The Wombats Release New Track 'My Head Is Not My Friend'

The Wombats have unveiled their new track ‘My Head Is Not My Friend’; the third offering from the chart-topping, platinum-selling indie heroes’ sixth studio album, Oh! The Ocean, out 14th February 2025 via AWAL Recordings. The band recently announced their massive UK & European Tour throughout March & April that sees them play their biggest headline shows to date - tickets available here. 

Lyrics in ‘My Head Is Not My Friend’ see Murph soldiering through hungover regret in search of “one f***ing peaceful day”. Building from subtle alt-rock tones to a punchy finale, the track moves through poignant emotions with charming honesty. 

Speaking on the track Murph says, “'My Head Is Not My Friend' is a song about the idea that maybe I don't actually have my best interests at heart.”

Two years since scoring their debut UK #1 album with Fix Yourself Not The World, The Wombats are back and bigger than ever. Oh! The Ocean trembles with the confessional emotional honesty that makes the Liverpool band's music as cathartic and relatable as it is catchy and playful, to their continuously growing young fanbase. 

The three piece took 50 new songs to Echo Park, LA, in July 2024 for six weeks of sessions with new producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Wallows, Death Cab for Cutie) to create their most sonically adventurous album yet. The title is inspired by a revelatory trip to the beach Murph took on a family holiday. 

Speaking on the experience, Murph says: “I’ve been to many beaches and seas and coasts over the years but for some reason it felt like the first time I had ever seen it and was truly present. There was this revelation that I had been living a life caught up in my own head, or in some kind of racing helmet or with blinkers on. It was really a potent experience. I felt like I saw everything new for the first time, and was aware that I had been so selfish to not take in how crazy the world and life is. I’d been caught up in my own BS for way too long. The album offers up some internal questions like: why are my head and body disconnected all the time? Why am I incapable at times of seeing any form of beauty in the world or in others? Why do I expect the world to conform to my will? Why do I never stop and smell the flowers?”

The Wombats will be setting out on their biggest ever UK Arena Tour a month after the album release, kicking off in Nottingham on March 18th, and then onto London, Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow and Leeds. They then cross the channel for 14 dates across France, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg and Belgium. The band are also set to play their largest homecoming show at Liverpool’s On The Waterfront on June 19. 

Since they emerged as leading lights of the late-‘00s indie rock scene with 2007 debut A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, Murph, bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen and drummer Dan Haggis have maintained an incredible upward momentum. 2011’s electro-flecked second album This Modern Glitch made them Top Ten regulars; 2015’s third Glitterbug saw them embraced by the TikTok generation, with ‘Greek Tragedy’ a viral hit several times over. By 2018’s Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life they'd stepped up to arenas and 2022’s Fix Yourself, Not the World consolidated their unstoppable rise with the band’s first Number One album, seeing them reach over 2.5 billion streams. Headline shows at Crystal Palace and The O2 followed amid the band’s biggest touring cycle so far, taking in arenas across the globe and culminating at Reading 2024, where the band headlined a rammed Radio One tent overspilling with crowds of 18-24-year-olds that remain their core audience twenty years into their career.

With Murph now feeling the benefits of his fresh perspective, Oh! The Ocean represents a line in the sand from which The Wombats are sprinting onwards into a mature new phase.

The Wombats - UK Tour Dates: 

18 March - Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena

19 March - London, The O2

21 March - Cardiff, Utilita Arena

22 March - Manchester, AO Arena

23 March - Hull, Connexin Live

25 March - Glasgow, OVO Hydro

26 March - Leeds, First Direct Arena

19 June -  Liverpool, Pier Head

The Wombats - EU Tour Dates

28 March - France, Paris, Le Trabendo

30 March - Netherlands, Tilburg, 013 Tilburg

31 March - Netherlands, Amsterdam, Paradiso

01 April - Germany, Cologne, E-Werk

03 April - Germany, Munich, Theaterfabrik

04 April - Switzerland, Zurich, Komplex 457

05 April - Czech Republic, Prague, Archa +

07 April - Germany, Berlin, Columbiahalle 

08 April - Germany, Munster, Jovel Music Hall

10 April - Norway, Oslo, Rockefeller Music Hall

11 April - Denmark, Copenhagen, Pumpehuset

12 April - Sweden, Stockholm, Vasateatern

15 April- Luxembourg, Luxembourg City, Den Atelier

16 April - Belgium, Brussels, Botanique

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