S.Lo on October 26th, 2019

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Nick Waterhouse has the blues in his latest single, “I’m Due (For a Heartache),” released this week via Innovative Leisure. The Huntington Beach native says, “I could never find the right place to put it on my latest album, so here it is — from me to you.”

Unlike the brash brightness of his self-titled album released earlier this year, the new single has a resigned, bittersweet heaviness. With a (self) kick hitting right on the beat, head-shaking piano flourishes and a woeful trumpet (masterfully played by Mark Pender), Waterhouse’s smooth tenor sings with a regretful tinge, “She don’t write and she don’t call / Callin’, writin’ city fool ain’t her style at all … I’m due for a heartache / I’m due / Made a mistake / In thinking / That I’m due / Due for you.”

It’s a rare indulgence for the producer-singer-songwriter to really sink into the emotion without worrying about pep and the consistent return to a spirit-rousing chorus. “This was a real late-night type of tune that followed me all over the coast. Born somewhere on a landline between Baton Rouge and San Francisco and finally cut in the warmth of a dim, late session,” he shares. “Cutting it, the band played it just how it always felt in my head.” The 60’s girl group-styled harmonies of his backup singers signal that this is classic heartbreak and this is the perfect song (both with vocals and the instrumental version) to turn up if you’re also feeling the dread of a love’s end.

||| Stream: “I’m Due (For a Heartache)”

||| Previously: Live at Glendale Open Arts & Music, Live at the Regent Theater, “Wreck the Rod,” Live at the Fonda, Live at the Regent, “Old Place,” “It’s Time,” Live at the Bootleg Theater, Live at Make Music Pasadena, “This Is a Game” (video, stream), Live at the Satellite, “Some Place,” “I Can Only Give You Everything”