Dave Monks has dropped his “Don’t Get Pushed Around.” The track features rapper Shad, and is off the Tokyo Police Club frontman’s forthcoming solo release, I’ve Always Wanted To Be Me, available October 15 via his own newly launched Ghost Pepper Records.

From Dave Monks:

“Shad happened to be mixing his record next door to where I was recording. We asked him to come check out a track for a feature, and it just clicked. His string of heartfelt words really makes my one-liner, Don’t Get Pushed Around’, and is the kind of casual collaboration you hear about but never think will ever happen to you.”

As the album title suggests, I’ve Always Wanted To Be Me is Dave being open and honest with both himself and his audience, exploring music with wild enthusiasm, unafraid to go in new directions, to previously explored places.

Regarding the album, Monks added, “If you’re like me, then you’re never quite the same person from one day to the next. Your personality is more of an ever-changing kaleidoscope of ‘yous’ than something set in stone. I’ve embraced that for myself with this album of unlikely outliers, who are stylistically all over the map, but find a weird cohesion in their differentness. There’s so much exciting new territory in it and releasing it feels like turning a new page.

I’ve never been the sci-fi post-punker from TPC or the steel-string troubadour from my early solo records. If I was, I think my creative energy would have died out. It keeps renewing itself though because I’m someone who’s always excited about a new direction. For me this album and the sum of its parts are a discovery of that bigger and truer sense of “me”. The title which came from a dream and stuck, could be my charmed reaction upon realizing that. Like I’ve just heard the final masters and blurt out, “Well, good! I’ve always wanted to be me!”

Dave Monks
I’ve Always Wanted To Be Me
Track List

01. Love
02. Set Yourself On Fire
03. Wild Like Me
04. Change Your Mind
05. Sweet
06. Stuck
07. Girl Of Mine
08. Vagabonds
09. Don’t Get Pushed Around feat. Shad
10. Oh Boy
11. Days That I’m Around
12. Can’t Put My Fire Out
13. Deeper Than You Know
14. No Stranger