- 2024-10-21
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MUSIC
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Dean Lewis Releases New Album “The Epilogue”
Australian singer-songwriter Dean Lewis released his third studio album “The Epilogue” on October 18, 2024 via Island Records.
It is his first album in two years since the 2022 album “The Hardest Love”.
The album comprises 12 songs, featuring a guest appearance from American singer-songwriter Sasha Alex Sloan, produced by Afterhrs, Nick Atkinson, Alex Borel, Peter Fenn, Colin Foote, Edd Holloway, Jon Hume, Jon Levine, Dean Lewis, Petey Martin, Sarcastic Sounds, and Steve Solomon.
Unfortunately, his collaborative singles did not included on the album, the likes of “In a Perfect World” with Julia Michaels, “28” with Ruth B, “Middle of Love” with Picture This and “Fix You” with Daniel Seavey.
Dean Lewis said of the album, “My first album had a level of rawness. For the second, I was a little more cautious and pop-oriented, but the songs were meaningful to me. On this record, I started to get rawer and more acoustic again. I was trying to rekindle the simplicity of why things worked. I knew what I wanted to hear, so I embraced what made the first one special.”
He added, “The Epilogue is at the end of a book; it answers some questions and hints at what's to come. This album defines the last 10 years of my life; who I was, who I am now. It's a sound I've developed to be my own; the best I can do and all that I am.”- He shared on social media, “This is 2 years of my life. When I began this process of writing these first songs I was a different person. I remember writing 'until the end' on zoom in the UK, I remember tears pouring out of my eyes as I heard Clélia's song back for the first time in Los Angeles, I remember writing and recording 'Love of my life' alone in a hotel room in Queensland, i remember listening back to 'memories' and getting goose bumps. I never know how these things are going to do now, how they will received is up to the universe and to you guys… but I'm proud of the album! I feel like it's the culmination of a sound I've tried to create over the last 7 years.”
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Dean Lewis told Apple Music about the album, “My whole philosophy changed when I realized I spent the last eight years chasing success. I attached my self-worth to the numbers. How the songs are doing, if the shows are selling out, how my TikToks are doing. I fell into that trap. So this album is me saying goodbye to that whole period of my life. I'm writing songs that I want people to hear about my life in the most specific ways. People won't connect to music if it's just for them, because you can't only write for other people. It's got to be about you.”
Dean Lewis explained about some tracks for the album via Apple Music.
“Empire”
“I wanted it to feel like you're in a cabin on a hill and the wind is hitting it hard. I started with the percussion, the knee tapping. The song is actually about my best friend who I lost my relationship with. She supported me through everything, helping me with my vision, my photos, the TikToks, what song I should release, what style. She gave up so much of her life, and she eventually wanted to go and pursue her own dreams, and I think she felt a bit trapped. So the song is me saying, 'Go and achieve your dreams on your own, and if the wind ever breaks down your windows, I'll be here to help if you need me.'”
“All I Ever Wanted" via press release
“All I Ever Wanted is about when you realise that what you had at the start with someone before things got crazy and blew up was great, and the grass isn't always greener. The thing that I had with this girl before I pursued my dreams, she was everything I ever wanted, I just didn't realise it at the time. I needed to go and try and make something of myself, and you get to that place where you realise that she was all I ever wanted, and I wish I could go back.”
“Rest by Dean Lewis" featuring Sasha Alex Sloan via press release
Dean Lewis: “So after 8 years of releasing depressing music, I finally got around to writing my first love song! I remember walking into the studio and meeting Sasha. Usually when these writing sessions get set up, there's a producer and all these people in the room, but we wanted it to be just us and an engineer. I took out my cheap mini Martin guitar that I'd just bought the day before, and played these chords and a rough melody of a half baked chorus. Sasha said 'that's cool' and we started refining the song line by line. It flowed out really easy. Simple songs are always the hardest ones to write, but when it works it works and this one just flew out.
We had finished the song within about 4 hours, it would have been much quicker, but we kept stopping to share stories about some of the crazy things that had happened to both of us along the way to getting to this point in our lives. We got the demo back that same night and then I sent it off to Colin and Alex to take this acoustic demo and build it up. What they sent back was incredible. We refined the production some more and then we had it; my first ever love song written with and featuring the incredible Sasha Alex Sloan. I hope you love it as much as we do.”
Sasha Alex Sloan: “I've been a fan of Deans for a while so when I found out we were writing together I was a little nervous but the second I walked in the room all my nerves went away. We clicked instantly. This song is the first song we ever wrote together, and I think we stumbled onto some magic that day... so excited for the world to hear it.”
“All Your Lies”
“It's about fake friends, about realizing that not everyone has the best intentions, being a little bit too trusting. It's about wanting to just get away and drive into the hills. You don't always realize that not everyone has the best intentions. It's about a few things—two-faced friends, people that you think are your friends and they're not really. Business things as well. You get taken advantage of, people want to make money from you. It's about a lot of different things in life and wanting to go, 'I just want to make songs, man. I don't care.' I'm not a flashy guy. I don't go to events, I don't care about anything like that. I just want to get away and write songs.”
“Memories”
“It's also about losing my relationship with my best friend, but it was at a different sort of stage. When you just know it's kind of done, but you can also look back and say, 'Wow, we had a great time and these memories are going to stay with me forever. We've gone our separate ways, but I appreciate all that time that we had together.' It's a really special one for me.”
“Trust Me Mate”
“It's another one of those songs where I combined a bunch of things, including some stuff that had happened to me and one of my brothers. You know that feeling of telling a friend to not give up? With my career, there's been so many times where you go up and down, go up and down. You don't stay hot forever and you don't stay at the bottom forever. And it's really good to have friends who will say, 'Hey, it's going to be okay.' Sometimes that's all you need. For me, so many times in my life, you think negatively about something and then someone will go, 'Here's the brighter side,' and I'll feel better. So that song is really about friendship, hope, and not giving up on yourself or your friends.”
“Clélia's Song"
“Clélia was like a sister to my brothers and me. She passed away and I wanted to write a song for her. In the lyrics, I say, 'You're driving the long way around, I'll see you again sometime.... Pick up, pick up, pick up.' It's like, how do you feel? You're lonely. It's just a beautiful song I wanted to write about her and let her know that we're all thinking about her.”
“The Last Bit of Us”
“I wrote my whole second album about one girl. I think it's hilarious and embarrassing, but it's the truth. This is me saying, 'This is the last song I'm going to write about you and about us.' It was interesting, because I knew it was the last one, and it was a choice. It's also about the very last time you hug someone and you say goodbye, so I tried to describe that feeling. I'm really proud of the songwriting in this one, especially the way that it builds in the end with this big instrumental crescendo.” - source : Apple Music
