Ra Ra Riot have shared their new single “Belladonna” today, the latest offering off of their forthcoming studio album Superbloom, set for release on August 9th, 2019 via Rob the Rich Recordings/Caroline. “Bad to Worse,” which was co-written and produced by Rostam Batmanglij.

Vocalist Wes Miles reflects on the creative path that led to “Belladonna”

“Belladonna” was written at a really pivotal time in the making of this record. We had already finished “Flowers” when we met Kieron Menzies and Dean Reid (who co-wrote and produced) but “Belladonna” is what really solidified the floral bit, crushed psychedelic desert-y vibe of the record in my mind. It sort of bridges the gap between the warm tracks like “Bad To Worse” and the more abrasive tracks from Frenchtown like “Endless Pain/Endless Joy.”

The day we met Kieron & Dean, they showed us this beat. After messing around with a couple melodic ideas, Dean asked if I had any lyrics written down anywhere. So I pulled up my phone looking for lyric ideas but accidentally opened a list of movies that I wanted to watch instead, the first of which was Belladonna of Sadness. It just so happened that “Belladonna” fit perfectly in the melodic line and we kinda took it from there. I finally watched the movie a couple weeks later and after finishing the rest of the lyrics and talking about it with Mat (it’s a really bizarre and disturbing psychedelic Japanese movie from ‘73), he suggested we have some sort of spoken word section to nod back to where the song was spawned from. So we found this delightful monologue (done by Erico Wakamatsu) that fit the timing and captured the vibe perfectly. The full translation, done mostly by Dean (my Japanese is quite rusty) is in the lyric video and I think the story is really beautiful. It’s about a night Erico dreamt she was swimming in a vast lukewarm sea. My favorite part about it is that the last line in the story (it’s not a spoiler) harkens back to a certain cover from very early in our catalog.

Ra Ra Riot
Live Dates

Summer Gods Tour w/ Third Eye Blind & Jimmy Eat World

August 2 @ The Pearl Concert Theater at Palms Casino in Las Vegas, NV
August 3 @ FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine, CA

EU & UK Dates

Dec 2 @ Paradiso in Amsterdam, NL
Dec 3 @ Häkken in Hamburg, DE
Dec 4 @ Musik und Frieden in Berlin, DE
Dec 5 @ Zehner in Munich, DE
Dec 7 @ Helios 37 in Cologne, DE
Dec 8 @ Exil in Zurich, CH
Dec 10 @ The Thekla in Bristol, UK
Dec 11 @ King Tuts in Glasgow, UK
Dec 12 @ The Deaf Institute in Manchester, UK
Dec 13 @ Oslo in London, UK