Louis Berry

Louis Berry, a Liverpudlian who takes pride in his origins, spent his formative years in one of the city’s tougher districts. His earliest contact with music came when he smuggled his grandfather’s guitar—strictly off-limits—under the bed and quietly worked out a handful of chords by himself. Although Tupac provided the soundtrack to his teenage years, Berry did not encounter Johnny Cash until he reached twenty. The social commentary running through Tupac’s songs left a lasting mark, steering Berry’s own writing toward subjects such as homelessness in inner-city neighborhoods. His defiant sound drew from the classic rock-and-roll lineage of Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, a stance that set him at odds with the mainstream singer-songwriters he was sometimes compared to—Jake Bugg, Alex Turner, and the Strypes—acts he dismissed for their lack of genuine grit and substance.

A record deal followed after Berry had played only two shows. His charged performance on BBC Introducing in 2015 quickly focused attention on his debut single, .45. Later the same year his first EP, Rebel, drew enthusiastic notices and steady rotation on major stations. Zane Lowe named it his “hottest record” on BBC Radio 1; it also placed inside XFM’s Top Five tracks of the week and enjoyed repeated plays on Liverpool’s Juice FM. After appearing at numerous festivals throughout 2015, Berry arranged a headline tour for the opening months of 2016 that finished in his hometown. The gospel-tinged single “Stumbling” surfaced in early 2018, just before the arrival of his first full-length album.