Sons of Town Hall launch Madmen Cross The Water podcast
Transatlantic folk duo, Sons Of Town Hall, have launched their own radio-theatre style podcast series, Madmen Cross The Water, where each monthly episode tells the story of the songs on their forthcoming album ‘Of Ghosts and Gods,’ to be released in September 2025.
The comedy fiction podcast takes place in the early 1900s, and features the folk duo telling their mythical origin story. The series charts the pair’s misadventures as they travel the world armed with relentless optimism and mesmerising harmonies. Each episode enacts the outlandish adventures behind each song on their new album, as Sons of Town Hall take the concept album to the next-level with each song helping to construct their fantastical world.
The podcast features witty writing, cinematic production, and a beautiful original score. It is a must-listen for fans of indie folk music and off-kilter storytelling. Think: Dolly Parton’s America sharing a tour bus with Welcome to Nightvale and Iron & Wine.
Sons of Town Hall are played by British songwriter and producer Ben Parker and American songwriter and author David Berkeley, both of whom have long musical careers in their own right. The pair dreamed up this wild imaginative concept in a London pub nearly a decade ago and have been thrilling audiences around the world ever since with their rare vocal blend and hilarious repartee. Dressed in threadbare Victorian outfits, a Sons of Town Hall show is part concert, part performance art, and unlike anything you have ever seen.
This fictional world they create allows them a rare artistic freedom both as writers and performers onstage and in the studio. “It is a kind of performance art,” Berkeley explains. “We are, in a sense, characters in a fiction we have dreamed up and re-create with our audiences every night.” Parker adds that “maybe the most surprising benefit of the ‘act,’ is that it allows us to be more honest and direct both in our songwriting and in what we say between our songs about human struggles. The costumes, in the end, somehow enable us to be more ourselves.”
Sons Of Town Hall will embark on a tour of village halls and community centres in the North of England in May 2025, supported by the Highlights Rural Touring Scheme:
14 May - Hepscott Parish Hall
15 May - Appleby HUB
16 May - Gilsland Village Hall
18 May - Great Whittington Village Hall
20 May - Blyth Library
21 May - Wingates Village Institute
22 May - Allendale Village Hall
Full tour details here - https://highlightsnorth.co.uk/event/sons-of-town-hall/
The album ‘Of Ghosts And Gods’ will be released in September 2025, and supported by headline shows in November, including a date at London’s King’s Place.
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