From Lewis Capaldi and Ed Sheeran all the way over to Sam Fender and Jake Bugg, solo boys with guitars are currently in vogue and they tend to stick to formulas, like the former two artists with their arena and stadium packing emotion saturated acoustic-ish pop songs or the latter two artists who make sonically full indie group records without the faff of having to split their financial proceeds five-ways with their backing band.
Andrew Cushin bucks the trend, with new single ‘4.5%’ standing stark, honest and sentimentally moving up against much of his melodically raucous output to date. The Newcastle native tells the heartbreaking story of his father’s fight with alcohol and the impact it had on himself and his family over a harrowing keyboard backing and sinisterly pulsating beat that, once the feelings truly start kicking in, sends things soaring skyward with a spectacular guitar solo before the heart-rending, forgiving final line “but I’m still your son”.
Having witnessed audience members burst into empathetic tears in the front row of a couple of Cushin’s gigs after hearing the song live for the first time, it’s safe to say the singer’s new single is his most personal and relatable yet.
Andrew Cushin is currently slamming the touring life hard with a full UK tour of his own announced, as well as playing a bunch tour dates in the US supporting Louis Tomlinson between 15th June – 29th July.
He’s also found time to write and record his debut album ‘Waiting For The Rain’, due for release on 29th September 2023 via the fantastic Strap Originals records. You can pre-order it now in all of it’s many ltd edition colours and bundles. Find the tracklist below:
1. Let Me Give it To You
2. Just Like You’d Want Me To
3. Comedown
4. It’s Coming Round Again
5. 4.5%
6. Broken Love Song
7. Waiting For The Rain
8. Wor Flags
9. Dream For a Moment
10. I Want You To Be There
11. You’ll Be Free
12. The End
Have a watch of the video for ‘4.5%’ below: