Tom Lark – Rock & Roll Baby: 13th Floor New Song Of The Day
Tom Lark (Shannon Fowler) has released Rock & Roll Baby, the second single from his sophomore album Moonlight Hotel. The track captures a poignant acceptance of the unpredictability of a musical life – and follows Dumb Luck, which was released in April 2024 as a sweetener for a UK tour.
Here is the blurb with more:
“Rock & Roll Baby is a tune about making peace with the cards you’re dealt and poking fun at a losing hand,” says Fowler. “‘That’s rock & roll for you baby’ is a goofy slogan I like to tell myself to move through disappointments; it helps to remind me to find humour in some of the more crushing moments a musical nightlife can throw your way.
“For me it’s a philosophical fridge magnet to explain the goofy and weird world of music. Sometimes things don’t go your way at all, but every now and then these moments wobble along into something really special and you find yourself with some of the most wonderful people and that makes it all worth it – ‘that’s rock & roll for you baby’ becomes a celebration.”
The single is accompanied by a video directed by Sports Team, that sees Fowler have fun with motifs and stereotypes in a pastiche of the artist-industry relationship.
Moonlight Hotel sees Tom Lark explore the parallels between Fowler’s family’s historical displacement following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed Murchison – a pioneer town in the upper West Coast of the South Island – and his own following the 2011 earthquakes that levelled much of Ōtautahi.
Steeped in the Tom Lark persona’s whimsical yet pragmatic sensibility, Moonlight Hotel is an evolution of what Brave Star introduced: sun-soaked odes to taking things as they come, and rolling with the punches.
The album has been announced alongside dates for the first live Tom Lark shows in Aotearoa since May 2024.
Moonlight Hotel album release tour dates
Thurs 10 April – Neck of the Woods, Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland
Fri 11 April – Meow, Pōneke | Wellington
Sat 12 April – Space Academy, Ōtautahi | Christchurch
Tickets available now via tomlark.co.nz
Earning him a finalist nod for the 2024 Taite Music Prize and Te Kaipuoro Taketake Toa | Best Folk Artist at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards, the Ōtautahi-born, Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist’s debut album Brave Star was a return for Fowler – who had previously released two eponymous EPs before taking time out to work on his pop craft as Shannon Matthew Vanya.
Brave Star also won Tom Lark an APRA Silver Scroll Award Top 20 nomination in 2023, care of its second single ‘Live Wires’, and reviews like these:
“Brave Star is an album adrift on a sea of memory bliss, cleverly produced and like a sonic mood-piece. It’s an album which gives dream pop a very good name.”
– Graham Reid, Elsewhere / The Listener
“Brave Star is the work of a well-rounded songwriter, as comfortable in the pop realm as he is crafting country-inflected folk-rock tunes, casual and confessional in equal measure.”
– Tony Stamp, RNZ The Sampler
Moonlight Hotel is out 4 April 2025. Pre-order here
Tracklist:
- Dumb Luck
- Rock & Roll Baby
- Dive On In
- Busy Living
- Fuselage
- Love
- Ballad Of The Barry Boys
- Moonlight Hotel
- Fern Ridge
- Let Me Get On
ARTIST BIO
Tom Lark is the musical project of Shannon Fowler, who also releases music as Shannon Matthew Vanya. Where SMV allows for pop indulgence, Tom Lark is an outlet for the artist’s indie sensibilities. Returning from a 7-year hiatus in 2023, with his debut full-length record Brave Star, Fowler returned to his first love – which turns out to be making sunburnt psychedelic folk fit for sensitive cowboys to meander and philosophise to.
Brave Star was a finalist for both the 2024 Taite Music Prize and Te Kaipuoro Taketake Toa | Best Folk Artist at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards – also winning the artist an APRA Silver Scroll Award Top 20 nomination in 2023 for ‘Live Wires’. The record followed two eponymous Tom Lark EPs, which were released in 2011 and 2015 respectively. Those early tunes found a home locally on the Student Radio Network, and abroad on Australian radio station Triple J – where ‘Something To Tell You’ reached #1 Most Played.
Moonlight Hotel sees Tom Lark return with another watertight collection of folk pop hits with a country bent, through which the artist explores the parallels between his family’s historical displacement following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed Murchison – a pioneer town in the upper West Coast of the South Island – and his own following the 2011 earthquakes that levelled much of Ōtautahi.
Fowler was born in Ōtautahi and relocated to Tāmaki Makaurau in 2012, after a stint recording in Berlin. He works from his Okie Dokie Studio, situated just off Karangahape Road. There he has produced, co-written and engineered tracks with a delightful collection of collaborators, including Fazerdaze, Georgia Lines, The Fuzzy Robes, Merk, Randa, A.C. Freazy, Belladonna, and the mysterious Rick Shrimp.
