Other People, the group’s follow-up to Uppers, their acclaimed debut, worldwide on June 17th, 2022 from Sub Pop. The album features the highlights “One Easy Thing” and new single, “Bury Me In My Shoes,” which you can hear now. My Other People was produced by band member/multi-instrumentalist Nic Bueth at Studio East in London.
 
Frontman Charlie Drinkwater says of the album, “My Other People is a more “open” set of songs, both musically and in our themes; in the process of writing we found ourselves talking about things other than anger or aggression. We wanted to discuss love, loss, and joy too. It’s a record about personal disintegration and destruction but also rebuilding again after this. It’s also heavily rooted in place, the music being a very direct response to Britain and England in 2021, but in a more abstract and textural sense. A muddy field viewed from a train window between cities, a patch of wildflowers growing next to a motorway, sticky carpets in a suburban flat roof pub, pissing rain on an August bank holiday, and the smell of diesel in an out of town supermarket car park. An angry, hopeful, shitty, beautiful island.”
 
As for My Other People’s new single, he adds, “‘Bury Me In My Shoes’ is a hangover of a song. Last year was about reminding ourselves to hang on to good things; to remember you can love and hate in equal measure. That the answers are rarely found by looking backwards. “Bury Me” was written as a response to that general feeling of unease and creeping dread. A feeling you get from bad news on no breakfast.”
 
My Other People is now available to preorder from Sub Pop. LPs purchased through megamart.subpop.com, and select independent retailers in North America will receive the Opaque Pink w/white smoke vinyl version (while supplies last). Meanwhile, LP preorders in the U.K. and Europe through select independent retailers will receive the album on clear vinyl.
 
TV Priest has announced a UK tour to support My Other People which begins Sunday, October 30th in Bristol at The Louisiana, and ends Sunday, November 13th in Brighton at Green Door Store. Preceding these shows, TV Priest has scheduled a series of UK in-store performances to celebrate My Other People’s release week (June 17th - 23rd), which fans can gain entry to with proof of preorder through the participating retailers. There will also be US and EU tour dates announced soon. Please find a current list of tour dates below.
 
Fri. Jun. 17 - London, UK - Rough Trade East
Mon. Jun. 20 - Brighton, UK - Resident*
Tue. Jun. 21 - Southsea Portsmouth, UK - Pie & Vinyl*
Wed. Jun. 22 - Totnes, UK - Drift*
Thu. Jun. 23 - Leeds, UK - The Vinyl Whistle*
Sun. Oct. 30 - Bristol, UK - The Louisiana
Mon. Oct. 31 - Birmingham, UK - Hare & Hounds
Tue. Nov. 01 - Dublin, IE - The Workman’s Cellar                
Thu. Nov. 03 - Manchester, UK - Yes (Pink Room)
Fri. Nov. 04 - Glasgow, UK - Broadcast
Sat. Nov. 05 - Leeds, UK - Belgrave Music Hall       
Mon. Nov. 07 - Cambridge, UK  - Portland Arms
Tue. Nov. 08 - Leicester, UK - Firebug Bar  
Thu. Nov. 10 - London, UK - Scala
Fri. Nov. 11 - Reading, UK -The Face Bar
Sat. Nov. 12 -  Southampton, UK - The Joiners
Sun. Nov. 13 - Brighton, UK - Green Door Store
* Stripped down performances
 
What people have said about TV Priest:
“Fuzzed-out post punk from London four-piece…harsh, brittle eruptions offering up a variety of teeth-rattling noises.” [Uppers]- Uncut
 
“The post-punk band have caught attention with a string of superb singles, exemplifying their scorching post-punk sound.” [Uppers] - CLASH
 
“Uppers…should rubber stamp TV Priest as one of, if not your favourite new act” [Uppers] - The Line of Best Fit
 
“Ragged yet tight, sprawling yet focussed, it’s a singular vision of a disparate time.” [Uppers] - ★★★★ DORK
 
“Scratch the surface, peel away the layers and you’ll find something here to make you think there might be something more to come.” [Uppers, Best Albums of 2021] - Louder Than War
 
“Sultry, prophetic lyricism with brash instrumentation…” [“This Island”] - Brooklyn Vegan
 
More on TV Priest’s My Other People:
Having made music together since their teenage years, the London four-piece TV Priest piqued press attention in late 2019 with their first gig as a newly solidified group, a raucous outing in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. Debut single “House of York” followed with a blistering critique of monarchist patriotism, and they were signed to Sub Pop for their debut album. When Uppers arrived in the height of a global pandemic, it reaped praise from critics and fans alike for its ‘dystopian doublespeak’, but the band — vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, producer, bass and keys player Nic Bueth and drummer Ed Kelland – were sat at home like the rest of us, drinking cups of tea and marking time via government-sanctioned daily exercise. As such, the personal and professional landmark of its release felt “both colossal and minuscule” dampened by the inability to share it live. “It was a real gratification and really cathartic, but on the other hand, it was really strange, and not great for my mental health” admits Drinkwater. “I wasn’t prepared, and I hadn’t necessarily expected it to reach as many people as it did. It sounds a bit naïve, but it was all very quick. It felt kind of divorced from reality.”
 
