Ayron Jones will release a new album, Excuse Me, on 26th February 2027 via Thirty Tigers. The Seattle-born musician has also put out the first single, ‘Glad You Came’, along with a music video.
Excuse Me was recorded in Nashville with longtime collaborator Marti Frederiksen, whose credits include Aerosmith and Ozzy Osbourne. It is Jones’ first new music in three years. The record draws on grunge, hard rock, metal, blues, punk, soul, R&B and hip-hop. It features real drums, drop-tuned guitars, melancholy melodies and lyrics about tension, economic pressure, uncertainty, anger and isolation.
Jones describes ‘Glad You Came’ as being about “those intense connections that pull us in, sometimes for reasons we don’t fully understand”. He says the track has “a dark, seductive edge rooted in the Seattle sound I grew up with”. Of its meaning, he adds: “It’s easy to point the finger and blame others for situations. We chase after relationships or people because we’re trying to heal ourselves. We’re searching for an answer that lives outside ourselves. But at the end of the day, it’s all about you.”
Jones calls the album “the culmination of a lifetime dedicated to music”. He says it is about “the human experience: life, death, love, loss, and finding peace in the acceptance of our own mortality”. He also says: “We have a lot of escape music right now. It’s happy and distracting music, but the price of eggs and gas are skyrocketing and people are feeling pretty dismal. This record is a reflection of that.”
The release also covers Jones’ background. He grew up in Seattle and says he was a ward of the state. After several years playing violin, he picked up the guitar at 13 and largely taught himself. He started out as a blues purist, playing with older blues musicians, before seeing that the rock and grunge sounds of his hometown were just as important to his identity. Sir Mix-a-Lot helped launch his independent career, and he played guitar for Deep Cotton within Janelle Monáe‘s Wondaland collective. He also connected with Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam and Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses.
Jones says he later felt he was playing the character of “rock star”. “I was becoming a character, but that character wasn’t truly based on me,” he says. “It was something the industry put together to help sell records. This is me.”
Jones broke out during the pandemic and became the first Black solo artist to have a Number One single on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. He also won Best New Rock Artist at the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Awards. He has performed with The Rolling Stones in Paris in front of 70,000 people, headlined London’s 100 Club and opened for Black Stone Cherry. B.B. King, Jeff Beck, Guns N’ Roses, Public Enemy, Shinedown, Daughtry and Koe Wetzel are named as advocates. The release lists Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Michael Jackson, Prince and OutKast among the album’s influences.