Long-running singer/songwriter Rocky Votolato is gearing up for his first album since 2015's Hospital Handshakes, Wild Roots, due September 9 via Spartan Records in the US and Thirty Something Records in Europe (pre-order). The album was produced, engineered, and mixed by Rocky himself, and it features James McAllister (Sufjan Stevens, The National) on drums and percussion, Abby Gundersen on piano, string arrangements, and vocal harmonies, Phil Wandscher (Whiskeytown, Jesse Skyes and the Sweet Hereafter) on guitar, and Marcel Gein (Perry O’Parson) on guitar.
The announcement refers to the album as "an intimate concept album inspired by and written for his family. Each song a letter dedicated to a specific family member and focused on a special memory or moment in time. After losing his child in December of 2021 in a tragic car accident, the entire album, and especially the song 'Becoming Human,' now a posthumous love letter, takes on an even deeper while devastatingly bittersweet meaning."