WOLFMOTHER Frontman To Release Solo Debut

After nearly a decade on the road with WOLFMOTHER, winning a Grammy and numerous ARIA Awards along the way, Andrew Stockdale will release his first solo album, "Keep Moving", this summer.

Stockdale spent the last three years writing in and out of studios and hotel rooms, recording with a variety of musicians and fine-tuning the record to a point where he felt he gelled with it. "I'm really happy with it," Stockdale says of the CD. "Totally, absolutely, I love it. I can live with it. I've listened to it 1,000 times."

The first single, "Long Way To Go", was released April 30 as part of a four-track EP entitled "Keep Moving" on Caroline Records. For Andrew Stockdale, the track came together in a flash — a songwriter's dream. The song grapples with the theme of others' expectations. "It's about when people pigeonhole you, and categorize you," he says. "It's not up to anyone else to tell you the way your dreams can be fulfilled. It's up to you to follow your heart and try make things happen. Whatever someone thinks you can or can't do, it's not up to them. It's up to the individual. And if someone thinks they've got me all worked out, well, hey, I've got a long way to go."

"Keep Moving" is an honest exposé of Stockdale's poetic point of view within his day-to-day experiences and relationships with people. Players and engineers involved in the making of this record featured musicians from the old WOLFMOTHER camp as well as new artists and crew that Stockdale met along the way. Some of them include: Ian Peres (bass, keys); Vin Steele (rhythm guitar); Elliott Hammond (wurly, harp); Hamish Rosser (drums); Will Rockwell-Scott (drums) and Dave Atkins (recording and drums). "Keep Moving" was mixed by Vance Powell at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, and the album was mastered by Chris Athens Masters in Nashville.

Stockdale admits there was pressure to continue playing as WOLFMOTHER, a name created with earlier collaborators. "It was a name, a brand everyone knows," he says. "But I don't feel comfortable playing as WOLFMOTHER. When you write a song, what's on your mind comes out, what's in your heart and soul comes out. It's about your life experiences. I've been getting stuff off my chest, expressing ideas and experiences that are personal to me and I don't want to keep then applying that to the WOLFMOTHER name. I had pressure on my shoulders."

Now there's a new pressure — facing the music world as Andrew Stockdale. "It's a good pressure," Stockdale admits, "because it asks that question: is it any good? Do you like this music, do you like the film clips, the artwork. What's it about? I've put my heart and soul into it, and I believe in it."