Today, X Ambassadors—Sam Nelson Harris and Casey Harrisalong with Adam Levin—unveil new song, “Follow The Sound of My Voice,” a powerful and loving tribute written by Sam for his brother and bandmate, Casey. Listen to the song HERE and watch/share the official performance video HERE.
The track is the latest shared from the band’s highly anticipated new album, Townie, which will be released next Friday, April 5 via Virgin Music (pre-order/pre-save here). The album marks a compelling new chapter for the band as they return to their upstate New York roots and paint an intricate portrait of their hometown’s most mundane aspects and the community that molded them. Ahead of the release, the band has shared three additional tracks: “Your Town,” “No Strings” and “Half-Life.”
Of “Follow The Sound of My Voice,” Sam shares:
“I was terrified to write this song. When I first started thinking about Townie, I had an idea to write a song about every member of the band. Then I realized that I would have to write a song about my brother, Casey. My stomach instantly went into knots. It scared me so much — not only because distilling our entire relationship into a single song seemed so daunting, but also because I knew that I’d have to talk very candidly about a pretty big elephant in the room.
Casey is blind. He was born blind due to a genetic disorder called Senior-Løken syndrome. I’ve helped my brother navigate through the world my whole life. He uses a cane, but I’m often also guiding him by the shoulder. And when he doesn’t have his cane and my hands are full, he has to rely solely on the sound of my voice. Just a voice in the dark, reaching out.
Casey— being your brother has been the greatest gift I could’ve ever asked for. And for all the times I’ve used you to skip to the front of the line at the airport, I’ll love you forever.”
Adding to an already notable year, X Ambassadors recently wrapped their hugely successful U.K./European tour, with sold out nights in Paris, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Munich, Zurich, Cologne and their largest show to date in London. They’ll continue to tour in support of the new music through this summer with extensive North American dates beginning next Friday, April 5 and including stops in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Seattle, Austin and more. Complete list of dates below. The shows will see support from New West and Rowan Drake in the U.S., and Noah Gundersen in Canada.
Townie follows a move from the band’s hometown of Ithaca, New York to Brooklyn, an explosive debut album, extensive global touring, as well as recent work with massive artists such as Lizzo, Rihanna, The Weeknd and SZA, and multiple songs penned for major motion pictures.
Reflecting on the project, Sam shares, “A gas station glows in the night, two miles from the Tompkins County line. It cuts through the bleak, winter night like a grotesque, twenty-first century lighthouse. To the east— the college town of Ithaca, NY. To the west, everything else. The air is cold and unforgiving. The landscape every shade of grey and brown on the color-wheel. A couple of teenagers loiter in the parking lot, plotting their escape. Most of them know they won’t ever leave this town, so tonight their escape is a temporary one. Rollies and half-drank liters of Mountain Dew. Grapefruit blunts and chapped lips. Their baggy clothes full of restlessness and longing. This is Townie.”
Townie adds to a renowned career for X Ambassadors, who exploded onto the scene in 2015 with the success of their Platinum-certified debut album, VHS. The record featured singles “Unsteady” and “Renegades,” which have since garnered more than 1.3 billion streams on Spotify and led the band to a three-year long world tour. VHS was followed by ORION (2019), the Belong EP (2020), The Beautiful Liar (2021) and (Eg) (2023), a series of collaborative singles featuring artists such as BRELAND, Teddy Swims & Jac Ross, Medium Build and PAMÉ.
Recently, the band released “Deep End,” which was written for and featured in the new movie, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The track is just the latest contribution the band has made to major films, with other works including “Torches” (Transformers), “Great Unknown” (The Call of the Wild) and “Sucker for Pain” (Suicide Squad) among others.
