Jon Spencer Previews New Album, ‘Songs of Personal Loss and Protest’

Can rock n’ roll change the world? Jon Spencer says yes. Mr. Blues Explosion is still lighting the torches and ringing the bells, singing and preaching from the rooftops, live on the world stage, on the airwaves, via satellite, and right here, right now, on a brand new record: Songs of Personal Loss and Protest.

Jon confides:

“I’m in a time of spiritual reckoning. These past few years, there has been a lot of emotional conflict and personal loss — the passing of time takes its toll. Losing friends, losing family, and all of this set against a world gone topsy turvy, where it feels like we are losing basic freedoms… I’m trying to balance a lot of things, but the answer is always rock n’ roll.”

Across 12 brand new songs, Jon tears his heart out singing songs torn from the front page and beyond: futuristic power blues and garage-punk explosionisms about the nausea and paranoia delivered by a reality show president, and the power and resilience it takes to rebel. It is all deeply personal — the fight to create and live and push back against the dark forces — but he never loses sight that we’re all in this together.

“Rock n’ roll is America’s true gift to the world — the sound of revolution! It came out of the sky, a screaming, chrome-plated flying saucer, like an outer space monster, landed here on Earth so the freaks could have their say. It is the hip-shaking sound of rebellion. The blues is my bible, rock’n’roll is our battle cry!”

Songs of Personal Loss and Protest was recorded with Jon’s super-powered touring band, and if you’ve been lucky enough to see them in the past few years — they’ve been playing non-stop, destroying audiences from Akron to Osaka, from San Jose to Santiago – then you know that Jon is still fronting the world’s greatest rock’n’roll live show: rama-la soul-shaking set for stun, sweat-soaked, and ultimately, beautifully, uplifting.

Picking up where 2024’s mini–LP Sick of Being Sick left off, Jon tears it up with Spider Bowman on drums and Kendall Wind on bass (also famously the rhythm section of Woodstock’s punk powerhouse The Bobby Lees). They deliver hyper-driven soul and powerhouse groove, beats hard as diamonds and slick as ice, fuzz bass in your face, and an avalanche of uncontrollable urges, pushing Jon’s latest outbursts — hollering, drooling, sexified crooning, and vociferously lamenting these difficult times — to new levels of rock n’ roll expressionism.

Songs of Personal Loss and Protest Track Listing:

Side One:
1. Fanfare (Another Point of View)
2. Vermin Attack!
3. Hangover
4. Knock ‘Em Out
5. Give It Up 4 the Devil
6. Mr. Lion

Side Two:
1. Orange Slice Blues
2. Slip Away
3. Step On the Gas
4. I’m Taking Off
5. Wet & Wild
6. No More

Jon Spencer ‘Songs of Personal Loss and Protest’ album artwork