Celebrated as one of Alternative rock’s most important trailblazers, Louise Post – of seminal band Veruca Salt – will be releasing her first solo album, entitled Sleepwalker, on June 2 on El Camino Media. Produced by Matt Drenik (Lions, Battleme), Sleepwalker is a classic combination of Post’s ability to weave intricate lyrical tapestries with undeniable, hook-heavy melodies. The album’s first song, a perfect reverie of guitar haze called “Guilty,” is available to hear now. Click below to listen. Louise has also announced a 19-date headlining tour in support of the album. 

For the past three decades, Louise Post has been the co-frontwoman of the celebrated act Veruca Salt, whose massive hit singles like “Seether” and “Volcano Girls” are still in regular rotation on rock radio. Although Veruca Salt has consistently released music with Post as the sole constant member, during the pandemic she started writing a collection of songs that felt more personal and less like the follow-up to Veruca Salt’s 2015 return-to-form, Ghost Notes. “Out of nowhere, these songs started flowing out of me and almost appeared to be writing themselves,” Post explains, adding that many of these melodies came to her during the transitive state between sleep and consciousness known as hypnagogia. 

“I have always identified as a sleepwalker,” Post says of the album’s title. “I slept-walked around my house routinely when I was a child, and even down the street. I believe in hindsight it was me trying to process what was going on in my home with my parents’ troubled marriage. As far as I know, I stopped sleepwalking after the divorce when I was eight, but it has always been a part of me that I feel protective of, a little girl who I feel sad for,” she continues, adding that sleep has also served as her gateway to creativity.

During these inspired solitary sessions, Post eventually wrote three albums worth of material and was able to edit it down to this collection of eleven songs with help from producer, engineer and multi-instrumentalist, Matt Drenik (Lions, Battleme). She helmed recording guitar, bass and piano herself, asking a rotating cast of other musicians to help her fill out the sound and collectively build the sonic textures that she felt the songs needed. 

Like all of Posts’s best songs, there’s a darkness beneath the surface on Sleepwalker that gives the album a haunting quality that is far from accidental. The sensitivity to her past, and attention to her inner child, is evident on this album, particularly when it comes to songs like the piano-driven “Hollywood Hills.” “I think [that song is] looking back lovingly on the past, paying homage to it, while drawing a clear distinction between the past and present,” she adds. “It’s a really bold thing to do at this moment in time for me personally to come out in a solo context after having been known for being in a band for my entire career.”

In that spirit, Post insists that recording and releasing Sleepwalker wasn’t only a creative endeavor but that she also felt a responsibility to add her voice to the common collective and be loud regarding injustices, whether it came to relationships (“All Messed Up”), feminism (“Queen of the Pirates”) or politics (“Killer”). “Throughout it all, I felt like my higher purpose was screaming at me, trying to wake me up from my despair and setting me on a path of creativity,” she says. “I had felt paralyzed and desolate as the pandemic set in and writing these songs helped snap me out of my stupor and reclaim a small part of the solution.”

Post is quick to add that her connection with and the interest generated by the fans she has cultivated over her career was also a motivating force during those difficult moments when self-doubt set in. “If they weren’t there I don’t know that I would have felt so strongly compelled to deliver this album, but with my listeners’ support, I can say that I have the humblest opportunity to lift spirits and make connections through the magical medium of music,” Post explains.“The gift is mine and I am really grateful for it.”

Photo Courtesy: Alison Dyer