William The Conqueror Premiere 'The Bruises' Video

06-14-2023

Single art

(Big Mouth) William The Conqueror have today unveiled the video to their new single 'The Bruises'. Taken from their forthcoming album 'Excuse Me While I Vanish', out 28th July on Chrysalis Records, the track is the follow-up to last month's single 'The Puppet and the Puppeteer'.

Produced by the band in a playground of vintage gear and mixed by Barny Barnicott (Arctic Monkeys, Sam Fender, Kasabian), the ten tracks on 'Excuse Me While I Vanish' marry earworm tunes with insistent, imperious, soaring rock shapes, punctuated by chorus hooks that are simultaneously nuanced and anthemic. William The Conqueror, who performed to a packed room at The Great Escape last month, head out on a European tour with Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats next week. The band will embark on a headline tour of the UK in October.

"My favourite kind of songwriting is when you have no control over what's happening" explains frontman Ruarri. "The song just arrives, finding its way through your fingers onto the fret board, as the pen wanders the page and somehow says everything you didn't realise you needed to say. The Bruises was like that. It wasn't and then all of a sudden, it was." Bassist Naomi adds, "'The Bruises' will stay with you all day. And with a verse that catchy, you don't really need a chorus. Which is lucky."

'Excuse Me While I Vanish', very nearly didn't happen. Following the imposition of lockdown restrictions, Joseph found himself cocooned at home in Cornwall, ruminating on an uncertain creative future, watching on as his wife Mandy, a valiant mental health social worker, engaged with the all-too-real dilemmas of the pandemic-riven here and now. Her example motivated Joseph to become a temporary care worker, an experience which would provide renewed focus and influence the songwriting on the new album.

"My wife was insomniac for the first six months of lockdown, which made it impossible for me to moan or grieve the fact that everything I'd been working on for the last five years had come to a standstill. It was a much-needed perspective and made me realise what a selfish undertaking William had been - navel-gazing with my head in the clouds when what people needed was boots firmly on the ground, preferably on the feet of someone like Mandy."

NATIONWIDE INSTORE APPEARANCES:
Fri 28th July (album release day) - Music's Not Dead, Bexhill-On-Sea
Sat 29th July - Sound Knowledge, Marlborough
Sun 30th July - Rough Trade, Bristol
Mon 31st July - Banquet, Kingston
Tues 1st August - Truck, Oxford
Weds 2nd August - Pie & Vinyl, Portsmouth
Thurs 3rd August - Rough Trade East, London
Sat 5th August - Black Circle Records, Leighton Buzzard
Sun 6th August - Jumbo Records, Leeds