Nettwerkis is pleased to announce the signing of “bittersweet optimist” indie pop singer-songwriter Fiji Blue. Today, the LA native and Phoenix resident announces his debut album, Glide, and new tour dates across Asia and North America.
Born Trevor Dering, Fiji Blue finds creative solitude in a guitar-heavy mix of storytelling, drawing inspiration from artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Mayer. After garnering over 300 million streams across his three EPs, Reasons You Should Care (2021), Goodbye (2021) and I Loved You, What Happened? (2022), Glide will be Fiji Blue's first proper album.
“This album was written during a time of personal transition,” he explains. “Dealing with the end of a relationship required a lot of adjustment and feeling stuck in the middle trying to process all these intense emotions at the same time… It felt like starting from scratch both emotionally and songwriting-wise.”
The ten songs on Glide are each a captivating snapshot of Dering's songwriting talent, contemplating love both platonic and romantic; they're achingly personal, yet universally relatable. To tell these stories, Dering went on a week-long writing retreat to Topanga, writing one song a day, immersing himself in lush compositions where the helium balloons of synthesizers, twinkly electronics, and widescreen harmonies are cut with the warm humanity of more organic instruments like piano and acoustic guitar.
Today, Fiji Blue shared the album's lead single, “Peppermint,” dedicated to his “natural love” for his wife, who was a key creative inspiration for the album. The song wraps nostalgic innocence and puppy-dog romanticism into a three-minute running time that sounds like a warm hug.
“This song tells my story of a carefree love, like taking your foot off the pedal while riding your bike down a hill,” says Fiji Blue. “I had just started writing with new producers (for the first time) and was blessed to meet Matt Kahane. Usually it takes a few sessions before I feel comfortable opening up, but the day we wrote this song, I felt like I'd found a new best friend. The creative process was as carefree and flowing as the story we were trying to tell. We finished the song in a few hours and I've been listening to it every day since.”
As the Glide release begins, Fiji Blue will return to the road, wrapping up the summer with eight dates in Asia in August (including Lalala Fest in Indonesia and Summer Sonic in Japan), and announcing an 11-date headline tour in North America in the fall, including dates at New York's Gramercy Theater, El Rey in Los Angeles and Subterranean in Chicago. These new dates follow a festival tour in July that included headlining appearances at Milwaukee's Summerfest supporting COIN, Seattle's Capitol Hill Block Party and Chicago's Wicker Park Fest.
About Fiji Blue
Fiji Blue's story owes a debt to both coasts, but his genre-bending sound is truly global. Raised in Phoenix, Trevor Dering moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Berklee College of Music in 2019 with a degree in songwriting. There, Fiji Blue's Southern California cool is fully realized, swirling bedroom pop, indie, house, easy listening and R&B into a sun-soaked daydream.
With the endorsement of BTS' Jungkook, the single “It Takes Two” propelled Fiji Blue to the global stage in 2022, introducing them to millions of new listeners with a tour of Southeast Asia, an appearance on Spotify's New Music Friday, and a feature by Ones To Watch, who praised the “incredibly orchestrated” song. Now with over 300 million Spotify streams and 20 million YouTube views, Fiji Blue's highly anticipated debut album, Glide (Nettwerk), is their most powerful artistic statement to date, with powerful lyrics and an uplifting voice that listeners won't soon forget, mourning the end and practicing love and gratitude for what remains.
“The album was written during a time of personal transition,” he explains. “Dealing with the end of a relationship required a lot of adjustment and feeling stuck in the middle, trying to process all these intense emotions at the same time.”
Every note, chord and melody on Glide reverberates with soothing emotion, balancing the pain and love that inspired it. The most heartbreaking parts are meditations on the people who never leave us, the faint traces that remain long after our lives have gone our separate ways. The most uplifting parts are the emotions Dering likes to focus on, filled with gratitude for friends and family, and a future full of hope and possibility. “I love sad music, and if I could write a sad song, I would,” he says, laughing. “What I really love about Fiji Blue is the juxtaposition of uplifting harmonies and production elements with lyrics that are more in keeping with the melancholic world. It's nice to find that middle ground sometimes.”
Asia Festival Dates
Saturday, August 10 – Bangkok, Thailand – Unseen Festival
Saturday, August 17 – Tokyo, Japan – Summer Sonic
Sunday, August 25 – Jakarta – Lalala Fest
North American Tour Dates
Thursday, October 10th – Washington DC – DC9
Friday, October 11th – New York – Gramercy Theatre
Saturday, October 12 – Boston – Brighton Music Hall
Monday, October 14th – Toronto – The Velvet Underground
Thursday, October 17th – Chicago – Subterranean
Friday, November 1 – Vancouver – Fortune
Sunday, November 3 – Seattle – Neumes
Tuesday, November 5 – Portland – Polaris Hall
Thursday November 7th – San Francisco – The Independent
Friday, November 8 – Los Angeles – El Rey
Friday, November 15 – Phoenix – Crescent Ballroom
Asia Tour Dates
Thursday 21 November – Singapore – Gateway Theatre
Saturday, November 23 – Taipei, Taiwan – Clapper Studio
Monday, November 25th – Shanghai, China – Sound Republic
Thursday, November 27th – Guangzhou, China – Sound Republic
Friday, November 29 – Manila – Podium Hall
Saturday 30th November – Hong Kong – Crockenflap Festival
Tuesday, December 3rd – Seoul, Korea – Musinsa Garage
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