Willie J Healey Announces New Album Lucky, Shares ‘Benjamin’ And UK Tour Dates
The Oxford songwriter returns with an acoustically led follow-up to Bunny, due in March ahead of a UK headline tour in April.
Willie J Healey has announced his new album Lucky, out on 12 March 2027 through V2, and released its lead single, ‘Benjamin’. The follow-up to 2023’s Bunny will be accompanied by a UK headline tour in April, including shows at Oxford’s O2 Academy and London’s KOKO.
Written largely in a studio at the back of his new home, Lucky grew from Healey working through songs on acoustic guitar. Recording with a close circle of friends, he moved away from the slicker production he had previously pursued, leaving relatively little electric guitar on the finished record. Across its ten tracks, the album considers life, death, faith and religion alongside his own experiences, with Healey describing a growing ability to find humour in what he has lived through.
‘Benjamin’ came together quickly, with its opening gasp reflecting the song’s sense of reaching out for help. ‘I wrote Benjamin really quickly, it was one of those gifts. Just came right to me!’ Healey says. ‘We tracked all of these acoustic guitars and I did this big gasp at the beginning because I think the song kinda feels like somebody who’s asking to be saved by whatever’s out there saving things. It’s got this hopeful desperation thing going on.’
That directness also informed the recording process. ‘There’s nothing too fancy about the recordings we got, which I’m very happy about,’ he explains. ‘I felt slightly caught up in making things slick. I didn’t want to do that this time. I couldn’t be bothered. To me it feels direct and simple! Which is weirdly hard to do sometimes.’
The UK tour begins at Exeter’s Cavern on 10 April and finishes at Bristol’s Electric on 29 April. Album pre-orders provide access to the artist ticket presale, which opens alongside the O2 presale at 10am on Tuesday 27 October. A promoter presale follows at 10am on Wednesday 28 October, ahead of general sale at 10am on Friday 30 October.
