Night Beats Shares New Single 'Ticket'

Night Beats, the Texas-born brainchild of Danny Lee Blackwell, is today sharing "Ticket" - the latest single to be lifted from the incoming Outlaw R&B album due out May 7th on Fuzz Club Records. Following recent single "New Day," "Ticket" is a piece of thrashing, white-knuckle garage-psych and another insight into the raw, acid-fried sound that the band return to on Outlaw R&B. You can stream "Ticket" HERE, watch the music video and preorder Outlaw R&B HERE.

New cut "Ticket" is a fast-moving, no-holds-barred cut tackling police brutality and thinly-veiled corruption in the US. Blackwell says of the song: "'Ticket' was recorded in Los Angeles at the height of the riots and chaos in 2020. Police sirens, fireworks and gunshots became the soundtrack to everyday life in Hollywood. The main character of 'Ticket' is another victim of a twisted f*ck with a badge. The first half of the song is from the perspective of the cops but then the lens shifts and eventually the predator becomes the prey."

On the "Ticket" video, directed by Cameron Holland, Blackwell says: "I wanted to capture the essence of 'Ticket' in a way that explored the dystopian nature of Los Angeles in 2020. I love 'film noir' from the 50s and grew up on skate videos of the late 90s/early 2000s. I wanted to try and combine those two moulds in a 'Skate Film Noir' where our character is being chased by an implied danger. Dayana [Young] travels through the city of LA on her skateboard almost with childlike wonderment - to the backdrop of empty foggy streets, decaying urban life, police sirens and helicopters flying by. In the end all we can do is keep going, and be as introspective as one can be in a burning house."

Blackwell, a Texas native, had moved to LA in early 2020 just before the world went into lockdown. He wrote a recorded a bulk of Outlaw R&B during the pandemic, protests and California fires and the album reflects the general unrest of the time. The album also follow's 2019's Dan Auerbach (Black Keys) produced Myth of A Man LP and where the last Night Beats LP was a distinctly polished and soulful affair, Outlaw R&B sees the band return to their natural habitat: riotous, acid-fried rock'n'roll to lose your head to.

With four albums now behind them - their self-titled 2011 debut, 2013's Sonic Bloom, 2016's Who Sold My Generation and 2019's Myth of A Man - Night Beats have garnered a reputation as one of the finest purveyors of contemporary rock'n'roll hedonism around. They've clocked up critical acclaim, toured across North and South America, Europe, Asia and South Africa and shared the stage with the likes of The Black Angels, Roky Erickson, The Jesus and Mary Chain, BRMC, The Zombies, Black Lips, Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees, among many others. Their fifth album, Outlaw R&B, arrives May 7th on London-based label Fuzz Club Records.

Watch the music video here: