Today, acclaimed New Orleans-based blues-roots-rock quintet Honey Island Swamp Band has released their new studio album Custom Deluxe. PRESS HERE to listen. Custom Deluxe, the sixth studio album from Honey Island Swamp Band already hailed as their “strongest one yet” by Offbeat Magazine, includes their latest single “Gone,” currently featured on Spotify’s In the Name of the Blues playlist curated by Joe Bonamassa, and previously released single “Second Son.” The five-piece will officially celebrate the album with a release party at Maple Leaf in New Orleans tomorrow, Saturday, October 28th – PRESS HERE for tickets. Custom Deluxe, the band’s debut release for Color Red, is available now digitally and on CD and vinyl – PRESS HERE to purchase vinyl and PRESS HERE for CDs.
“It’s been a long journey to get this record out,” shares front man Aaron Wilkinson. “We’re thrilled to finally be able to share it with our fans and celebrate at the Maple Leaf this weekend with all our NOLA friends and family.”
Custom Deluxe marks the most satisfying, consolidative album to date for Honey Island Swamp Band and the follow-up to 2016’s Demolition Days. Songs like the kinetic “High River Rag,” authoritative “Wildfire” and blues-rocking “Sugar for Sugar” display these musical omnivores at a new zenith. As a whole, Custom Deluxe shows the Honey Island Swamp Band to represent the best of two worlds: a band capable of sharp, solid writing, who can also bend and stretch the material live in the spirit of Van Morrison or the Allman Brothers Band.
The 10 songs on Custom Deluxe, produced by Jack Miele and Wilkinson, were recorded at various studios around the U.S. during off days amidst a heady touring cycle, including on top of a mountain in Colorado and a lengthy session in the Big Easy. “Gone,” the first track recorded for the new album, was tracked at Eagle Wind Sound studio in Winter Park, Colorado, owned by the Alan Parsons’ Project’s singer, PJ Olsson, while “Second Son” was recorded at Color Red’s Denver studio with Color Red label head Eddie Roberts accompanying on the song. Full track listing for Custom Deluxe below.
Since forming in 2005 in San Francisco after their displacement from New Orleans via Katrina, and subsequently relocating back home, Honey Island Swamp Band has evolved to embody contemporary roots music. The fivesome — bandleader and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Wilkinson, guitarist and vocalist Lee Yankee, bassist Sam Price, keyboardist Chris Spies, and drummer and vocalist Garland Paul — is a thrilling, eclectic band that defies genre conventions, renders song structures elastic, and wholeheartedly stresses that the song reigns supreme. Their music is melody-driven, vocal-driven, and lyric-driven, with influences that range from Jason Isbell, John Prine, Little Feat, Junior Wells and The Meters to Fleetwood Mac, Taj Mahal, Iron and Wine, Peter Gabriel, and Beck. Throughout their storied career, Honey Island Swamp Band has performed at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for 15 consecutive years as well as appearances at Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, Americana Fest Nashville, Thunder Bay Blues Fest, Jam Cruise, and many more, and have toured and/or performed alongside the likes of JJ Grey and Mofro, Leftover Salmon, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Ave, Soul Rebels, Galactic, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Derek Trucks Band, Anders Osborne, and North Mississippi Allstars.
Custom Deluxe Track Listing
1. Gone
2. High River Rag
3. Second Son
4. Down the Line
5. Wildfire
6. I Don’t Wanna Lose
7. Dark Days
8. Sugar for Sugar
9. Boneshaker
10. By and By
HONEY ISLAND SWAMP BAND TOUR DATES
October 28 – New Orleans, LA @ Maple Leaf *Album Release Party
November 4-11 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Big Easy Cruise
November 25 – New Orleans, LA @ The Rabbit Hole
December 2 – Ocean Springs, MS @ Silent Light Fest
December 3 – New Orleans, LA @ Saints Pre-Game Concert at Champions Square
February 24 – Charleston, SC @ Rock the Block
