For the last 30 years, Greg Dulli, frontman of The Afghan Whigs and The  Twilight Singers, has been the poet laureate of the bizarre whims and cruel tangents of desire. A foremost authority on the sell-your-soul rewards of carnal lust, the high voltage epiphanies of chemical enhancement, and the serotonin lows left in their wake. Therein lies Random Desire, the first solo album under Dulli’s own name, due for release this coming February 21st via Royal Cream/BMG. The album opener. “Pantomima,” sets the tone from the sardonic taunts of the album’s first bars: desolation, come and get it. The single is out now. Today, Dulli has also announced a Spring 2020 European tour. US tour dates in support of the album will be announced soon. Full dates below.

Random Desire started in the aftermath of the last Whigs record, 2017’sIn Spades,  Drummer Patrick Keeler was about to take a short sabbatical to record and tour with his other band, The Raconteurs. Dulli’s longtime collaborator, bassist John Curley went back to school, and there was the tragic death of the band’s guitarist, Dave Rosser. 

In response, Dulli returned to his teenage bedroom roots, finding musical inspiration via the model of one-man-band visionaries Prince and Todd Rundgren. The Los Angeles-by-way-of-Hamilton Ohio native wrote nearly every part of the record from piano lines to drums to bass riffs. As always, the music came first and the lyrics were completed later. Recording and writing way stations included his home in Silver Lake, the village of Crestline high up in the mountains above San Bernardino, and New Orleans. But the bulk was finished amidst the arid beauty and stark isolation of Joshua Tree (at the studio of engineer Christopher Thorne). Dulli handled most instrumentation, but an all-star cast of characters appear across the track-listing including The Whigs’ guitarist Jon Skibic and multi-instrumentalist Rick G. Nelson, Mathias Schneeberger (Twilight Singers), pedal steel wizard, upright bassist, and physician Dr. Stephen Patt, and drummer Jon Theodore (Queens of the Stone Age). 

Greg Dulli / 2020 Tour Dates:
March 19 – Róisín Dubh – Galway, IRELAND
March 20 – Whelans – Dublin, IRELAND
March 22 – SWG3 Warehouse – Glasgow, UK
March 23 – Gorilla – Manchester, UK
March 24 – Islington Assembly Hall – London, UK
March 26 – Paradiso Noord – Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS
March 27 – Muziekodroom – Hasselt, BELGIUM
March 28 – Trix – Antwerp, BELGIUM
March 30 – Luxor – Cologne, GERMANY
March 31 – Lido – Berlin, GERMANY
April 02 – Hotel Cecil – Copenhagen, DENMARK
April 03 – Debaser Strand – Stockholm, SWEDEN
April 04 – Parkteatret – Oslo, NORWAY