Today, the veteran performer Seasick Steve shares a new track “Bootstraps” from his forthcoming The Last Season of America, a new album of stirring protest songs and heartfelt reflections on the state of his home country due September 18 on Steve’s new label Eastcote Recordings. Listen to “Bootstraps” here and preorder The Last Season of America here.

Seasick Steve — whose rise from journeyman musician, to producing records for Kathleen Hanna and Modest Mouse in 90s Seattle, to selling out Wembley Arena and five appearances at the vaunted Glastonbury festival is the stuff of legends – has sometimes been describes as a “blues man,”  but he thinks of himself as more of a “song and dance man” meets “professional busker” meets “done almost every job under the sun’ got lucky” kinda guy. 

That said, the irrefutable burning blues of today’s “Bootstraps” assesses the narrowing aperture of class mobility; “I always keep in my billfold a two dollar bill / You never know when your luck will change and you be down and out / there ain’t no sense in praying to heaven / no sense to scream and shout.”

Watch the video for “Bootstraps” here.

In 2024, Steve and his wife Elisabeth took a road trip across America, witnessed American poverty and polarization up close as the country geared up for that year’s election. “We drove across the country from Miami to LA,” he recalls. “We thought we was gonna have an amazing time but we were mostly sad, so much homelessness and division.” During a stop in a New Orleans club, the house band leader welcomed two Belgian musicians to the stage: “Welcome to the last season of America.” It became a guiding mantra, both for their road trip and for the new album.

Produced by GRAMMY Award-winner Martin Terefe at Eastcote Studios in London — with Steve and his longtime drummer Dan Magnusson joined by Dave Okumu (The Invisible) on guitar and Terefe on bass — The Last Season of America takes stock of an American Dream coming apart at the seams.

It’s a poignant collage of societal ills and the emotional toll they impose. The simmering “Somebody” laments the looming uncertainty on what there is to be done at such a trepidatious moment, while “Bad Things” takes aim at a certain venal and schismatic politician. “We got a criminal running this place. He got lies written all over his face,” sings Steve. (“I guess it ain’t too hard to guess, right?” he says of the subject of his ire.) Yet, throughout The Last Season of America, there is optimism amid Steve’s righteous anger: “There’s bad things, but we still can change. If you believe in hope, we can rearrange. I still believe in the power of love.” 

2026 marks twenty years since an unknown American singer / songwriter — a grandfather armed with just a beat-up, three-stringed Japanese guitar and an old wooden box to stomp on — made his TV debut on Jools Holland’s BBC Hootenanny on New Year’s Eve 2006. It was a flashpoint moment for Seasick Steve, so named because of a penchant for carsickness rather than seasickness. Steve never imagined that he would go on to play almost every major festival, selling out numerous tours and legendary venues along the way, or that he would have sold almost two million records worldwide, including three top ten albums in the official UK album chart.

Though now living in Norway — a purposeful attempt to create physical distance from the country whose state of affairs gets harder to watch by the day — Steve’s love for his home country remains. Though this protest record seethes with sadness and anger, it ultimately casts a hopeful glance at the horizon, anticipating a brighter future to come. Much like Steve’s longstanding and winding career, his message and voice have an enduring, timeless power.