Zuzu – 2021 live dates
Sat 31 July – Festevol – Liverpool, UK
Sat 14 Aug – 110 Above – Warwickshire, UK
Sun 15 Aug – Trent Bridge BBC Intro, Derbyshire, UK
Sat 04 Sept – NBHD Weekender, Warrington, UK
Tue 07 Sept – O2 Academy – Leicester, UK (supp. Courteeners)
Tue 21 Sept – Victoria Hall – Stoke, UK (supp. Courteeners)
Wed 22 Sept – Victoria Theatre – Halifax, UK (supp. Courteeners)
Sat 25 Sept – Heaton Park – Manchester, UK (supp. Courteeners)
Sat 23 Oct – Mountford Hall – Liverpool, UK (supp. Red Rum Club)
More about Zuzu and debut album Queensway Tunnel
Liverpool’s acclaimed singer-songwriter – and noted sci-fi obsessive, gamer, and comic book enthusiast – returns with her first full release since blazing a trail with 2020’s major label EP release How It Feels. With that EP being released just as the UK entered its first lockdown, the skies in Zuzu’s universe could have started to look a little darker. However, the stars look to be aligning once more, after what many might see as having been a productive 12 months. As she emerges from her home studio in Liverpool, she has been writing music for Cartoon Network’s “Adventure Time: Distant Lands”, contributed a re-working of her song “How It Feels” to The Sims video game (sung in the The Sims’ own language, “Simlish”), and in May became the first artist in the northern hemisphere to play a non-socially-distanced live show, as she performed in front of 5000 fans in support of Blossoms.
Debut album Queensway Tunnel draws its power from themes of change, addiction, sci-fi, escapism, identity, community, and the protection of mental health. Through her sincerity, intimacy and rawness, Zuzu continues to catalogue what she describes as a “deep emotional unrest”, striving to arrange, sort and file how she feels through her music – defragging a cluttered and chaotic headspace, to figure out what it means to navigate life as a twenty-something.
With Queensway Tunnel, the trappings of the pandemic inspired a re-focusing on what was in front of her all along. If each song forms a connective tissue between memories, people and places, then the album’s beating heart is a picture of Merseyside, an area with an iconic musical history, and strong identity all of its own. Zuzu has often spoken about being told to leave her accent out of her music, so there seems no truer way to throw that advice back than to write an album expressly about where she is from, connection, relationships, time and place, what the city gives, and what the city takes.
It is a message that her fervent fanbase, known as Planet Z, take to heart. There is a community that accepts each other, says “everyone’s invited”, if you feel judged, Zuzu’s music is a home for you, and champions their own individuality. Her fans, friends and musical community lift her up, as she does them. It is case of a rising tide lifts all ships, and the tide certainly looks to be turning in Zuzu’s favour.
The album’s title of course nods to the tunnel beneath the river Mersey that connects Liverpool and Birkenhead – a special stretch that Zuzu says has a real transformative quality. To listen to Queensway Tunnel is to walk side by side with Zuzu, and end up in a better place than where you started.
Her talents always shine brightest when she matches intense emotional outpouring with choruses that launch to euphoria via dejection and back again. On Planet Z the hook is queen, and Zuzu conjures stubborn melodies for anybody feeling lost on their current path.
Zuzu is confronting 2021 fired up with the spirit of her idols Diana Ross, her mum, Emeline Pankhurst, Winona Ryder, Cruella de Vil, Audrey Hepburn – each of which she has a tattoo of. Her boundary pushing mentality feeds into the psyche of the city which has long been imbued with a spirit of fierce independence, unwavering loyalty and creative genius. All the same magic that defined the likes of The La’s, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Zutons and The Coral are visible in Zuzu’s music, as is the world-conquering pop nous of Taylor Swift, the unapologetic accents-to-the-front hometown pride of Courtney Barnett, and the self-love call to arms of Lizzo.
Queensway Tunnel features contributions from Kieran Shudall (Circa Waves), Simon Tong (The Verve, Gorillaz), with production from Kurran Karbal. A host of Liverpool musicians feature including Callum Crighton, Zee Devine, Amber Jay, Red Rum Club and Remèe.