Country/roots artist Chris Canterbury released a new single “Heartache For Hire” (LISTEN), along with a music video premiered by Americana Highways (WATCH). The song is included on Canterbury’s second album and first in five years, Quaalude Lullabies, which is out on September 23 (PRE-SAVE/PRE-ADD) via Rancho Deluxe Records, distributed by BFD/The Orchard. The record is a collection of nine beautifully told narratives circling around the challenges of depression and loneliness.
“Heartache For Hire” is an electrified country groove – slow churning backbeat, dirty slide guitar and psychedelic keyboards – contrasting with the stripped-down soulful feel of the album’s lead single “The Devil, The Dealer & Me” (LISTEN). Canterbury’s raw, powerful voice pushes through the mix, “If you’re ever tired of sleeping / I’m the ghost beneath your bed / If you’re looking for conversation / I’m the voice in your head.”
“When I moved to Nashville, I overheard someone once say that ‘This town is just a hitman looking for the next big dreamer.’ I liked the sound of that,” Canterbury says. “Kill or be killed – metaphorically, of course. This is that ‘I’m gonna break your heart eventually’ weapon, updated for the modern poetic battlefield.”
Born and raised in the piney woods outside of Haynesville, Louisiana, Chris Canterbury comes from the grimy remnants of a small oil patch town, a way of life that is slowly fading but still lingers in the songs he sings. Born to a working-class blue-collar family, Canterbury struggled to find the middle ground between his grandfather’s Southern Baptist sermons and the honky-tonk mystics that he discovered on old vinyl records in high school. Armed with an old thrift shop guitar, he began playing and writing stories about life from a unique but oddly familiar point of view. Songs about liquor stores, truck stops, low-rent motels, and the grifters and transients that frequent them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pool hall or a theater, a festival or a front porch, Chris’s live sound is the whiskey-laden prospectus that anyone with a struggle can relate to.
Chris Canterbury 2022 Tour Dates
August 2 – Beaumont, TX – 7 Oaks Event Garden*
August 4 – Fort Worth, TX – Magnolia Motor Lounge*
August 5 – Fort Smith, AR – The Majestic*
August 7 – Tulsa, OK – Mercury Lounge*
August 9 – Houston, TX – Mucky Duck*
August 11 – Galveston, TX – Old Quarter Acoustic Café*
August 12 – Ruston, LA – Utility Brewing*
August 13 – Little Rock, AR – Stickyz*
August 14 – Memphis, TN – South Main Sounds*
September 28 – Nashville, TN – The Basement+
September 29 – Knoxville, TN – Blue Plate Special
September 30 – Cayce, SC – Steelhands Brewing
October 2 – Charlotte, NC – Evening Muse
*Motel Poet’s Series w/ Erin Enderlin
+Official Album Release Show
For press information about Chris Canterbury, please contact Josh Zanger at All Eyes Media