American four-piece Black Lips are set to release their new single on Vice Records on Monday the 3rd of September 2007.‘Katrina’ is a taste of what to expect from the band’s forthcoming album ‘Good Bad, Not Evil’ which is released on Vice on the 10th of September. The new single is available as a digital download and released on two limited edition seven-inch records, one backed with brand new studio track ‘Italian Sexual Frustration’, the other featuring fans-favourite and Lips classic ‘Boomerang’.Sounding like Cavern-era Beatles and the 13th Floor Elevators playing the catchiest, most powerful pop song you’ve heard all year, ‘Katrina’ was inspired by the devastating hurricane in New Orleans in August 2005. Black Lips were backstage at a gig in Holland when they heard the news and being from Atlanta, Georgia and having hundreds of friends in New Orleans, seeing CNN’s coverage of thousands of people drowning and dying in oceans of dirty swamp water was pretty shocking, but the images were especially worrying for guitarist Ian St Pe whose family lived in the city. The day after the news broke, and with the uncertainty of whether their friends and family were still alive or not, the Black Lips wrote the song backstage at a show in Utrecht.
'Writing this song was a beautiful thing, said Ian. 'Jared came up with the bassline and we all put our parts on it and it was done really fast. It was written in the circumstance of somebody thinking their foundations were about to be ripped up out from under them.
'My mother’s buried in New Orleans and wherever your mom is, is home. No matter where in the world you are, you can go to where your mom is and still feel like you’re a kid again.
'We’ve played this hundreds of times but it still takes me back to the time when I thought I might have lost everything I knew. I guess everybody has that feeling at some time in their lives.'
Black Lips line up of Cole Alexander - Vocals & Guitar, Joe Bradley - Vocals & Drums, Jared Swilley - Vocals & Bass and Ian St. Pe Guitar return to the UK in August to play the following shows.
AUG 30TH MANCHESTER, THE ROADHOUSE AUG 31ST NOTTINGHAM, THE SOCIAL SEP 01ST LEEDS, THE FAVERSHAM SEP 02ND GLASGOW, OPTIMO SEP 03RD YORK, FIBBERS SEP 04TH LONDON, WHITE HEAT SEP 05TH SINGLE LAUNCH PARTY, ROUGH TRADE, BRICK LANE LONDON SEP 06TH OXFORD, THE CELLARS SEP 07TH BRIGHTON, THE ENGINE ROOM