Tom Moriarty recovers from career threatening injury to release new album

Tom Moriarty theroad

The highly acclaimed British singer-songwriter Tom Moriarty returns with his new album The Road on 7th August, eighteen-months after suffering a career-threatening head injury.

It was in fact a record that might have never been released, at least whilst Tom was alive. In January 2014, Tom fell over and hit his head. He spent the next six months with concussion. “It was a close run thing, one of those where it could have gone either way. I may have never come back. It’s all a haze now, there’s still some issues but I’m glad to be here playing and singing again.”

It was only at the beginning of this year that Tom resumed with his music, and so the album which was finished in September 2013 is released in August 2015.

The early signs for the new album are good, with Tom already having picked up a fan in David Crosby who, on hearing the album’s first single ‘Me And The Sun’, commented, “That’s beautiful…real fine. Made a good record of it, too. Hope we meet sometime somewhere.” As Tom would say in the title track of the album, “I hope that we meet on the road.”

Working with producer Tristan Longworth (Jon Allen, The Third Degree), Tom’s new songs are a collection of observations and experiences on life’s journey, whether the stories are personal or about people he’s come across. Musically it builds on the blues/folk guitar roots-rock DNA of his debut album Fire In The Doll’s House, and with Tom’s beaten-up vocals hewn out of rock and soaked in brandy and cigarettes, his is a sound that inevitably draws comparisons with Martyn, LaMontagne and Vedder. “Like Eddie Vedder covering Nick Drake,” said XFM.

Tom’s music stems from his Irish roots, with his first musical memories coming from visits to see his grandparents in Dingle Bay, where Tom would first hear a traditional session through a bar room door and listen to his grandfather recite Dickens. It was here where he learned the importance of melody, poetry and storytelling, and where he started to explore songwriting on his first acoustic guitar.

After his childhood days Tom ended up in London for his studies at the London School of Economics where he studied socio-economic theory and environmental issues, themes which would eventually show themselves in his writing when he was gigging around London..

After London, Tom played on the music scene in Cambridge for a while before going off to Los Angeles to complete his studies at the Musician’s Institute in Los Angeles. Tom then returning to London and became a regular on the London acoustic scene where he honed his skills.

In 2011, Tom’s single ‘Smile If You Wanna Get High’ was played listed by BBC Radio 2. The subsequent release of his 2012 debut album Fire in the Doll’s House led to further airplay support from BBC 6Music and XFM, as well as being awarded 4- star reviews by Q magazine, Guitarist, Maverick and OK magazine. Further regional airplay support came from BBC Radio London, Manchester, Bristol, Wales, Three Counties and BBC Introducing.

Picking-up on the social commentary within the album, The Sunday Times heralded Fire In The Doll’s House, proclaiming “the protest singer has a pulse again”. Tom often reflects that that says more about the absence of any message in music today than any fist in the air he might have displayed.

Following this success, in 2013 Tom released an EP entitled Snapshots of Reality, which reflected on various themes, but not least his time as a founder of the Occupy movement in the UK, which provided much inspiration.

Having just about recovered from his injuries, Tom Moriarty is looking forward to picking-up where he left off in 2013, and getting back on The Road in August 2105.

Artist’s website: www.tommoriarty.co.uk

‘By Your Side’ from The Road:


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