The Suffers Announce New Album ‘It Starts With Love’ & Share Single

Houston-based band The Suffers announced their third studio album, It Starts With Love, will arrive on June 3 via Missing Piece Records. Out today is the record’s opening track and latest single, “Don’t Bother Me.”

The Suffers — Kam Franklin (vocals), Juliet Terrill (bass), Kevin Bernier (guitar), Michael Razo (trombone), Jon Durbin (trumpet), Nick Zamora (drums) and Jose “Chapy” Luna (percussion) — created the 13-track LP after suffering through a rough patch in which the group evolved both personally and professionally in an attempt to reinvent themselves. Songs on the LP deal with such complex and important topics as racism and misogyny as well as navigating the music industry.

“I wanted to make a record that sounded like Houston to me,” Franklin noted of the long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s Everything Here. “You’ve got the hard edges and tough exteriors and hip-hop swagger, but then you’ve also got the sounds of the choir and the soulfulness and even a little bit of twang. I wanted to make something beautiful out of hardship.”

It Starts With Love was mixed by Adrian Quesada and mastered by Chris Longwood after the tracks from sessions were transferred to analog tape. Contributors include Son Little, Bryce The Third, The Vapor Caves and Sugar Joiko. The Suffers previously released lead single “How Do We Heal.”

Kam Franklin shared the following in regards to “Don’t Bother Me”:

“I received the original demo for ‘Don’t Bother Me’ in 2015 from my old friend and producer, Johan Karlberg,. Even though we loved the song from the start, it would be another four years before the band finally stepped into a studio to record it. We knocked it out over the course of two-and-a-half days at Argyle Studios in North Texas, with Jason Burt and Matt Pence, after a long summer of messing around with it in between tours and during soundchecks. I can honestly say that bringing this song to the finish line has been one of the honors of my career so far. Influenced by the complexities, power, and care of Buena Vista Social Club, Miami Sound Machine, and Sly and The Family Stone, ‘Don’t Bother Me’ is a demand to be left alone by the outside world so that the wildness, fun, mistakes, and freedom that should come with being a young adult can truly be embraced.”

Watch the Jordan Dinwiddle-directed “Don’t Bother Me” video below:

It Starts With Love Tracklist

1. Don’t Bother Me
2. A Cha Cha (Heartfelt Truth)
3. Could This Be Love
4. Take Me To The Good Times
5. Busy (Interlude)
6. 808
7. Call Someone Else (feat. Sugar Joiko)
8. Yada Yada
9. Bitches Gotta Get Paid
10. Be You (feat. The Vapor Caves)
11. How Do We Heal (feat. Son Little and Bryce The Third)
12. I’m Not Afraid
13. Nunya