Texas country-punk ensemble Vandoliers have released ‘Your Picture‘, the latest single from their upcoming album Life Behind Bars, out June 27 via Break Maiden Records / Thirty Tigers. Written while bandleader Jenni Rose was away from her family on tour, the tender song is inspired by a picture of her wife and daughter she always carries with her. The accompanying music video is a sentimental balm for the yearning of being close to a loved one.
| “I’ve carried the same picture of my wife and daughter with me as I’ve traveled the world over the past five years,” says bandleader Jenni Rose. “That small photo inspired this song, first by noticing the worn edges, then by reflecting on the distance between when a photo is taken and where we are when we reach for it later. Memories have the power to heal, and nothing captures that power quite like a photograph, especially one you can hold in your hands. It transports you right back: to where you were, to who you were, to that fleeting moment you want to keep alive.” She continues, “For me, ‘Your Picture,’ both the song and the video, is an attempt to translate a core, universal feeling: the longing for someone you love, the ache of wishing they were right there beside you.” Life Behind Bars marks a number of firsts for Vandoliers, but most importantly this collection of songs details a journey through addiction and gender dysphoria that has culminated in frontwoman Jenni (Gin-ee) Rose’s decision to come out as a trans woman. In 2023, when Rose was barely six months sober, the Vandoliers wore dresses on stage at a show in Maryville, TN to protest the state’s ‘drag ban’ bill the same day the governor signed it into law. Photos from the show went viral, generating coverage everywhere from Rolling Stone to a segment on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, but for Rose it was a public moment that would change everything. She had worn a dress before, but never in public, and she says once “the entire planet saw it” she privately wrote down in her journal “Fuck, I think I’m trans.” She opened up about the moment in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. Working with Grammy-winning producer Ted Hutt (The Gaslight Anthem, Flogging Molly, Lucero), Vandoliers deliver 10 of their most vulnerable and carefully honed tracks on Life Behind Bars. The album may feel a little more stripped and intimate than the band’s typical raucous fare, but it’s still chock-full of upbeat and sing-a-long-ready Vandoliers classics like the rowdy title track, which was co-written with Rose and bandmate Cory Graves, as well as Joshua Ray Walker and John Pedigo. Even the most melancholy Vandoliers song has a degree of exuberance and verve, full of an irrepressible energy that has led them to tour with everyone from Flogging Molly to the Turnpike Troubadours to fellow Dallas-Fort Worth natives the Old 97s. These are the songs of a fearless band hellbent on spreading joy wherever they go, a band who has made a career of pushing boundaries and taking all-comers, of making a bigger, brighter, bolder tent in a musical space that is still too often hidebound by tradition. Next month, Vandoliers will hit the road on an extensive US summer tour taking them to Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Seattle and more. At the end of the year, the band will join Skinny Lister for a run of shows across Europe and the UK. See a full list of dates below, and find more info here: vandoliers.com/shows. Life Behind Bars Tracklist 1. Dead Canary 2. Life Behind Bars 3. Your Picture 4. Bible Belt 5. Thoughts and Prayers 6. You Can’t Party With The Lights On (Feat. Joshua Ray Walker & Taylor Hunnicutt) 7. Valencia 8. Jim’s Barn 9. Evergreen 10. Dead in a Ditch EU + UK Tour Dates Supporting Skinny Lister November 13 – Paris, FR @ Backstage By The Mill November 14 – Lisieux, FR @ Mosaic November 15 – Arlon, BE @ L’Entrepot November 16 – Oberhausen, DE @ Zentrum Altenberg November 17 – Hamburg, DE @ Bahnhof Pauli November 19 – Gothenburg, SWE @ Skeppet November 20 – Oslo, NO @ Goldie November 21 – Stockholm, SWE @ Bar Brooklyn November 22 – Copenhagen, DK @ Stengade November 23 – Berlin, DE @ Hole 44 November 24 – Prague, CZ @ Café v Lese November 26 – Vienna, AT @ Arena November 27 – Munich, DE @ Strom November 28 – Aarau, CH @ KIFF November 29 – Cologne, DE @ Luxor November 30 – Utrecht, NL @ De Helling December 2 – Antwerp, BE @ KAVKA December 3 – Southampton, UK @ 1865 December 4 – Bristol, UK @ The Fleece December 5 – Leicester, UK @ 02 Academy 2 December 6 – Norwich, UK @ Norwich Arts Centre December 7 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club December 9 – Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts December 10 – Sunderland, UK @ Independent December 11 – Stoke-on-Trent, UK @ The Sugarmill December 13 – London, UK @ Scala |
