Back in May, Ryley Walker released his fourth album Deafman Glance. It marked the most significant transformation in an already shape-shifting career, finding Walker miles away from the folk troubadour we once knew as he delved into a battle-scarred sound indebted to Chicago post-rock and perhaps truer to himself than any of his past work. Ranking as one of our favorite albums of the year so far, Deafman Glance is also arguably Walker’s finest work. A dark, difficult album — as a listening experience, and for Walker to make — one might’ve assumed it would take the prolific Walker a little while to release more music this time around. But he’s already back with another new collection, and it isn’t what any of us might’ve expected.

Throughout his career, there has been a divide between Walker’s music and his public persona. Whether onstage or on Twitter, he’s prone to sarcastic quips and outlandish jokes, betraying a far more irreverent sense of humor than might’ve been readily evident in his earlier days. Within that, he’s also enthusiastically co-signed a whole lot of artists still awaiting their reappraisal, or artists who may never get one. From praising Switchfoot’s guitar parts to saying Phil Collins-era Genesis is better than just about anyone, Walker’s got a whole collection of contrarian, yet earnest, takes. And one of them is his long-standing defense of Dave Matthews Band.

So now he’s merged the two worlds. The follow-up to Deafman Glance, as it turns out, is a full-album tribute to Dave Matthews Bands’ lost, unfinished album The Lillywhite Sessions.

Even with the people coming around to Matthews in recent times — most obviously with all the thinkpieces that accompanied the use of “Crash Into Me” in Lady Bird — the move of covering a whole DMB album is a bold one. Dave Matthews Band might have more good songs than you remember, but they are still harshly divisive. Their fans adore them with a fervor reserved for generation-defining artists, while everyone else seems to be made physically ill by the mere mention of them.

For the former group, The Lillywhite Sessions is sacred territory. Intending to cut the successor to 1998’s Before These Crowded Streets, DMB entered the studio with Steve Lillywhite. The recordings were deemed unsatisfactory, and Matthews wound up churning out 2001’s Everyday in just over a week instead. Dave devotees mostly rejected that release, and the whole era became more convoluted from there. The Lillywhite Sessions leaked, prompting everyone to proclaim it a far more superior work to Everyday. Then Matthews re-recorded many of its songs for the 2002 album Busted Stuff. The Lillywhite Sessions never saw official release, and yet it lives on, with some fans calling it the best thing DMB ever did.

The prospect of covering a DMB album began, as many things with Walker, as an off-handed joke. It was him and an employee at his label, seeing each other at the holiday parties. Drinks in hand, they’d commiserate about their shared, shameful past; being of a certain age, DMB was a formative band for them, a deeply uncool thing to admit. Walker suggested he cover a Dave Matthews album. Over a couple years, the notion went from a “wouldn’t that be crazy” aside to a serious possibility with a tiny budget behind it.

Once this was a reality, Walker teamed up with his bassist, Andrew Scott Young, to figure out arrangements of the songs from The Lillywhite Sessions. Young, Walker, and drummer Ryan Jewell all had similar backgrounds: They’d grown up on this stuff. So Walker was determined to make this a serious tribute, avoiding the easy, detached route of taking DMB songs and just making a noise album.

While the whole thing sounds implausible, the end result might be even more shocking. In the end, Walker didn’t play a bunch of DMB songs as DMB had, nor did he completely make them unrecognizable. Instead, he brought them into the same haunted world of Deafman Glance. There are moments on Walker’s album that resemble the originals, and others that he’s taken into searching, world-weary directions. It is perhaps the strangest addendum to Deafman Glance that one could’ve imagined, and yet it somehow works.

Below, hear Walker’s version of “Busted Stuff” and read our interview with him about his inspiration behind The Lillywhite Sessions, his love of Dave Matthews, and the chances that Matthews himself might wind up hearing this thing.

STEREOGUM: While your music is usually serious, you’ve cultivated this anarchic prankster-type persona on Twitter and onstage. It could be easy for people to perceive a full album of Dave Matthews covers as more of an extension of the latter. But you actually have a deep affinity for his music. Even without you intending this as a joke, I imagine there has to be some self-awareness when releasing something like this.

