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Jul 15, 2026 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Jessina Leonard

Providence, Rhode Island-based indie rock band Convinced Friend debuted in 2024 with their self-titled album, which acted largely as a solo project for singer/songwriter A.S. Wilson. Late next month, the band are set to share their upcoming sophomore album, Nowhere Songs. The record represents a step forward into larger and more fully realized sonics, crafted with full band arrangements from guitarist Nate Halda, bassist Mike Dantowitz, and drummer Casey Belisle, but also a reflective look back into the places and people who shaped Wilson.

Much of the album has its roots in the fading Louisiana oilfield town where Wilson grew up, and Wilson takes the role of observer, chronicler, and participant. He explores vignettes of bitterness and exhaustion with the detail of someone who lived it, with all of the requisite internal conflict and bittersweet nostalgia burrowed irreversibly into his memory. “I am in some ways very far from where I started, and in some ways I’m happy where I am,” he says. “But I also feel exiled from where I grew up, and when I go back, I no longer belong there. That’s a complicated feeling.”

The band shared the record’s lead single, “Robitussin,” last month, and today they’re back with another new track, “On Fire,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“On Fire” takes its cues from the twangy side of indie rock and the rollicking side of alt country, dressing up Wilson’s reedy drawl in a tangled morass of guitar lines, dizzy harmonies, and off-kilter rhythms. The band captures a swampy, heat-drenched collective chemistry, managing to sound shaggy and loose while careening along the track’s winding grooves. Meanwhile, the track’s lyrics encapsulate the tensions at the center of the album, envisioning the burned out and desolate locales dotting Wilson’s hometown yet finding shades of nostalgia within them: “No one’s ever calling / to give all our rites a meaning / To hold every moment longer / I thought I’d feel heaven then / But I’m on fire / I’m reaching out beyond the west / You want a reason / Some holy garbage glistening.”

As Wilson explains, “‘On Fire’ explores that lingering friction between loving where you come from and needing to leave it.

Sonically, it captures the raw chemistry of the band at its best, and I think that dynamic has given these songs much sharper edges as a result. We wanted the rhythm to feel as restless as the lyrics themselves – like a long drive trying to outrun yourself – and we indulged our inner Crazy Horse with the blown-out guitars. I’m grateful to Ella Boissanault (Lady Pills) for lending her voice to the track, adding an expansive layer that pushes the song into wider skies.”

He says of the accompanying video, “The 16mm footage was made by friend and artist Drew Leventhal, from a project where he filmed himself and others throwing themselves down the West Greenwich Sand Dunes here in Rhode Island. Slowed down, the falling syncs up with the rhythm section in a way that’s infinitely pleasing to me.”

Check out the song and video below. Nowhere Songs is out everywhere on August 28th.