ABC/Paula LoboFive years after releasing his debut album, Hozier is back with his sophomore effort, Wasteland, Baby!, and the Irish singer/songwriter says he feels a huge weight’s been lifted from his shoulders now that it’s out in the world.
The album, featuring the previously released songs “Movement” and “Almost (Sweet Music),” came out Friday, and Hozier tells ABC Radio, “It’s a good feeling. The songs have been burning a hole in my pocket for a while so it’s a bit of an unburdening. It’s nice to just let it out there and let people enjoy it, you know?”
While his writing process on this album didn’t change much, Hozier says his subject matter was heavily influenced by current events.
“I think it was really just approaching like some of the concerns and some anxieties of the time,” he explains. “I think if you’re familiar with the Doomsday Clock, I think that moved two minutes to midnight. And I think it was really just engaging with that and going, ‘Look, here are the fears, here are the concerns.’”
It’s not all doom and gloom, though.
“Some of the songs are [sung] maybe with an element of kind of enjoying…a cultural wasteland or a moral wasteland or just a sort of general wasteland of our times,” he says. “…There’s a levity, like, there’s a sense of fun to it as well.”
Hozier, who performed on Good Morning America Monday, kicks off his U.S. tour on March 10 in Buffalo, NY.
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