RYLEY WALKER: Yeah, totally aware. You know, I’m in the indie-rock business. So there’s a bit of a wink in there. But I don’t want it to be like I’m making fun of the music or I’m making fun of Dave Matthews fans. I think it’s honestly a loving tribute. This music is part of the American fucking lexicon. It’s totally ingrained in where I grew up, at least. I love covers records a lot. I think I approach it from … If I did Led Zeppelin III, that’s an intrinsically cool record. Every type of music fan likes it.

STEREOGUM: It doesn’t need to be reclaimed.

WALKER: Everybody likes Zeppelin, everybody likes Pink Floyd.

STEREOGUM: You mentioned that the last time we spoke, how you could’ve done Dark Side Of The Moon and it would’ve just been this easy, cool thing.

WALKER: When you do something like Dave Matthews, he’s so divisive. He’s reviled. Outside of jam band scenes, I don’t know maybe Rolling Stone liked him, or Vh1 and shit. But record heads and music nerds and anybody who is kinda hip fucking hates the guy. I don’t even know if they don’t like the music, they just hated how present he was. I’m not trying to reappraise or make everybody think twice about it. It’s just, I grew up on this shit and I wanna do a record where nobody knows what it’s going to sound like. All my friends who haven’t heard it are like, “How can you possibly pull this off?” Exactly. Also, I just like fucking with people.

STEREOGUM: It’s less expected.

WALKER: I’m not trying to push people’s buttons, it’s not performance art. This was hard to do, it was hard to pull off. When it got serious, I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this, man.” This might be really weird. We’ll probably fuck it up somehow. But then Andrew Young, the guy who plays bass on the record, he grew up in a college town in Missouri and he grew up on Dave Matthews, too. My drummer Ryan, who plays with me a lot, he grew up on Carter Beauford. We’re all funky suburban white kids. I approached them with it and they were like, “Fuck yeah.” One day down the road I’d love to cover some heady shit but this was more of a challenge, man.

STEREOGUM: I was surprised how much orchestration there is, where you have these free jazz-rock horn parts. A lot of elements that haven’t played a role in your music before, in some cases.

WALKER: It’s crazy to say, but I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I was on the phone with Phil Waldorf, the guy who runs Dead Oceans, and I was like “Are you just gonna bang your head against a wall if this is the record that finally breaks me?” And he was like, “Yes, I am.” They were approaching it with a grain of salt, for sure. They were just like, “What the fuck is wrong with you.”

STEREOGUM: Especially after the positive reception of Deafman Glance. There’s something to what you were saying about the idea of Dave Matthews being a part of the American lexicon, like a lineage that exists despite being dismissed by critics or whatever. In a way, this is sort of a perfect exclamation point on your Deafman Glance phase, of dismantling the old reverent folkie image of Ryley Walker. Like, from Primrose Green to this bleak and roughened Chicago rock album, then to chase it with The Lillywhite Sessions.

WALKER: Honestly, it’s kind of a perfect storm. I have no filter, I’m lucky to have free reign at Dead Oceans. I think I have this personality, on the internet at least … I’m not an ironic guy, really, I’m just very stupid. I’m very not-academic about the way I approach music. The academics … I’m fucking sick of them. I’m sick of record nerds, I’m sick of elitism, I’m sick of tribalism. That’s what I do on Twitter and shit. Disarming how serious indie-rock people can be. I’m not pointing at anyone specifically, but I’m always turned off by “The world needs my indie rock right now,” especially when the world’s on fucking fire. After the election when people are like, “People need this.” No, we don’t, man.

This record is just an extension of what I was doing in middle school, when I’d drink a gallon of milk and barf it up at the lunch table. I like reaction. I like not doing what’s fun or cool. I have no shame in being a total idiot and poking fun at the rest of the world.

STEREOGUM: What was your intro to Dave Matthews? Did you have a formative album when you were young?

WALKER: I listened to the radio when I was a kid, so I remember hearing “Crash Into Me” when I was young. Once I got a bit older, 13 or 14, my friends’ older brothers and sisters would be big Dave heads. I remember it being cool, like, “The older kids like Dave Matthews.” I didn’t grow up in like, “Oh we all listen to John Coltrane,” I didn’t grow up with artists at all, or hip people. Simple Midwest people. Dave Matthews is their party music. That’s how they get fucked up. I remember that being cool.

They were all revered as these amazing musicians. Which they are, they’re good at what they do. These guys were seen as virtuosos, and virtuosos means genius means I go to Alpine Valley Music Theatre and get fucked up and get impressed. So youth culture where I grew up was based around flip-flop stoner jam band shit. Same with Phish.

STEREOGUM: Why did you choose The Lillywhite Sessions in particular?

WALKER: I like how it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous that I’m a lesser-known indie rock guitarist and we’re doing a Dave Matthews record but we’re not doing any hits. We talked about that. We said, “Let’s do Crash, one of their big records.” Then we got to, what if we just do B-sides and unreleased stuff that only real Dave Matthews heads will know. “Crash Into Me” is a great song, a beautiful song, it really is. But I didn’t want to pay service to songs that were so well-known. I didn’t want the big singles, like “Ants Marching” or “What Would You Say,” to be the selling point. He has a ton of other songs. He has a huge catalog. It’s insane.

[The Lillywhite Sessions is] this record that never came out that every Dave Matthews fan says is the best thing he’s ever done. So to do that, it’s mostly about how absurd it is. I can already see a collective eyeroll in the indie-rock world. But that’s what I want, for them to eyeroll and then go, “They turned these inside-out but it’s still a genuine tribute.”

STEREOGUM: In those sessions or in the finished version of Busted Stuff, there are songs that became hits within the Dave Matthews fanbase, stuff like “Bartender.” But the only real hit off of that is “Grey Street.” Across your version, there are songs that play it a little straighter, songs that severely deconstruct the originals, and “Grey Street” is this weird middle ground. The melody’s there, but the tone is sort of inverted. It’s made much darker and blearier. How did these various covers develop? Were there loose jams originally, or were there specific songs you knew you wanted to really overhaul or stay true to?

WALKER: It wasn’t painstaking to come up with our own versions. It’s the most fun — and easiest time — I’ve had developing songs. Obviously, the source material is there, so that was easy already. We got the songs, we got the words.

STEREOGUM: So it’s just pulling the DNA apart and rearranging.

WALKER: Me and Andrew arranged it and did it all together at his apartment, bass and guitar. A lot of last year I was listening to the Jeff Parker solo albums that came out, if I had to put it to one guitar influence. I’ve been playing guitar differently than I have, it’s based in me flat-picking for the first time. We went in chronological order, in the sequence of the tracklisting. We sat down and played “Busted Stuff” from YouTube. That was our source, since it’s not available on CD officially.

STEREOGUM: You didn’t use the versions from Busted Stuff at all then.

WALKER: Not at all, and that was a big point, because he changes the lyrics a lot, too. We started with “Busted Stuff” and I had this big hollow body guitar at the time, jazzy. We just cruised through them, man. Next was “Grey Street,” that song is meant for 20,000 people in an amphitheater to hear while dancing. But the lyrical themes are pretty fucking horrible. I can’t say Dave Matthews is the most poignant or brilliant lyricist. But that’s probably the best he ever got. It’s a pretty downer song. Something fucked up with some girl, love is fucked up. That kinda set the tone for that one. We made it into this jazzy Red House Painters song or something.

STEREOGUM: I hadn’t thought of that comparison but your version does have this sad, strung-out, ’90s Mark Kozelek type thing going on.

WALKER: Totally. And I kinda sing in this way where it’s somewhat spoken, but I’m just bummed out. That’s how my voice comes out. I think it was really fitting.

STEREOGUM: It’s kinda funny that from the unlikeliest source you made this album that does exist as a companion piece to Deafman Glance, this same dark and broken sonic atmosphere. But you’re playing Dave Matthews songs.

WALKER: I wanted Deafman Glance to sound like the Dave record, man. I’m happy it came out, but I’m so far in hindsight that every idea I put behind me or threw out, I applied to the Dave Matthews record. Mostly because I had different tools or a different approach.

STEREOGUM: Are there ways in which you feel this crystallized ideas you were trying to get to on Deafman Glance?

WALKER: Absolutely. I think it’s also the best I’ve played guitar on a record. I’m really proud of the guitar work on there. It’s an extension of Deafman Glance for sure, like its rich preppy cousin.

STEREOGUM: I feel like this rich preppy cousin is still taking a lot of terrible pills.

WALKER: Oh yeah, selling Xanax out of their dorm. I guess we finished Deafman Glance about a year ago this time, so my brain was still in that universe. The music I’m playing, the music I want to sound like.

STEREOGUM: The way you did “Digging A Ditch” is not from Dave’s world or your world.

WALKER: I wrote this arrangement for it that was smooth and kinda similar to the first one. But Andrew was like let’s make it a groover, speed it up, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, let’s just do it Dino Jr. style. It makes perfect sense. I don’t think any of my records have had strummy feedback. It was big for me. Anybody who knows my music who isn’t a fan of Dave Matthews and hasn’t heard it will hear this and it’ll be like, I never heard Ryley do a song like that. Which I’m psyched about.

STEREOGUM: That’s the thing. This is a revelation in the sense of being such a strange thing for you to follow your album with but it also unlocks new pathways for your own music, theoretically. Like, what would an album sound like if Ryley’s playing sludge-y electric guitar?

WALKER: The Deafman Glance album just took so much time, it was pretty frustrating to me. I was not in a good zone. On this one, I was well-balanced, and we didn’t have a lot of money so I knew we were tight on time, so that motivation … it kinda saved it. I pared down the band way hard. That was the best choice, not having as many people, not too many cooks in the kitchen. Half the work was done for us, because I didn’t have to write anything, but we wanted to make it our own. There were some songs that were difficult to do. We got lost on “Monkey Man.” That song sucks, that’s the worst song on that record.

STEREOGUM: You really dismantled that one, it’s almost a noise collage.

WALKER: It’s really fucked up. When we went into the studio the only song we had no idea what to do with was “Monkey Man.” Honestly, I got Dave’s back, but this is not a good song. The words suck, the grooves suck. We didn’t have any idea what to do with it, we tapped out of ideas. We had ideas for the other songs, and then there’s one more. What you hear on there is the first take, obviously post-production is crazy on it.

STEREOGUM: The funny thing about The Lillywhite Sessions, it’s an album that was supposed to happen and didn’t, and I feel like it’s a turning point in a way. After Before These Crowded Streets, like the “weird and interesting” Dave Matthews album, and then you get into slicker, poppier stuff in the ’00s. This almost like an extra layer of contrarianism, but that’s your favorite era of Dave’s career right?

WALKER: I’m a second generation Dave Matthews fan.

STEREOGUM: It’s somewhat hilarious that that is even a concept.

WALKER: I heard from friends’ siblings. I wasn’t old enough to understand them in ’96, in their prime. I came in during Busted Stuff and Stand Up and I loved those records. I think Stand Up is amazing.

STEREOGUM: There are some really cool songs on it.

WALKER: Dude, “American Baby,” that song is fucking incredible. The “American Baby” intro, I fucking love that shit man, it sounds like a Tortoise song! A lot of the reason why I’m doing this record is that it’s fun and interesting and absurd, but another reason is I can’t wait to gauge what people think of it. It’s absurd that, in music now, everything is a controversy and everything has to have a selling point that it went against something or something’s fucked up. Dave Matthews isn’t fucked up. It’s middle America college rock. When this [covers album] comes out, I don’t know how big or small it’ll be, but people are going to have opinions on it. It’s stupid that music all has to have some kind of controversy with it.

STEREOGUM: But I feel like you have to enjoy that too to some extent, throwing a grenade in there and seeing what happens.

WALKER: I guess there’s part of me that’s a provocateur, which there seems to be less of today. My brain just moves so fast and stupid. I don’t want to alienate anybody, but I like the idea of really just taking a dump on my old records just like, “Oh, by the way, I like Dave Matthews.” It’s fucking great, you know?

STEREOGUM: What do you hope a diehard Dave Matthews fan might say if they come across it?

WALKER: I tested the waters a bit. I hit up some old friends from high school that I hadn’t talked to much in the last 10 or 12 years. I sent it to a friend who loves Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson. He was like, “Dude, this sounds amazing, your take on these is really nice.” Again, me and Andrew talked a lot — yeah we come from noise and weirdo indie backgrounds, but we want it to be a tribute. These are cover songs. It’s not a “fuck you” record, it’s not a funny record, it’s not a dead serious record. I want Dave Matthews fans to like it. We did enough justice to the songs — we keep the melodies in there and keep the sincerity that Dave was doing at the time. We weren’t even trying to make the songs better, they’re good songs already. They’re really great songs. “Bartender” is an amazing song.

STEREOGUM: Matthews has talked about how those songs were a lot darker, because he was drinking a lot and writing from that place. I’m sure this could’ve been subconscious, but Deafman Glance also came out of pushing substance use to the limits. Do you think there was some kind of elemental pull towards The Lillywhite Sessions, any sort of shared perspective?

WALKER: I’d say so. I mean, Dave’s on a much larger scale obviously. He’s a celebrity. From knowing his music, what I have in common with him is that he was going through a crisis. I think he had a fanbase who he loved and appreciated but he’s hyper-aware that he wasn’t ever critically acclaimed. I think that bothered him a lot. He’s a well-meaning artist. I know a few people who have met him and worked with him on a small scale and they say he’s just a completely down-to-earth guy. He’s a record nerd. He likes Sun Ra and shit. He’s a real head. I think being on a scale that big and being loved by so many is great, but to also be reviled by serious musicians or serious journalists …

He’s an easy target. I understand why: He got so big, and it’s a bit hokey, and his fanbase is jocks for the most part. His fanbase isn’t some esoteric music-seeking people going to the jazz bins looking for Coltrane records. I think he saw himself viewed as a simpleton by the people who claim to be on the forefront of culture. I think that bothered him a lot. And on this record, what he did, he made crazy, dark songs with introspective lyrics. I think he pulled it off really well. I don’t know why they canned it.

STEREOGUM: I think it was one of those situations where people felt like the sessions just weren’t clicking.

WALKER: The thing about The Lillywhite Sessions is that it’s an unfinished record. What we’re hearing was not a finished product. What we’re hearing is rough mixes. If rough mixes of my records came out, I would be fucking pissed. I’m not a perfectionist by any means but … they didn’t finish that record. You can hear chatter on it. What you’re hearing is ideas, not a full-on album.

STEREOGUM: They embraced that to a certain extent though right? They wound up playing the songs.

WALKER: They wound up playing the songs. There’s interviews from those times — because I read up a lot, obviously, in the last year doing this — and they’re on some MTV talk show with Carson Daly or one of those things and at the time they’re a huge band. So they ask what happened with this and Dave’s like “It’s fucked up, I don’t want to talk about it.” They were mad. Understandably so. This is just when the internet, you know, the internet in the ’90s was just bestiality porn and AOL. It was just fucked up.

When music merged with the internet everything went nuts. And they’re from the world where it’s “I sell 20 million records” and they’re suddenly shoved into this world where it’s like, “Oh, we can be compromised.” At the time it came out, people were leaking records. I don’t think they went as hard as Metallica or whatever in being pissed off, but those were the records where it wasn’t supposed to come out and you have it. There are people who say it’s the best thing they’d ever done, and it’s still not a finished record. And I’m not trying to finish it or whatever, like “This is what might’ve happened.” I want to unfinish an unfinished record. I want to take a spin on your bonkers ideas that never went anywhere.

STEREOGUM: The song you stuck closest to was “Bartender.” That’s hallowed ground for a lot of Dave fans. But what was it that compelled you to do that one more straightforward?

WALKER: “Bartender” is a droning song in an open tuning on a 12 string, and that’s the music I like. You can’t compare the two, but I love Akron Family and Six Organs Of Admittance. I love drone-y psych-folk, that’s my favorite music in the world. That’s why I play music. That song has so many similarities to that. The whole time, they don’t change keys. It’s a cyclical sort of song that keeps going and is constant. That’s the music I make. So it was natural. We didn’t want to change anything about it.

STEREOGUM: That’s interesting that you felt a different kind of kinship to that one.

WALKER: Same with “Grace Is Gone.” “Grace Is Gone” is what got me back into Dave Matthews. My friend and I used to smoke weed and watch it online. So that’s how I started to get back into him. It’s a bleak fucking song. in that case, he’s writing great lyrics and a great melody, so we played that one really straight, too. We have that big open section at the end, straight outta Jim O’Rourke’s Bad Timing. It’s a heartbreaking song.

STEREOGUM: Do you know if Dave has any awareness of this, or have you thought about how he might react?

WALKER: That’s a really good question. In the record biz, you can cover anything you want. If I wanted to play, I don’t know, “Yesterday,” you can do that. If you sell it and put it out on digital and physical media, you have to pay mechanical royalties, which is x percent of whatever sales goes to the songwriters and publishers. Fair enough, it’s their fucking song. But, because a lot of these songs are unreleased, they have the first right to put those out. So had we put these out with explicit permission. Songs like “Raven” and some others that have never gotten officially released, you’re talking “We’re going to take you to court and sue you for a million dollars.” They can prove we wrote this song 20 years ago and you’re selling it.

We had to get contract written permission to get the go-ahead to release these from his management company. They wrote back, “Oh, cool, here’s some terms, here’s a written agreement.” The last sentence was “Dave can’t wait to hear this.” Whaaaat! I haven’t talked to the guy, I don’t expect to, I won’t get my hopes up, but the powers that be are hyper-aware. We had to get explicit permission. I believe the label sent it to them. I haven’t heard what happened or became of it.

STEREOGUM: What do you think he’s gonna say when he hears this weird broken-down version of this?

WALKER: I hope he likes it, it’s a loving tribute. He seems very grounded and down to earth and I hope he can see it’s out of total love and respect. We talk about this a lot, music’s weird right now, so many things coming back around like the Dead and Steely Dan. All these bands — Steely Dan is like, the most influential band in indie rock. Whereas it used to be for Long Island DJs. It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t hip, it wasn’t sexy. Every 22 year old band sounds like Steely Dan.

STEREOGUM: So you’re waiting for the moment where everyone sounds like Dave Matthews?

WALKER: I would hope that happens. Right now’s a good time to do it. They had the song in Lady Bird …

STEREOGUM: He’s had a little revival going, yeah. Coming out on the other side of this, are there any other albums you’d be open to doing a full-length cover of in the future?

WALKER: Not right now. I listen to a lot of Genesis. I’m a huge Genesis fan.

STEREOGUM: I have a weird thing with Genesis where I don’t really know the revered Peter Gabriel era that well even though I love his solo stuff.

WALKER: His solo records are great. “San Jacinto” is like one of the best songs of all time. You gotta get into Genesis, man. I like the Phil Collins era better.

STEREOGUM: That’s the stuff I know and like, yeah.

WALKER: I’m a big fan of prog, like King Crimson and shit. Selling England By The Pound is a great record but it gets like, prog with a capital P. Listen to A Trick Of The Tail, the first Phil Collins-led album. It’s beautiful.

STEREOGUM: So you’re going to do a Genesis album.

WALKER: Not right now. One day. Genesis is a tough one to approach. But the era of the deep cut … deep cuts are great, but fuck deep cuts. I’m sure someone from the Alan Lomax foundation or Folkways would fucking punch me in the face if they heard this, but Dave Matthews is part of the American songbook, whether you fucking like it or not. People who are novice guitar players, teenagers, the first song they learn how to play is “Crash Into Me.” I don’t know if he’s very influential outside of his fanbase. There are no bands that’re like, we’re influenced by Dave Matthews. But for a time there, they were the biggest band in the world and “Crash Into Me” was the most successful song on guitar that everybody knows. It’s the ’90s “Smoke On The Water” or “Sunshine Of Your Love.” I think it’s amazing that’s so ingrained in popular culture. It’s easy to play.

There’s something to be said about how he’s part of American culture. Doing this record is a dedication to the dog who wrote them.

TRACKLIST:

01 “Busted Stuff”
02 “Grey Street”
03 “Diggin’ A Ditch”
04 “Sweet Up And Down”
05 “JTR”
06 “Big Eyed Fish”
07 “Grace Is Gone”
08 “Captain”
09 “Bartender”
10 “Monkey Man”
11 “Kit Kat Jam”
12 “Raven”

TOUR DATES:

09/24 – Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar +
09/25 – Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall +
09/26 – Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern +
09/27 – Boise, ID @ Idaho Botanical Gardens (Great Escape Series)
09/28 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court +
09/29 – Denver, CO @ Globe Hall +
09/30 – Fort Collins, CO @ Downtown Artery +
10/02 – Omaha, NE @  Slowdown +
10/03 – Sioux Falls, SD @ Total Drag +
10/04 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th  St. Entry +
10/05 – Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon +
10/06 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Backroom @ Colectivo +
11/06 – Berlin, Germany @ Frannz Club
11/07 – Aarhus, Denmark @ Atlas
11/08 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Vega
11/09 – Wangels, Germany @ Rolling Stone Weekender
11/10 – Utrecht, Netherlands @ Le Guess Who? **
11/10 – Groningen, Netherlands @ ROCKIT Festival
11/11 – Kortrijk, Belgium @ Sonic City Festival
11/12 – Middelburg, Netherlands @ Kloveniersdoelen 
11/13 – Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique *
11/14 – Köln, Germany @ Artheater *
11/15 – Bern, Switzerland @ ISC Club *
11/16 – Zurich, Switzerland @ Bogen F *
11/17 – Rust, Germany @ Rolling Stone Park
11/19 – Barcelona, Spain @ Sidecar *
11/20 – Madrid, Spain @ El Intruso *
11/21 – Sevilla, Spain @ Sala X *
11/22 – Lisbon, Portugal @ ZDB *
11/24 – San Sebastian, Spain @ Badabada *
11/25 – Limoges, France @ Le Phare
11/26 – Lille, France @ Le Bar Bulle de la Maison Folie Moulins
11/27 – London, UK @ Scala *
11/28 – Bristol, UK @ The Fleece *
11/29 – Manchester, UK @ Band On The Wall *
11/30 – Brighton, UK @ The Old Market *
12/01 – Paris, France @ Point Ephemere *
12/02 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso Noord *
12/05 – Grand Rapids, MI @ Calvin College Recital Hall ++
12/06 – Detroit, MI @ El Club ++
12/07 – Toronto, ON @ Baby G ++
12/08 – Montreal, QC @ L’Esco ++
12/09 – Portland, ME @ SPACE Gallery ++
12/10 – Greenfield, MA @ Root Cellar ++
12/11 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott ++
12/12 – Providence, RI @ Columbus Theatre ++
12/13 – Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle ++
12/14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right ++ 
12/15 – Montclair, NJ @ Outpost In The Burbs ++
12/16 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd ++
12/17 – Charlottesville, VA – Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar
12/18 – Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light ++
12/19 – Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn ++
12/20 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement ++
12/21 – Indianapolis, IN @ White Rabbit Cabaret ++
12/28 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle ***

+ with Health & Beauty
* with Andrew Tuttle
** collaborative set with Kikagaku Moyo
++ with Mute Duo
*** with Ohmme and Ben Lamar Gay

The Lillywhite Sessions is out 11/16 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.