COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS RELEASES DEBUT UK SINGLE ‘PUT THE FIRE OUT’

NEW ALBUM ‘HONEST LIFE’ OUT 20 JANUARY 2017

“Emmylou Harris, Neko Case,P J Harvey – that’s rarified company but it’s where Andrews belongs with her latest” – PASTE

“Gorgeously introspective Laurel Canyon-tinged folk, delightfully free of ironic twee” ROLLING STONE

“Andrews matches her sparkling voice with honeyed generally somber folk/country that when matched with often melancholy lyrics will give you shivers” – AMERICAN SONGWRITER

“what a phenomenal songwriter” – RYAN ADAMS

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Rising American singer-songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews today releases her debut UK single ‘Put The Fire Out’, available now. Courtney will also release her new album ‘Honest Life’ in Europe, out on 20 January 2017 on Loose Music. UK fans will be delighted to learn Courtney will be coming to the UK early next year, supporting husband and wife gothic Americana group, The Handsome Family on their much anticipated UK tour, making her London debut at The Union Chapel.

Courtney said of the track: “‘Put The Fire Out’ is a song about letting go, and letting yourself take a break. When writing these songs, I had been on the road for a couple of years without much downtime. I felt my place really was at home and I had a deep longing to be near people that knew me.”

Perhaps currently best known for being Damien Jurado’s lead guitarist, Courtney Marie Andrews has been on the road since she was 16 years old, when she left home in Arizona for her first tour. She travelled up and down the West Coast, busking and playing any bars or cafés that would have her. Soon after she took a Greyhound bus four nights straight from Phoenix to New York to do the same on the East Coast. For a decade or so since Courtney’s been a session and backup singer and guitarist for nearly 40 artists – from Jimmy Eat World to Damien Jurado – but she never stopped writing her own material.

With plans to settle down for a bit and focus on her own songs, Courtney moved to Seattle in 2011 and recorded her last full-length record On My Page. However, the record had hardly been released before she was on the road again performing other artists’ songs, eventually leading her overseas to play guitar and sing with Belgian star Milow. At the tour’s end the other session players joined her to record her 2014 EP Leuven Letters in one take. It was during this time that Courtney also wrote many of the songs on Honest Life. She found herself realising the impact of growing up on the road and this constant reconciling between her own and others’ art and identity. Courtney takes it from there:

“While in Belgium for four months I was going through a major heartbreak. I started growing homesick for America and the comfort of family and friends. That’s where I wrote the first songs for Honest Life. It was a giant hurdle in my life, my first true growing pains as a woman. That’s why I feel this record is a coming of age album. A common thread that runs through the songs is a great desire to fit somewhere, when nowhere fits – and wanting to get back home to the people I know and love. Once I got back to the USA I started to work at a small town bar. At the bar I felt I could truly empathize with the stories and lives of the people there. I wrote the other half of the songs about coming home and feeling a sense of belonging again. A lot of the stories at that bar definitely ran parallel with my own, even though our lives were so different. I was the “musician girl”. They were farmers, construction workers, plumbers, waitresses, and cashiers. But, no matter how different, I felt we were all trying to live our most honest life.”

True to her own vision, Andrews produced the resulting album herself and recorded it at Litho Studios in Seattle with recording engineer Floyd Reitsma, whose recent credits include Noah Gundersen and Pearl Jam. Honest Life will be released 20 January 2017 on 180g turquoise vinyl, CD & download, via Loose.

Courtney Marie Andrews will support the Handsome Family on their UK tour. Dates include:

21 Feb – NORWICH, Arts Centre + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS
22 Feb – MANCHESTER, RNCM + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS
23 Feb – GLASGOW, St Luke’s + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS
24 Feb – EDINBURGH, The Caves + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS
25 Feb – GATESHEAD, Sage 2 + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS
27 Feb – LEEDS, Brudenell Social Club + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS
2 Mar – LONDON, Union Chapel + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS
3 Mar – BRIGHTON, Concorde 2 + COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS