Doves on “Constellations for the Lonely”

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Doves on “Constellations for the Lonely”

Stepping Back and Moving Forward

Dec 08, 2025 Issue #74 - The Protest Issue with Kathleen Hanna and Bartees Strange By Dom Gourlay Photography by Brian Steven

Doves’ sixth album, Constellations for the Lonely, the follow-up to 2020’s The Universal Want, is a record that’s been delivered against all the odds. While the trio—Jimi Goodwin (lead vocals, bass) and brothers Jez (guitar, backing vocals) and Andy Williams (drums, backing vocals)—have continued writing and recording, Goodwin’s well-documented struggles with his mental health have seen him withdraw from live performances in recent years. The band’s return to live stages in November 2024 saw the Williams brothers take the lead while their erstwhile bandmate recovers, and 2025 and 2026’s extensive UK tour in support of the new record will once again only feature Jez and Andy.

Speaking with both Jimi Goodwin and Jez Williams separately, the bandmates discussed the new record, touring, mental health, and the struggles of being a musician in the current climate.

“We found ourselves in a pretty unusual position,” says Jez Williams. “You could call it an experiment. We cancelled the last tour for The Universal Want. All we wanted to do was go on tour and we had to cancel that. This time around, we thought, ‘We haven’t even played the last album, let alone this album.’ So, we made a group decision with Jimi as well to decide to take it out on the road.”

Goodwin confirms that he is onboard with this new touring arrangement, but it took some time to sink in. “There’s no rancor from me towards either of them at all,” he says. “I was a bit put out at first. I thought, ‘How are they going to be able to play those shows without me?’ But then I realized they were still desperate to get out there and play live. Right now it’s not a good fit for my life. I’ve had family bereavements and I’m just trying to get my swerve back on. I’m in a good place. I finished NightjaR, my solo project. I’m working on NightjaR 2. I make beats every day. I write songs every day. I still get to do what I’ve dreamed of doing since I was seven years old.”

Reports from November 2024’s live shows suggested “the experiment,” as Jez calls it, was paying off. The sets featured a career spanning mix of old and new material, including several then previously unreleased and unheard tracks off the new album, with Jez taking lead vocals on the majority and Andy taking lead on the rest.

Jez says he isn’t daunted by the idea of assuming the role of frontman. “If you go back through most of Doves’ back catalogue, you’ll find I sing on a number of the songs anyway. It’s one of the reasons we didn’t see the need to bring anyone else in from outside.”

Constellations for the Lonely’s first single, “Renegade,” was released in November 2024, when the album was announced.

“It was quite a dark song and it’s always a little bit riskier putting out something like that, so we were blown away by the response,” says Jez of the fan reaction to the band’s first new single in four years. “We didn’t quite expect it to be as intense as it was because it’s not one of our most up-tempo ones, yet it clearly resonated with people. It has quite an apocalyptic outlook on it and I guess we’re living in dark times.”

Although Goodwin has a different viewpoint on “Renegade” being the album’s lead single. “I wouldn’t have put that out,” he admits. “I think it’s too Doves-y! I wanted to put out ‘Drop in the Ocean’ first. I’m not going to moan, the reception has been overwhelming everywhere and I’m well chuffed. It’s like when we put out The Universal Want in 2020, which was our first album in 10 years. I thought we were heading straight for the nostalgia circuit. I thought all people would want to hear the oldies. When are you going to play ‘The Cedar Room?’ Where’s ‘There Goes the Fear?’ We were truly humbled by the fact people embraced new music from us after nearly 11 years.”

After The Universal Want tour was cancelled at the height of the COVID pandemic, it looked like Doves’ long-term future was in doubt. “The last five or six years have been horrendous for everyone I know and even everyone I don’t know,” opines Goodwin. “It’s all changed out there hasn’t it.”

Which makes Constellations for the Lonely an even more remarkable achievement.

“It was pretty depressing if I’m honest,” says Jez of the initial process of making the album. “We decided to do small steps. Me and Andy kickstarted it, because Jimi was missing in action at that point. We knew the one thing that’s always been there for us was music. It fucking saved us to be honest. The writing saved us. In a moment of need, we realized, ‘Oh, why don’t we just hang out together and start trying to cook up stuff?’ And then when we did start to cook up stuff, Jimi would have sporadic periods of clarity and then he’d come down and write a few things. We had songs floating around as well, so things started to gradually take shape. That was the beginning of the record.”

Having rekindled their appetite for writing and recording music together, Doves suddenly found themselves with a plethora of songs and Constellations for the Lonely was born.

“We had about 25 songs written, then we picked the ones that spoke to us,” reveals Jez. “It’s pretty obvious when a song doesn’t quite fit with the others.”

[Constellations for the Lonely is out now via EMI North. The band also recently released a new best of album, So, Here We Are: Best of Doves.]

[Note: This article originally appeared in Issue 74 of our print magazine, which is out now. This is its debut online.]