JOSH RITTER CONFIRMS ADDITIONAL
U.S TOUR DATES

FEATURED ON “PBS NEWSHOUR” AND
“CBS THIS MORNING” 

SERMON ON THE ROCKS OUT NOW
ON PYTHEAS RECORDINGS

"How refreshing and inspiring it is to encounter a young artist whose achievements match his ambitions.”
—The Washington Post

“The 10 Most Exciting Artists Now”
—Entertainment Weekly

“100 Best Living Songwriters”
—Paste Magazine

 

“…the most exuberant outburst of imagery since Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’ in 1963.”
—Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

“The music is contagious.”
—Bob Boilen NPR Music 

 

Josh Ritter and The Royal City band will continue their North American tour this May, with additional shows added in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Cleveland and more. This extensive run of tour dates supports Ritter’s acclaimed new album, Sermon On The Rocks (Pytheas Recordings/ Thirty Tigers), and follows recent sold-out shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre, D.C.’s 9:30 Club and Nashville’s Cannery Ballroom, among others. See below for complete details. In celebration of Sermon On The Rocks, Ritter was recently featured on “PBS NewsHour” as well as on “CBS This Morning” as part of their “Saturday Sessions” series (watch the full performances here: “Getting Ready To Get Down,” “Homecoming” and “To The Dogs Or Whoever”). Sermon On The Rocks is receiving widespread critical praise:    “Favorite Songs Of 2015”—NPR Music “…it’s an approach that brings out some of Ritter’s slipperiest, nimblest wordplay…and a few genuine head-turners. Not many singers could pull off a whopper like, ‘If you wanna see a miracle, watch me get down,’ but when Ritter gets there near the end of ‘Getting Ready To Get Down,’ it lands like a grand punchline.”—NPR Music  “50 Best Songs of 2015”—Paste “80 Best Albums of 2015”—Popmatters “‘Homecoming’ moves from a solo piano setting a butterscotch tone, to the voice of a young man backed by a band chugging in the background; to an acoustic middle eight and back to the glorious rhythm…It’s seamless, sweet, and real”—The Huffington Post  “The literary-minded songwriter Josh Ritter…recharges his music on his eighth studio album, Sermon on the Rocks…Harking back to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and maybe a little Mark Knopfler, Mr. Ritter has always been a slinger of serious ideas and high-flown imagery” —The New York Times  “The new album’s music is airy, propulsive and more often than not, catchy.” —The Wall Street Journal Produced by Ritter and Trina Shoemaker (Queens of the Stone Age, Emmylou Harris), Sermon on the Rocks was recorded over two weeks at New Orleans’ The Parlor Recording Studio and features Matt Barrick from The Walkmen on drums, Zachariah Hickman on bass, Josh Kaufman on guitar and Sam Kassirer on piano. Of his inspiration behind Sermon on the Rocks, Ritter comments, “I wanted to play messianic oracular honky-tonk.” Over the course of his acclaimed career, Ritter has released seven full-length albums including his most recent, 2013’s The Beast In Its Tracks, which debuted at #22 on the Billboard 200 and #8 on the Top Rock Albums chart. The record also received widespread critical praise—NPR Music called it, “…gorgeous and glorious,” while Pitchfork asserted, “Beast is contemplative and forgiving, a means of burying one relationship to commit to another, and Ritter nicely evokes the excitement and resignation of such a transition.” Additionally, in 2011, Ritter made is debut as a published author with his New York Times best-selling novel, Bright’s Passage (Dial Press/Random House). Of the work, Stephen King writes in The New York Times Book Review, “Shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime…This is the work of a gifted novelist.”   JOSH RITTER AND THE ROYAL CITY BAND 2016 TOUR May 16—New Orleans, LA—Civic Theatre May 17—Birmingham, AL—Saturn May 18—Asheville, NC—The Orange Peel May 19—Lafayette, IN—Lafayette Theater May 20—St Louis, MO—The Pageant May 21—Kansas City, MO—Madrid Theatre May 22—Morrison, CO—Red Rocks Amphitheatre* May 24—Milwaukee, WI—Pabst Theater May 25—Royal Oak, MI—Royal Oak Music Theater May 26—Cleveland, OH—Beachland Ballroom May 27—Charlottesville, VA—Jefferson Theater May 28—Charlotte, NC—The Fillmore May 29—Charleston, SC—Charleston Music Hall July 23—Camden, NJ—XPoNential Music Festival August 28—Florence, MA—Look Memorial Park *appearing with Elephant Revival