Struggle. Vulnerability. Pain. Resilience. Love. It's been a hell of a journey that Dinosaur Pile-Up have been on, and they've bravely laid it out bare on their new album I've Felt Better.
Their first record in six years will be released on August 22 via Mascot Records. They will also be hitting the road in the UK in September, calling through Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, and London.
It was 2019 when they last toured the UK — on a completely sold-out run — so it's understandable that the band is absolutely buzzing to get back on the stage and in front of their fans and see those beautiful faces once again. "After an extended break away from touring we just can't wait to get back out on the road and play the new songs live," singer/guitarist Matt Bigland says. "We're really stoked on this record and can't wait to see the fans again!"
It's understandable for them to be tightly coiled and ready to go because overcoming life-threatening illness and finding a fresh perspective on life will do that to you. Before they pack back up in their van, they've dropped their new single, which sees them take back control of their future on the raucous "My Way." The incredible video sees the band in various scenarios taking a light stab at the song's meaning — with added aliens.
Watch the video below:
"I wrote 'My Way' because I'm gonna do what I want, how I want, my way," Bigland reflects. "I made peace with the fact that I'm never going to be recognized as 'cool,' and that I will never be in the 'what's hot' of the rock scene, and that my talents as a songwriter will seemingly never be worthy of mainstream acclaim. As a younger artist, that still held some weight or value in my mind. But that's OK. I will do my thing my way because I dig what I do. Doing my thing, my way. I love 'My Way' because it's this crazy mix of an Eminem-type vibe with a big rock song that even has this kind of 'Amish farm breakdown' and a hardcore breakdown in the same song. That sounds fun, right!? Sign me the fuck up!!"
There is a reason that Bigland has reappraised his view on life. He opened up about how his life has changed and what he has been through when the band dropped their recent single, "Bout to Lose It" in March. Five years of pent-up emotion — hope, despair, resignation, and colossal bravery — let loose into a blistering 3:40 minutes of Dinosaur Pile-Up at their absolute best.
When it was released it was met with a wave of support by the likes of BBC Radio 1 Rock Show."It's good to have them back." said Daniel P Carter. Kerrang Radio, Primordial Radio, Kerrang Magazine, NME, Dork and a host of playlisting across Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Deezer and YouTube — the response was "DP-U ARE BACK!"
So much time has passed since their last studio album.
"People need clarity about what happened," Bigland explained. "It's been so cathartic to lay it out." He began documenting his story on the band's Instagram account in December 2024. You can see it in his own words here: Part 1 | Part 2 |Part 3 | Part 4.
There were six people in the ward the second time that Matt Bigland admitted himself to hospital. Three of them didn't make it out alive. "You think you're halfway through life, then you realize you might be right at the end," he says today. "Being in that room was scary. I felt incredibly vulnerable. I had no control. But hearing people in the final hours of their lives forced me to think about what would happen if I were to die. What was I leaving behind? What really mattered while I was here?"
Flash back to 2018.
Ten years of chasing opportunity and betting big, on every chance had built Dinosaur Pile-Up into one of the UK's most beloved alt-rock bands. It had also left them flat broke, physically and mentally drained, and without a label to release their imminent fourth album, Celebrity Mansions. It became their make-or-break record.
Between Matt, bassist Jim Cratchley and drummer Mike Sheils, it was agreed that failure would mean calling it quits.
However, the rock gods were smiling on them, and the album was a hit. On the back of their US Top 5 Rock Radio runaway hit "Back Foot," they went on the road with Shinedown in the U.S. and lined up major summer festival dates, along with a North American tour with The Offspring and Sum 41 in North America through to the end of the year. They were soaring. 2020 was going to be massive — then everything changed.
"I've felt better…" started as a makeshift mantra. Unwilling to sift through the layers of trauma with every friend who checked in to see how he was doing — indeed, often unable to speak through a mouth filled with centimeter-wide sores — Matt found himself defaulting to that wry, understated three-word response. After four years of repetition and rattling around his head, those words are reclaimed as the title to Dinosaur Pile-Up's defiant fifth album: 12 songs to draw a line under a half-decade of sickness and struggle, a distillation of his agonizing uncertainty and self-analysis.
"This record is about triumph over adversity through perseverance and resilience," he explains. "I'm so proud that it actually got made, as its journey was rough, and I'm so proud that it's going to be out there in the world. I think it will serve as an epitaph to an intensely challenging and defining part of my adult life. But I'm just really stoked that I'm on the other side of it, and it's now memorialized in solid rock."
At his worst, he suffered rapid weight loss, internal bleeding, and proliferation of sores in his mouth and over his body, which continued to grow worse. Sections of his tongue were removed for investigation — while he was conscious. Most unnervingly, the doctors seemed to be panicking, unable to stop his throat collapsing in on itself.
"People don't relate things like health crises with being a dude in a band," he stresses the sense of isolation that came with the ordeal. "We're more associated with rocking out and having a great time."
Striking up a relationship online with Karen Dió was a shard of gold in a sea of grey. Her UK visit in October 2020 was one of the few moments of real relief. Maddeningly, Matt's trip to her South American homeland at New Year's 2021 would be cut short: worsening health forcing a return to the UK and setting him on a lonely spiral towards some of the darkest days of his entire life.
In the end, real love shines through. Motivating himself to get out of the hospital, Matt kept a photo of a wedding ring on his phone and promised himself that marrying Karen would be his reward for pulling through. That promise was fulfilled in April 2022, and a thread of romance runs from their partnership through the heart of the record.
Ultimately, this album's seeing the light of day is a huge part of Matt's happily ever after. He's more focused on work, home, and life's simple pleasures than he's ever been. All that has underlined why music matters, which is why the album runs the full gamut of emotions —exhaustion, mental health, empowerment, celebrity, vulnerability, and, at the heart of the album, love.
I've Felt Better will be released on August 22 via Mascot Records and will be available in CD, LP and digital formats. Pre-order info here.