Alabama Shakes fire back at the regime on new single ‘American Dream’: “A snapshot of what we’re living through”
Alabama Shakes have shared a new single, ‘American Dream’, which takes aim at the current political climate in the US under President Donald Trump.
On the charged track, vocalist Brittany Howard howls through her pain, singing, “Low grade fever, lower wage people. How many folks got shot this week? It’s enough to make you wanna go back to sleep.”
Howard explained that the song is “It’s a snapshot of what we’re living through in 2026.”
She added, “I look around and wonder how we got to a place where there’s so much strain and so little support. I mean, it shouldn’t be impossible to take off work so you can bring your child to the doctor—that’s actually insane.”
Looking toward the future, Howard concluded, “My hope is that one day people will hear this song and say, ‘Yeah, shit was crazy back then, but we made it through.’”
Howard, Heath Fogg, and Zac Cockrell are gearing up for an extensive North American headline tour that will begin on April 16th.
They will move on to Asheville, Charleston, Memphis, Atlanta, and Raleigh, including multiple stops in Florida, and ending with a two-night stint at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, Colorado.
From there, the four-time Grammy-nominated band will arrive in the UK in July to play Leeds’ Millennium Square on July 1st, and London’s Alexandra Palace on July 3rd.
The band then takes flight to Europe for festival shows in Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
The new song is the first sign of a new chapter for the band; as per the press release, the single “heralds the arrival of their highly anticipated third LP and full-length debut album for Island Records, with further news to follow.”
Last summer, they returned with a bang with the single ‘Another Life’, marking the first release for the band in over a decade, 2015’s Sound & Color.
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