The War On Drugs talk new album art, influences, MSG & more ++ clear blue vinyl pre-order up now

The [recording] experience was so pivotal that a candid snapshot of Granduciel stomping through the soft snow on route to the studio, coffee in hand, became the album’s cover – though his head’s out of frame. He explains the artwork came about by necessity as the pandemic hit soon after: “It wouldn’t have been real if I hired a photographer to come and shoot me in LA; it didn’t feel like that was the record. Then we stumbled upon this out of necessity; the only problem was I was smiling so we had to crop that out. I can look at that cover and get all of the information that is in the record, somehow.”

Adam also talked about some of his core influences, like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and of course Bruce Springsteen, who his son Bruce -- whose birth also impacted this album -- was named after. Springsteen "gets a kick out of it!", Adam told The Independent. The Springsteen influence on The War On Drugs is not hard to hear, but Adam spoke to NME about how The Boss' work ethic was an influence on this album too:

“There was a period where that late ‘70s Springsteen work ethic just chimed with me: [he was] fronting a band and trying to get to the heart of his songs and not really understanding his music yet, but he knew he was searching for a sound. You can use these moments that lined up with your life and you can get traction off them for years. It’s the same with Dylan or Young: [there are] moments of their career that probably feel like a blip to them, but you just happen to intersect with that in a certain time in your own life, and you keep going back to the well.”

He also spoke to The Independent about namedropping Dylan on the album's title track:

While free-associating lyrics for the title track, he came up with the lines: “Like when we went to see Bob Dylan / We danced to ‘Desolation Row’ / But I don’t live here anymore / But I got no place to go”. At first he considered them throwaway lyrics. It was only later, listening back, that he thought about all the times he really had seen Bob Dylan, including that transcendent night with Kurt Vile, back at the start of his musical journey. “When I had time to think about it, I realised it has a context,” he says. “The more I was working on the song, the more I thought: ‘This is a real memory of a very real thing in my life, so why take it out?’”

The band's upcoming tour includes their biggest headlining NYC show yet: the iconic Madison Square Garden on January 29 (tickets). "I couldn’t have imagined playing Madison Square Garden," Adam told NME. "I remember playing so many shows in New York trying to figure out how to play live. The whole thing is crazy."

I Don't Live Here Anymore comes out this week, and you can pre-order it on limited edition translucent blue double vinyl in our store.