Bob Seger Plans to Release a New Album and Tour in 2016
Just a little more than a year after releasing his most recent album, Ride Out, Bob Seger is already gearing up for a new release and another tour.
Seger revealed his plans during a recent conversation with Billboard, telling the magazine that he intends to put out an LP titled I Knew You When that will consist, as the report puts it, of "unreleased songs that he has updated." No release date is given, but current plans call for the record to arrive sometime in 2016.
I Knew You When is just one way Seger intends to celebrate the year that marks his 50th anniversary as a recording artist. He's also firming up plans for a "bucket-list" tour that will stop in a number of locations where he's wanted to play for some time — and although few details are available, the report mentions the New Orleans Jazz Fest and the Hollywood Bowl as top contenders for dates.
It's obviously anyone's guess as to what will end up on I Knew You When, though the fan site the Seger File offers an impressively comprehensive look at his unreleased material — including the title track, which reportedly dates back to 1997.
As for new material, Seger admitted writing songs "never gets easier," and suggested that the weight of his own songbook has an effect on how he approaches current compositions, especially from a lyrical standpoint. "It takes huge chunks of time, and you’ve got to commit to an enormous amount of staring out the window waiting for the lyric to come. The music comes fairly easily, because I’ve been doing this for so long. But coming up with the right lyric is much more difficult — to write something that’s unique in its own way, and universal."
See Bob Seger and Other Rockers in the Top 100 Albums of the '70s
Criminally Underrated Rock Albums