Scott Lavene has today released his third and final single, “Muscle Car” from his forthcoming album, Cars, Buses, Bedsits & Shops, out 22nd August via Nothing Fancy. Pre-order HERE
“Muscle Car” is, on the surface, a song about buying a number plate from a boot fair, hoping one day to buy the rest of the car. It’s about a mischievous trip to Memphis, mushrooms at Graceland, and a strip club with Scott’s step-dad. But underneath all the grit – the chorus and last verse show nothing in the world means more to the story teller than love.
Watch/share the video for “Muscle Car” HERE
Stream “Muscle Car” HERE
Scott says, “‘Muscle Car’ is a song that somehow blends car boot sales, our eventual deaths, the love for my kids as well as a trip to Memphis with my step dad in 2003. It’s about desire for things, for old American cars, for a life in France but then the knowledge that might be what I want but not necessarily what I need.”
Scott Lavene is as English as pork pies and pasties and dunked biscuits in Yorkshire tea. His previous album Disneyland in Dagenham (2023) was full of Essex, East End poetry, and classic English post punk. Following extensive touring including many sold-out shows, Scott is back with another album bursting with more dark humour, snapshots of squalor and cheek, and Scott’s unique love songs.
Produced by Stew Jackson, who’s worked with Massive Attack, Black Crowes, Tom Waits and Nick Cave, the record shines with Scott’s presence, alongside Ryan Rogers of Mumble Tide, co-producing and playing organs, synths and mellotron. Cars, Buses, Bedsits & Shops came together quickly, in a five-day wonder, in Bristol, September 2024.
Scott’s longer story-based songs have taken a backseat on this record with more singing than before and a higher percentage of ballads, sincere, wistful and tender. They evoke the lyrics and feelings set down by Daniel Johnston and The Magnetic Fields, Evan Dando and the immense David Berman. But a few ratty stories still remain.
Cars, Buses, Bedsits & Shops is fit to burst with colour, a slight change in the wacky production of old, the album is polished like a classic 70’s American singer songwriter album, an ode to Wings, to yacht rock and Neil Young. Like if Wilco and Bruce Springsteen’s baby was raised in Basildon.
The combination of wry observation, humble wisdom, unguarded vulnerability and unpredictable humour makes Scott unique in today’s expansive world of artists.
“Muscle Car” follows the singles “A Bus In July” and “Cars”.
Scott Lavene tour dates:
Summer ‘25
6 – 10 Aug – Lakefest
28 – 31 Aug – End of the Road Festival
September
25 Birmingham, Kitchen Garden Cafe
26 Weston-Super-Mare, Loves
27 Bristol, The Louisiana
October
16 Newport, Le Pub
17 Liverpool, Kazimier Stockroom
18 Berwick-on-Tweed, Barrels
19 Glasgow, The Hug & Pint
20 North Shields, The Engine Room
21 Durham, Old Cinema Laundrette
22 Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club
23 York, The Fulford Arms
24 Stoke-on-Trent, The Artisan Tap
25 & 26 Boia Festival
28 Milton Keynes, The Craufurd Arms
29 Cambridge, The Portland Arms
30 London, Moth Club
November
1 Brighton, The Hope & Ruin
2 Southampton, Heartbreakers
27 Exeter, The Cavern
28 Falmouth, The Chintz Bar
29 Totnes, The Barrel House Ballroom
December
4 Reading, The Face Bar
5 Ipswich, The Smokehouse
January
27 Nottingham, Bodega
