Anderson East Explores ‘Truth’ Behind ‘Maybe We Never Die’ on “Madelyn”

I about had enough / Can’t make sense of this world we’re living in / It keeps speeding up / Playing sides in this game nobody wins. Therein its opening, Anderson East cracks open first single “Madelyn,” a peer into all the dystopian, curious, and uncertain lives permeating upcoming fifth album Maybe We Never Die (Elektra/Low Country Sound) out August 20.

Regrouping with Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb (John Prince, The Highwomen, Rival Sons), along with longtime bandleader and now co-producer Philip Towns, the Alabama-born artist sways between the solitude and connectedness through the 12 tracks of Maybe We Never Die. 

Exploring life after death and some kind of immortal love, the “Madelyn” video, directed by Nico Poalillo, finds East in his MDLYN Corp. Lab—the imagined set running through the scenes of Maybe We Never Die—and an exploratory look at “love never dies.”

A follow up to 2018 release Encore, which produced the Grammy-nominated single, “All On My Mind,” Maybe We Never Die is a continuation of the deeply reflective state East found himself in 2020 when the pandemic hit. “Now, I’m more reflective and I’m beginning to realize what being a human being really means” East recently shared with American Songwriter. “It’s a nice reset.”

East went on to create the YouTube series Isolation Collective Sessions, where he and his bandmates (on split-screen videos) would perform various Encore tracks, while continuing his exploratory look at all the human conditions that eventually led to Maybe We Never Die.

“I wanted to create something unique with this record,” says East. “A piece of music, that as a whole, knew where its footing was but yet still attempted to see what was behind the curtains. I’m very proud of what it took to make and its ultimate outcome. I am very grateful to the wonderfully talented humans that lent their gifts to make it what it is.”