From Sean Nicholas Savage:

I wrote this waiting around forever to catch a bus in east hollywood. like a puzzle, or as if pulling a thread from one line to the next, the song wrote itself. I didn’t think I could ever really sing a song like that, though maybe someone else would record it someday, never knowing at the time, that someone would be me.

In Spring 2024 Savage recorded the first version of “The Knowing” in Edmonton, Canada. In the same basement where he grew up listening to records late at night, with the speakers off and his ear to the needle so no one would wake up. The song Part 2 (featuring Better Person) was written about the West Edmonton Mall near where Sean grew up, which was the biggest mall in the world until 2004.

That August, the second version of the record was produced with longtime collaborator Pascal Chenard and bandmate Samuel Beaulieu in London England where Savage was born. Chenard produced music for the live version of Savage’s musical play “Please Thrill Me” and musical film “The Plumber”. The album’s opener, “Stranger Than Fiction”, was written on the tube and recorded during the first night of the London session, which was also Sean Nicholas Savage’s birthday.

Sean Nicholas Savage engaged several other collaborators on this record. The lead single, “Your Drug”, a reflective duet with Arbutus Records label mate Marci, both familiar and yet with an edgy bareness that allows it to recontextualize its nostalgic trope. Belgian singer songwriter David Numwami plays guitar on the songs “Stranger Than Fiction” and “Wild Things” and artist JJ Weihl aka Discovery Zone helped co-wrote “Pink Bouquet”.

The last few years of Sean Nicholas Savage’s output have seen three musicals, each with original music: “Please Thrill Me”, “The Fear” and “The Plumber”, the latter of which was made into a film. Savage’s last two records, “Shine” and “Life Is Crazy”, each progressively more stark and introspective, are masterpieces in their own right.

‘What is The Knowing about?

I tell you that I don’t know in the song. That’s almost all that I say, is that I don’t know.
Do you believe in spells?

There’s a lot of tom foolery going on with that song, a lot of tom fuckery..’

Sean Nicholas Savage 2025 Tour Dates

05-20 | Nashville, TN | Third Man Records – Blue Room
05-22 | Detroit, MI | Small’s
05-24 | Cleveland, OH | Grog Shop
05-28 | Somerville, MA | The Rockwell
05-29 | Brooklyn, NY | Elsewhere Rooftop

Supporting Christopher Owens

pre-order the Knowing HERE