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Sep 02, 2022 By Mark Redfern Photography by Dean Chalkley

Suede are releasing a new album, Autofiction, on September 16 via BMG. Now they have shared its third single, “That Boy on the Stage.” Listen below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates. The band also recently shared an 18-minute short film connected to the album. Katie Lambert (MrMr Films) directed the film, which was created in collaboration with Suede. Watch that below too.

“It’s about persona,” frontman Brett Anderson says of “That Boy on the Stage” in a press statement. “It’s about the people we become.”

Bassist Mat Osman adds: “The one place we have always felt at home is the stage. You step on there and you know what to do. It is entirely magical.”

Osman also had this to say about the short film in a press release: “With the Autofiction short film we didn’t want to make a normal performance video—instead we wanted to make a short film that overlapped at a Suede gig, with the band as just a minor part of the film, rather than at the centre. MrMr then came up with the idea of taking a crossroad in a couple’s life and playing with it in odd ways—moving backwards and forwards in time, seeing it through different sets of eyes, seeing their hopes and fears and memories all jumbled up too. Autofiction: A Short Film takes some of the themes of the album: youth and aging, love and loss, fear and joy—sees them play out in the story of Chris and Hannah.”

Previously Suede shared the album’s first single, “She Still Leads Me On,” which was #1 on our Songs of the Week list. Then they shared its second single, “15 Again,” which was also one of our Songs of the Week.

The Britpop originators and survivors legally have to go by the name The London Suede in America, thanks to an American jazz singer also named Suede. Longtime collaborator Ed Buller, who has produced many of the band’s albums, including their first three, produced Autofiction. The album is the follow-up to 2018’s The Blue Hour.

Suede—Brett Anderson (vocals), Mat Osman (bass), Simon Gilbert (drums), Richard Oakes (guitars), and Neil Codling (keyboards)—began the album in a rehearsal studio in the Kings Cross area of London.

“Autofiction is our punk record,” Anderson said in a previous press release. “No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and fuck-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess.”

“Autofiction has a natural freshness, it’s where we want to be,” Anderson added.

“When we were rehearsing and writing this record it was this sheer, physical rush,” said Osman. “That thing where you’re hanging on for dear life.”

“She Still Leads Me On” is about Anderson’s mother and the lyrics to Autofiction as a whole were fueled by Anderson’s two acclaimed autobiographies, 2018’s Coal Black Mornings and 2019’s Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn.

Suede initially broke-up in 2003 following the release of their poorly received fifth album, 2002’s A New Morning. They reformed in 2010 and made a full on comeback in 2013 with the release of Bloodsports, which was their first new album in over a decade and was very well-received by critics. That was followed by 2016’s Night Thoughts and 2018’s The Blue Hour. This makes Autofiction the band’s fourth album since reforming and ninth album overall (not counting 1997’s two-disc B-sides collection Sci-Fi Lullabies).

Read our review of The Blue Hour.

Read our interview with Suede on The Blue Hour.

Read our 2013 interview with Suede’s Brett Anderson on Bloodsports.

In 2019 we reflected on the 25th anniversary of Suede’s second album, Dog Man Star, and you read that retrospective here.

Suede Tour Dates:

September 2022 UK Record Shop Tour:

15 Banquet Records, Kingston (live performance) SOLD OUT
16 Rough Trade East, Shoreditch (live performance) SOLD OUT
17 Crash Records/Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (live performance) SOLD OUT
18 Rough Trade / Fleece, Bristol (live performance) SOLD OUT
19 HMV, Liverpool (signing and Q&A) SOLD OUT
19 HMV, Manchester (signing) SOLD OUT
20 Bear Tree Records, Sheffield (signing) SOLD OUT
20 Rough Trade, Nottingham (signing) SOLD OUT
21 Truck Records, Oxford (signing) SOLD OUT
21 Fopp, Cambridge (signing) SOLD OUT
22 Vinilo, Southampton (signing) SOLD OUT
22 HMV, Portsmouth (signing) SOLD OUT

October 2022 Intimate UK/EU Tour Dates:

05 Electric Ballroom, London SOLD OUT
06 Electric Ballroom, London SOLD OUT
08 Melkweg – Oude Zaal, Amsterdam SOLD OUT
10 La Maroquinerie, Paris SOLD OUT
11 Gloria-Theatre, Cologne
12 Gruenspan, Hamburg

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