| Great artists take the pulse of their times and Walter Trout holds a mirror up to society’s anger and angst on Sign Of The Times, which will be released on 5 September via Provogue. He has also revealed his blistering new single Artificial. You can watch the video HERE. In his half-century as a street-level social observer and scaldingly honest songwriter, blues-rock’s resilient icon Walter Trout has never told his fans what to think, how to feel, or where to stand politically. But in an era when his home nation – and the wider world – is ripping at the seams over the battlelines of modern life, the iconic US bluesman’s hard-rocking new album, Sign Of The Times, is a primal scream and pressure valve for all of us. “I wanted to reflect upon what’s going on in the world,” explains the 74-year-old. “For me, writing these songs is therapy. They’re not just about what’s happening out there, but how it affects you in your head. Sign Of The Times just became the obvious title…” The album explodes to life with the first single and opening song, Artificial: a scornful, satirical, harmonica-spiced rebuke of the fake world we risk creating. “We got artificial photos, artificial music, you could go on and on,” considers the bluesman. “I’m freaked out by AI. I read articles about how it’s gonna do all these wonderful things in the medical world. Then I hear Bill Gates say that eighty percent of jobs are gonna disappear. What happens then?” It feels like the amps have barely cooled from 2024’s Broken, which debuted on Billboard at #1. But the era-chronicling songs from Sign Of The Times wouldn’t wait, these urgent riffs flying off the guitarist’s fingers, assisted once again by Marie, Walter’s wife, manager and co-writer, who penned the lyrics for some of the tracks. “This album flowed pretty easily,” he reflects of the writing process. “I had so many song ideas and pages of lyrics from Marie. We could have kept going and made a triple album.” With ten new songs written and arranged, Trout was ready to call up his studio band – longtime drummer Michael Leasure, bassist John Avila and keys man Teddy ‘Zig Zag’ Andreadis – for the recording sessions at Strawhorse Studios in Los Angeles. Immediately, the tinderbox subject matter sparked one of the toughest-sounding records in his catalogue. Self-producing, and having the material mixed by sonic genius, J.J. Blair, added yet another bit of edge to the sound. “Let me put it this way, I really felt like rocking on this album. We had heavy things to talk about, and we went for it musically too.” The recent death of British blues godfather John Mayall has naturally brought Trout’s mid-’80s tenure with the Bluesbreakers into sharp focus. “His influence on my life, I can’t overstate,” reflects the guitarist. As a man who has always been open about his past agonies, pain is never far away. “Hurt No More is my recovery song, with cutting yourself representing killing yourself with drugs and booze,” he says of the dust-blown rocker. With its dancing guitar lick and undeniable chorus, I Remember is also a moment of respite from the album’s stormier subject matter. “That song is a longing for when life was simpler,” he explains. “Like, when I was 20 and starting out. Or when Marie and I had just got together, and we had no money and were pawning guitars, but we were madly in love and the future was ahead of us.” The combustible title track is one of the most experimental cuts in Trout’s half-century studio output, “I wanted it to be dissonant. Dissonance is a sign of the times. Marie came to me with a set of lyrics, and I realized it fit the song perfectly,” he says. Whilst No Strings Attached skewers hypocrisy, bigotry, and hatred, the album is no one-note diatribe. For Trout – who survived an eleventh-hour liver transplant in 2014 – his second chance at life still holds joy, beauty and pain. “Mona Lisa Smile came to me in a dream,” he says of the gorgeous, bucolic acoustic strum decorated by accordion, mandolin and violin from famed string arranger Stevie Blacke (Snoop Dog, Joe Cocker, Alice in Chains). “Y’know, Marie is strong and potent – but there’s another side to her which makes