Renowned singer, songwriter, musician, artist, and best-selling author Josh Ritter will release his anticipated new album, I Believe in You, My Honeydew, September 12 via Thirty Tigers (pre-order/pre-save here). Ahead of the release, his new song, “You Won’t Dig My Grave,” is out today. Listen/share HERE.

Throughout his decades-long career, Ritter has established himself as “one of the most perceptive artists making music today” (American Songwriter), releasing twelve albums to date and earning the respect of countless music legends, with artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Bob Weir having performed and recorded his songs.

With the release of I Believe in You, My Honeydew, Ritter shares ten new tracks that further demonstrate the insightful and engaging artistry that he’s celebrated for. Produced by Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim), the new album features Ritter alongside his Royal City Band: Kassirer (piano, organ, synthesizer, accordion), Zachariah Hickman (acoustic and electric bass, thumb piano, mandolin), Rich Hinman (guitars, pedal steel, mandolin), and Ray Rizzo (drums, percussion).

Of the project, Ritter shares:
“I lived in the woods when I was a kid. I used to believe (and maybe I was right) that I could walk out of our front door, across the gravel road and, pointing myself north, I could walk to Canada, never once leaving the tree line. Wonder was a temple with no walls, and the Muse was still just a ripple in the ponderosas. I felt no fear.
I’m 48 now. Decades have passed. There have been times I felt my inspiration, my Muse, had passed along with them. And then, not too long ago, I decided that instead of waiting for the Muse to write me a song, I would write the Muse a song instead. I started referring to my Muse as my Honeydew. And this album was born.
The songs on Honeydew are songs for my Muse, my invisible and blinding companion of long-standing. I hope it enjoys them. I hope that it experiences a bit of what it’s like to be human, a bit of what it’s like to be lonely, scared, uncertain, joyful, righteous. I believe in you, my honeydew.”

In celebration of the new music, Ritter will tour through this fall, including newly confirmed stops at Grand Rapids’ St. Cecilia Music Center, Chicago’s Thalia Hall, Minneapolis’ Fitzgerald Theater, Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Theatre, Philadelphia’s Keswick Theatre, and New York’s Brooklyn Steel, among many others. See below for the complete tour itinerary.

Tickets will be available for pre-sale starting tomorrow, June 11, at 10:00 a.m. local time, with general on-sale following Friday, June 13, at 10:00 a.m. local time. A portion of the proceeds from pre-sale tickets sold via joshritter.com will be donated to Immigrant Defense Project. Pre-sale sign-up and full details can be found at www.joshritter.com.

I Believe in You, My Honeydew follows Ritter’s 2024 mini-album, Heaven, or Someplace as Nice, which he recorded with legendary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, and his acclaimed 2023 full-length project, Spectral Lines. Of the record, Paste praised, “Josh Ritter is like a more open-hearted version of Leonard Cohen. His lyrics draw on the divine, but he seems to see a little heaven in all the people around him,” while No Depression declared, “a hopeful tapestry that encourages listeners to sit with each other in introspection, but not to forget to sing along.”

In addition to his work as a musician, Ritter is also a national best-selling author, having released two novels to date: 2011’s Bright’s Passage and 2021’s The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All, for which the film rights have recently been optioned for development. Released to critical attention, Stephen King wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Bright’s Passage “shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime…This is the work of a gifted novelist.”

I BELIEVE IN YOU, MY HONEYDEW TRACK LIST

    You Won’t Dig My Grave

    Honeydew (No Light)

    Truth is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding)

    Noah’s Children

    Wild Ways

    Thunderbird

    Kudzu Vines

    I’m Listening

    The Wreckage of One Vision of You

    The Throne

JOSH RITTER CONFIRMED TOUR DATES

August 9—Three Rivers, PEI—Cloggeroo Festival (solo show)
August 10—Truro, NS—Marigold Cultural Centre (solo show)
August 20—Westport, CT—Levitt Pavilion*
August 21—Portland, ME—State Theatre*
August 22—South Burlington, VT—Higher Ground*
August 23—Easthampton, MA—Arcadia Folk Festival
August 24—Lowell, MA—Lowell Summer Music Series*
November 1—Rochester, NY—Concerts at Beston Hall
November 2—Grand Rapids, MI—St. Cecilia Music Center
November 3—Ann Arbor, MI—The Ark
November 4—Cincinnati, OH—Taft Theatre
November 6—St. Louis, MO—The Sovereign
November 7—Chicago, IL—Thalia Hall
November 8—Minneapolis, MN—Fitzgerald Theater
November 9—Des Moines, IA—Hoyt Sherman Place
November 12—Pittsburgh, PA—Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall
November 13—Washington, D.C.—Lincoln Theatre
November 14—Philadelphia, PA—Keswick Theatre
November 16—New York, NY—Brooklyn Steel

*with special guest Bhi Bhiman