Tom Lark Releases 'Rock & Roll Baby'

14 February 2025

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.

“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.

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