Newton Faulkner: onstage haircuts and new album ‘OCTOPUS’

If there’s one way to announce your return to releasing music after several years away, it’s having your waist-length ginger dreadlocks shaved off completely while performing on stage in London. And besides that physical reinvention, Dream Catch Me singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner returns with a new album, OCTOPUS, an album that defies genres and any concept of the folk-indie sound he broke through with almost 20 years ago. His debut album topped the UK album chart, and Dream Catch Me reached the UK top 10 singles, achieving a pinnacle of commercial success you wouldn’t usually expect from a dreadlocked folk singer. Faulkner chats to Headliner about why he is more committed to making the music he wants to make than ever before, and why trying to replicate that commercial high couldn’t be further from his mind.

Faulkner’s upbringing saw him immersed in the arts from a young age. He was privately educated in Bletchingley, Surrey, and later enrolled at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, during which time he grew his famous red dreadlocks. He went from a Green Day cover band (fittingly, he would be cast in the Green Day musical American Idiot years down the line) to his first band proper, Half A Guy, a funck rock group. Following their split, he began writing songs and performing as a solo singer-songwriter.

Within the space of around three years, Faulkner went from writing his first solo material and debut performances to performing on BBC Radio 2 and signing a publishing deal, which kicked the PR machine into gear for him. This led to his first record deal with Sony BMG and the release of Hand Built By Robots in the Summer of 2007. He would also secure some of the most coveted support slots for a singer-songwriter available at the time, touring with Paolo Nutini, The John Butler Trio, and John Mayer.

Besides the album itself topping the charts and going double platinum, it also contained the single Dream Catch Me, which not only hit no.7 on the UK singles chart, but remains Faulkner’s biggest, signature tune. It’s not difficult to hear why, with its wonderful lyrics and sing-along chorus, while showcasing his vocal and acoustic guitar abilities. Also popular to this day is his stripped-back cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop, the fourth single on the LP. The UK festival bookings came flooding in, and he has since become one of Glastonbury Festival’s most frequent performers.

Faulkner, who is doing the odd interview while on holiday in Spain, begins the call by reflecting on that crazy time in his career. “I managed not to find it that overwhelming at the time,” he says. “I think when it first started going really mental, I had a word with myself: ‘Okay, stuff's about to get pretty weird. What do we want to keep hold of? What do we want to not lose? What do you want to be in all this, and what do you love about doing the work? Okay, so let's just focus on the work and not get too swept up in everything else.’ Which I think served me relatively well. There are things that I wish I'd celebrated more, really. Because I’d just think, ‘Yep, that's ridiculous. I'm just not going to take in the insane thing that's just happened. I’m just going to go back to work.”

With that in mind, Headliner then asks Faulkner if it’s correct to assume he didn’t get into all this for chart successes, moments of fame, and everything that comes with that. It’s very tricky to imagine him glancing over his shoulder to see if the paparazzi are following him. And he now has his head shaved bald, so even if they were to, they no longer have his instantly recognisable hair to make their lives easier.

“I just like making music,” he confirms. “Now I'm trying to crowbar making music into the other bits that take up a lot of my time that aren't necessarily directly related. Social media is obviously a huge part of the job now, and it didn't even exist when I started. It's like the whole landscape has completely shifted. So I'm trying to fit music into all the other bits so it can feel like it's all part of the same thing. I talk to a lot of artists — there are some very disjointed feelings. People feel like they’re doing social media all the time, instead of the music, which should be the most important bit.

“But then, even what's the most important bit is totally being questioned at the moment. I was recently at a music event, and someone was talking about the hierarchy of importance. They said that actual music was number four. I was like, ‘Are you kidding?’ But I don't think they're wrong. I think I just don't like it. This whole thing about it being personality first, and then eventually the music comes into it. Whereas I'm very much music first, everything else second.”

Which makes for a humorous transition into his on-stage haircut — what could make for a better social media viral moment than having your immense dreadlocks, grown over decades, shaved off bald in front of a live audience in London? On the last night of his November 2024 tour, during his rendition of Dream Catch Me, Faulkner’s sister walked out onto the stage with an electric shaver for the presumably challenging task of removing each giant lock. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t merely doing this for the ‘Gram, instead raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

“It was right in the middle of the set, which made it so much stranger,” he explains. “My sister walked out with a shaver and just started shaving my head while I sat and played. So by the middle eight, I was completely bald. And then for the next 45 minutes, I was the only person in the room who had no idea what the shape of their head looked like. But we raised a lot of money for Teenage Cancer Trust, who I've worked with for years and years and years. They were one of the first charities I got involved with 20 years ago. They do incredible things.”

Following this physical reinvention, the lockless Faulkner then underwent a creative reinvention with the release of the single Alright Alright Alright featuring the Bloom Twins. Anyone who had been hoping for another BBC Radio 2-friendly track in the Dream Catch Me vein may have been left disappointed — it’s one of Faulkner’s grittiest indie rock tracks yet. The acoustic guitar is set aside, with a swirling electric and bass guitar riff, while Faulkner sounds like a man possessed with a megaphone.

He reveals that he “Was just messing around. I had to get it out of my head and into the machines, and I didn't think anyone else would ever hear it at all. It happens quite a lot; I'll have this idea that I've got to do, so I'm just going to do it. And then if anyone ever hears it, great. And if they don't hear it, it's fine, because what I needed to do was stop it going round and round in my head relentlessly, until it's kind of unpacked. And then when I started playing this idea to people, I was so shocked by everyone's response. It was actually my 14-year-old who listened to it on headphones. He listened from start to finish on the train, on the way home from school. He took the headphones off, put them in his lap, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, ‘Father, that's the best thing you've ever done. Well done.’ That's a win. My 14-year-old, not easily impressed.”

Hunting Season, another single and great highlight from the new album OCTOPUS, keeps up this record’s fiercely independent spirit. The guitars are fuzzy, the grooves are funky, and it features heaps of percussive instruments to create an almost Carnival atmosphere. It’s also the second moment on the LP with strong features, this time from Lissie and Los Bitchos.

And on his new September 2025 album, Faulkner reflects on how allowing the album to become what it wanted to be, instead of trying to fit it into some preconceived notion of what a Newton Faulkner album should be, was key to producing the LP that is out now. It also explains the tentacled title of the record.

“I had just finished making it as the window cleaner arrived, and I was like, ‘I've just finished making an album.’ He asked me what kind of album it is, and I said, ‘Oh…oh…that's a really good question.’ I think what makes it interesting to me is the fact that it wasn't ‘What would Newton Faulkner do’ at any point. It was, ‘What does this piece of music want to be? And how can I help it get there?’ So, if a song wanted to be heavy, I’d make it heavy. If a song wanted to have a vocoder choir, let’s do that. I'd never done that before, and I'm still working it out. It was me getting out of my own way and letting things be what they want to be. Which is why it ended up going in so many different directions. Because there was no one taming it or trying to make it fit in a box. That's why the octopus analogy works so well for it.” 

OCTOPUS is out everywhere now, and you can hear the album’s brand-spanking-new sound as Faulkner sets off on his October UK and Ireland tour. If you were hoping a live haircut would make up part of the set, he no longer has any hair for that purpose. But you can hear his brilliantly multi-faceted new tunes live, as well as songs from his 20-year career.