As such, My Other People intentionally maintains a strong sense of earth-rooted emotion, taking full advantage of the opportunity to physically connect. Using “Saintless” (the closing song from Uppers) as something of a starting point, Drinkwater set about crafting lyrics that allowed him to articulate a deeper sense of personal truth, using music as a vessel to communicate with his bandmates about his depleting mental health. “Speaking very candidly, it was written at a time and a place where I was not, I would say, particularly well,” he says. “There was a lot of things that had happened to myself and my family that were quite troubling moments. I apologized to the band the other day for not being a great friend or person in this process, because I simply was not happy. Despite that I do think the record has our most hopeful moments too; a lot of me trying to set myself reminders for living, just everyday sentiments to try and get myself out of the space I was in. Whether or not the sincerity is understood, I think I’ll always be proud of that.”
 
“It was a bit of a moment for all of us where we realized that we can make something that, to us at least, feels truly beautiful,” agrees Bueth. “Brutality and frustration are only a part of that puzzle, and despite a lot of us feeling quite disconnected at the time, overwhelmingly beautiful things were also still happening.”
 
To strike this balance, My Other People relies on the band’s tight-knit working method, with Bueth once again at the self-producing helm. Following their own intuition as part of a “feverish” writing process, they looked inwards for inspiration rather than attempting to ape any sonic heroes, ending up with something that feels much more like affirmingly widescreen alt-rock than it does post-punk. Arrangements give room to let the voice roam; the optimistic melodies of “The Breakers” light flares to accompany Drinkwater’s recognition of the path that leads him back to friendship, while the rumbling pace of “Unraveling” reflects his more fractious state, looking for a safe place to land amidst the detritus of biting guitars. Where possible, recordings weren’t agonized over, but rather trusted on their initial takes when the mood had hit right. Though they recognise that ‘ band still searching for sound on second album’ is a sentiment that is often weaponised as criticism, it’s a process of self-improvement that Drinkwater is keen to protect: “Why would I keep making art if I didn’t believe that the best thing was not around the corner?”
 
Visually speaking, the same intention of momentum carries forth. The album’s artwork, photographed by Edward Thompson, depicts two children looking out to sea, a scene suspended somewhere between melancholy and hope. The video for “One Easy Thing”, the album’s lead single, directed by long term collaborator Joe Wheatley (“Decoration”, “Press Gang”) is a homage to new wave and French cinema, the singer donning full medieval armour as he bleeds and dances, persevering despite the seemingly impossible circumstance. Though Drinkwater wants its message of discomfort to show, he’s also keen not to overexplain it: “Last time, I literally was like, ‘please like me’, to everyone,” he laughs. “I stood next to the record and talked it to death, what things meant or where I did and didn’t stand. This time, I think it’s better if I leave some space.” 
 
An allowance for the interpretation of others is perhaps most clear on “Bury Me In My Shoes”, built around a stark chorus line; “Life Only Comes In Flashes Of Greatness.” It is a lyric borne out of deep depression, the existential fear of our ever-changing mortal coil.  But if you look at it differently, it could just as easily be read as affirmation, a reminder to seize the moment and make it count. This tension between the fullness of the glass, the cathartic value that such a lyric may hold in different lights, is central to My Other People — a record that heals by providing space for recognition, a ground zero from which you’re welcome to stay awhile but which ultimately — realistically — only leads up and out. For TV Priest, it is a follow-up that feels truly, properly them; free of bravado, unnecessary bluster or any audience pressure to commit solely to their original sound (read more at Sub Pop.com).

TV Priest
My Other People
 
Tracklisting
1. One Easy Thing
2. Bury Me In My Shoes
3. Limehouse Cut
4. I Have Learnt Nothing
5. It Was Beautiful
6. The Happiest Place On Earth
7. My Other People
8. The Breakers
9. Unraveling
10. It Was A Gift
11. I Am Safe Here
12. Sunland