Ray Hawthorne Releases New Track, “Somewhere Else”

Everyone’s favourite pop punk disruptor, Ray Hawthorne, is back in his feelings and out of his body. Following the anthemic chaos of his recent single, “Sidelines,” and his sophomore album, Ray Hawthorne Isn’t Real, the Los Angeles-based firebrand returns with “Somewhere Else,” a dizzy, late-night confessional about being physically present but emotionally checked out.

Kicking off like a movie, “Somewhere Else” starts with a messy walk home and only gets more unhinged from there, zooming in on bloody knuckles, bad habits, and the way shame makes you want to disappear even when someone is standing right in front of you. Hawthorne leans into that split-screen feeling of watching yourself from the outside, trying to be the person someone believes in while secretly falling apart in real time.

With his signature mix of chaos, humour, and heart still fully intact, Ray shares:

“Yo, have you guys seen Britney Spears’ Instagram lately? I’m supposed to write a quote for the song I just dropped, but I literally can’t look away from Britney Spears’ Instagram. Admittedly, I was super out of the loop for the whole ‘Free Britney’ thing. I only got a basic overview from some friends and never really looked further into it. But yo, a reel she just posted popped up on my Instagram feed, and it’s wild. Don’t scroll through Britney Spears’ reels tab if you have anything else planned for the day. You won’t be able to look away.

“But the comments are turned off, so you can’t even get a feel for what people are thinking about these reels. You’d have to look up some YouTube think-piece about it, and I don’t have time for that. Alright, actually, I had to look it up. I just did a basic YouTube search for ‘Britney Spears Instagram.’ A video popped up with a thumbnail that says, ‘Is it her sister with AI of her face? Is she alive?’ I gotta watch this shit, will report back.

“Oh my god. That’s 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Let me save you some time: this video is bullshit, Britney Spears is still alive, she is NOT just Zoey 101 with an AI face, no matter what ‘Ready to Glare’ on YouTube might suggest. Just leave Britney alone and listen to my new song instead. It’s called ‘Somewhere Else.’”

Blending heartbreak, sarcasm, and just the right amount of emotional stability, Ray Hawthorne leads with a messy kind of hope, turning emotional freefall into something you can scream along to. Where his debut album and his firstborn, Ray Hawthorne Sucks, leaned into an earnest DIY vulnerability, his latest record, Ray Hawthorne Isn’t Real, took a turn and tapped into the restless defiance of a secondborn. The 15 tracks helped embrace the chaos, laugh at the pain, and maybe, just maybe, allow us all to find a little redemption along the way.

Starting from the very real possibility that Hawthorne is just a guy screaming into the ether (and somehow making it sound catchy), his catalogue has become a refuge for anyone who’s ever felt too loud, too sensitive, or too much. Loud, petty, and deeply cathartic, Ray Hawthorne is proudly one of the most unapologetically honest voices in modern pop-punk.

Ray Hawthorne “Somewhere Else” single artwork