Lloyd Cole Back In Australia And Ready To Tour

Lloyd Cole is on the road in 2026 with a run of solo shows in Australia. His elegant solo live performances in recent years have been predominantly acoustic, but for these concerts he has decided to go electric. The performance will run the gamut from his masterful debut with the Commotions Rattlesnakes right up to 2023’s acclaimed On Pain touching on all points in between. It was a huge privilege to talk to Lloyd about his Australian tour.

Back for another big Australian tour?
I’m not sure if I would call it big. We’re only playing the major cities this time, not going anywhere else. I’ve still never been up north. I still would love to go up north.

What is it about Australia that keeps you coming back?
Well, it’s my job. You know, these days the industry is pretty much the opposite of the industry that I got into, and the early-mid 80s, when we used to go on tour to promote albums, because making albums was how we made money. Now we make albums so we can go on tour and make money. So, you know, it’s my job, I have an agent. He contacted me, maybe four or five months ago, and said, I got a new promoter in Australia, and they want you to come right away. I was like, okay, I love coming to Australia. I come as often as often as the market will allow me to. So yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

Is it a bit frustrating to where it’s evolved to with albums more so about promoting tours now?
Yeah, it’s frustrating, but it was a gradual thing, so we eased into the depression. If it had just happened overnight, I think we might have been more, I don’t know, it wasn’t like we didn’t see it coming. It was coming, it was coming, it was coming! We have to evolve to survive, you know? I never wanted to design websites, but in 1999, I found out it was going to cost about $300,000 to design the one that I wanted, so I ended up saying, I guess I’ll learn to do it myself.

This time around, two sets, solo and an electric, that must be really cool to be able to have the flexibility to be able to do it both ways?
Well, I’ve been touring solo since about 2000, so an awfully long time. Quarter of a century and it’s been solo acoustic this whole time, and then just last year, I was thinking, I don’t know if I want solo acoustic on my tombstone. I don’t really feel like I’m a folk singer. I feel like I’ve done tours which are sort of in the folk tradition, but I don’t really feel like a folk songwriter, and I just thought for the last part of my career, I just kind of liked the idea of having an electric guitar hanging from me, so it’s a solo show. But it’s going to feel quite different. There’s a lot of things that you can do with electric you can’t do with acoustic, and then a lot of things that you can’t do. Well, I certainly can’t thrash the electric in the way that I can thrash the acoustic. I certainly feel like that doesn’t work when you’re just on your own. You need a drummer behind you to thrash an electric for it to make sense. So, it’s a challenge. I’m working on it. I’m practicing pretty much every day.

Do you find your songs either gravitate to, like, acoustic or electric, or do they surprise you and you could go either way?
I used to think that there were certain songs that you just couldn’t play without a band. When I started doing the solo show, there were certain songs that I didn’t even try, like Forest Fire and then I remember distinctly, I was on stage in Dundee and they literally wouldn’t let me leave the stage until I played it, so I thought, alright and it went okay. I hadn’t even made an arrangement, I just winged it. So… that sort of opened my eyes to the idea that I needed to think a little bit more laterally and give myself a bit more freedom to try things that you think might not work. Now there are very few songs, I think, that are impossible to make work. Sometimes the chords are just too complicated, or there are chords, which work for piano, they don’t really work for guitar, but I think I must have about one hundred plus songs out of two hundred and fifty I think I might have written that I’ve taken out and played solo.

Do you worry about the future of music particularly with the progress that AI is making quickly?
It makes me worry about future generations. I don’t worry too much about myself, but we do definitely need to lean on the government pretty hard. The British government right now looks like they’re capitulating, and they’re going to try and let… big AI… listen to me and learn from me, so that they can do approximately what I do. That really shouldn’t be allowed.

It is concerning with these AI generated bands on Spotify?
Well, Spotify has always been an absolutely terrible place. That guy is one of the worst people that’s ever been in music. I can’t have it on my computer. I use Tidal, I’m okay with Tidal, just so long as I’m not using Spotify. I mean, that guy came out with that when people were complaining that they weren’t making enough money from music on streaming platforms, his response was, you need to make more music. I think we’re all making as much as we can.

Are there any particular cities that you look forward to most when you tour Australia?
The King George Whiting in Adelaide? Yeah! That is fantastic. I mean, that’s probably my favourite fish in the world. It’s just delicious. The things I look forward to in Australia, it’s a great place to go and eat and drink. I love the Aussies, the way that beer is served, instead of pints and halves. You’ve got your pots and your schooners. I really think a schooner is an elegant glass. A pint is too much. A schooner’s a great amount. But yeah, I’ve been to Melbourne, Adelaide, spent a lot of time in Fremantle, spent a lot of time in Brisbane, Sydney. So I know the cities reasonably well for getting around, and I love all of them. Brizzy’s a little hot. I don’t love it up there, and certainly when you get to the Gold Coast where I toured there once. I don’t ever want to go back there. Those were not my people. They were not my people, but Adelaide is going to be interesting. I’m going back to The Gov. I haven’t been there for forever. Fingers crossed. The Gov is definitely a bit more punk rock than I’m accustomed to normally.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Lloyd Cole on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…