Richard Thompson announces new album Hippies, Thugs and Heroes

Singer-songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson is readying the release of his 20th studio album, Hippies, Thugs and Heroes—out October 16 on New West Records. Thompson made it with James Frazee in Weehawken, New Jersey, and it’s set to be the follow-up to his 2024’s Ship to Shore. “It’s so much fun to mess around at home and disappear down in the basement for hours at a time,” Thompson shared in a press statement. “I even bought myself a drumkit. So I was able to present more complete demos to the band. You could say there’s much more of my identity being transferred to the final product.” He says that Hippies, Thugs and Heroes is “less [the band] and more me. But I’m never strict about what I want to hear on a record. I’m always interested to see what they come up with, and I always want to see where a song takes me.”

Hippies, Thugs and Heroes promises to live up to its title, as Thompson will dole out many characters in 12 songs, including “old friends and false gurus, beloved musicians and former selves, hippies, thugs, and heroes—some true to life and others dreamed up wholecloth.” Thompson shared today, “You look over the body of songs you’ve written and ask yourself, ‘Which ones are kindred spirits?’ You look for commonality among the songs, and it’s also a joy when you realize that certain songs seem to be brothers and sisters…” The announcement of Hippies, Thugs and Heroes is accompanied by a lead single, “Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking,” which is a “hardscrabble tale of folks hustling in London”—including a carousel queen, a Shakespeare-quoting soldier, a Sauchiehall thug, and a hippie from Kings Road. Listen to the song and check out the album’s artwork and tracklist below.

Hippies, Thugs and Heroes tracklist:
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking
Pauper’s Grove
Unsung Hero
Make Believe You Don’t Know Me
She Burns It All
Everybody’s Stealing
The Soul In Me
Pipe Dreams
The Big Smoke
Stringer
Siren

Watch an interview with Richard Thompson from 1984 below.

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