me love her even more. That song is about when I see her vulnerability, or her moments of self-doubt and sadness.” Even by Trout’s standards, Sign Of The Times is a record that puts you through the emotional wringer. But as long as there’s poignant and relevant music, we have a fighting chance. As a lifelong road warrior, Trout will be taking the Sign Of The Times material to global audiences throughout 2025. And for those glorious two hours of playing to audiences, political divides and culture wars will crumble as a crowd with little else common melts into a communion of souls. “I could be on social media, writing very explicit posts,” he considers. “But I don’t want to contribute to the division. When I’m up onstage playing a minor-key blues, and I look down at the front row and there’s a burly biker – and he’s crying – at that moment, I’m hitting him in our common humanity, and it doesn’t matter who he voted for. At that moment, we are all in this together…” Walter Trout Online Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | YouTube | Spotify |
| Tour Dates Tickets are available HERE Thu, June 12, 2025 – Fremont Theatre, San Luis Obispo, CA, United States Fri, June 13, 2025 – Golden State Theatre, Monterey, CA, United States Sat, June 14, 2025 – Uptown Theatre, Napa, CA, United States Sun, June 15, 2025 – San Jose Fountain Blues and Brews Festival, CA, United States Thu, July 17, 2025 – Honberg Sommer, Tuttlingen, Germany Fri, July 18, 2025 – München, Backstage, Germany Sat, July 19, 2025 – Hannover Bluesgarage, Germany Sun, July 20, 2025 – Leer, Zollhaus, Germany Tue, July 22, 2025 – Ekkodalshuset & Cafe Genlyd, Aakirkeby, Denmark Thu, July 25, 2025 – Narcao Blues Festival, Italy Sat, July 27, 2025 – Dal Misssisipi al Po Festival 2025, Italy Fri, August 1, 2025, Notodden Bluesfestival, Norway Fri, August 15, 2025 – Leipzig, Parkbühne, Germany Sun, August 17, Gimsinghoved Festival 2025, Denmark Wed, September 3, MIM Music Theater, Phoenix, AZ, United States Fri, September 5, Big Blues Bender, Las Vegas, NV, United States Sat, September 6, The State Room, Salt Lake City, United States Sun, September 7, 2025 – Treefort Music Hall, Boise, Idaho, United States Tue, September 9, 2025 – Jazz Alley, Seattle, Washington, United States Wed, September 10, 2025 – Jazz Alley, Seattle, Washington, United States Thu, September 11, 2025 – Aladdin Theater, Portland, Oregon, United States Fri, September 12, 2025 – Wicket Hall, Victoria, Canada, Thu, September 18, 2025 – SPACE, Evanston, Chicago, United States Sat, September 20, 2025 – Beachland Ballroom & Tavern, Cleveland, Ohio, United States Sun, September 21, 2025 – The Ludlow Garage, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States Wed, September 24, 2025 – The Jazz Market, New Orleans, United States Thu, September 25, 2025 – The Jazz Market, New Orleans, United States Sat, October 25, 2025 – Dark Season Blues Festival, Svalbard, Norway Tue, October 28, 2025 – Musikhuset, Posten, Odense, Denmark Wed, October 29, 2025 – Train, Aarhus, Denmark Thu, October 30, 2025 – Eksercerhuset, Fredericia, Denmark Fri, October 31, 2025 – Vesterbrogade 10, Viborg, Denmark Sat, November 1, 2025 – Amager Bio, Copenhagen, Denmark Tue, November 4, 2025 – Pustervik, Gothenburg, Sweden Thu, November 6, 2025 – Katalin And All That Jazz, Uppsala, Sweden Sun, November 9, 2025 – House of Culture, Helsinki, Finland Wed, November 12, 2025 – Markthalle, Hamburg, Germany Thu, November 13, 2025 – Tante Ju, Dresden, Germany Fri, November 14, 2025 – Kesselhaus, Berlin, Germany Tue, November 18, 2025 – Kaufleuten, Zurich, Switzerland Wed, November 19, 2025 – Im Wizemann (Halle), Stuttgart, Germany Thu, November 20, 2025 – Halle02 – Heidelberg, Germany Sat, November 22, 2025 – Lux, Herenthout, Belgium Tue, November 25, 2025 – TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, Netherlands Wed, November 26, 2025 – Die Kantine, Köln, Germany Thu, November 27, 2025 – Podium Victorie, Alkmaar, Netherlands Fri, November 28, 2025 – Poppodium De Boerderij, Zoetermeer, Netherlands Sat, November 29, 2025 – Metropool, Hengelo, Netherlands Sun, November 30, 2025 – Zeche Bochum, Bochum, Germany |
