Roger Joseph Manning Jr. has announced his new album, Hopium, due out September 18, 2026, on Omnivore Recordings. Available on vinyl, CD and digital, the LP features five new songs and five live tracks from the Jellyfish and Imperial Drag co-founder.
Along with the news, the artist has shared his new single, “Modern Dance (The After School Specials),” a recently completed song from the vault that’s been in the works for more than three decades.
Roger Joseph Manning Jr. says about the new single:
I’ve been committed to finishing this song for upwards of 30 years. That’s how much I believed in it. For example, the bulk of the music was written in 1995 during my Imperial Drag days. I finally completed an arrangement and the lyrics in 2015 while on a European summer tour with Beck. It would then be another 10 years of random recording sessions and a final mix being completed in 2025. There’s no right way to get to the finish line. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out; I hope everybody enjoys it as much as me!
Side one of Hopium features five new songs, some of which have been in the works for over 15 years. Across the ensuing years, Manning worked with musician friends Victor Indrizzo (drums), Steve Shane McDonald (bass), Jim Wilson (electric guitars), Ken Sluiter (mixing, mastering) and Jason Falkner (additional electric guitars) to craft the basis of the new album.
About the songs on Hopium, Roger says:
I remember writing the lyrics in a hotel room in Germany. Out on tour, especially in the middle of the night when you’re jetlagging, you have all this time to think about lyrics that take forever to take shape. It’s a huge sense of personal victory when you realize you’ve got something. This collection of songs is like that, ideas that developed over time that I believed in enough to take the time and resources to flesh out and record thinking, ‘Somebody’s got to hear this someday.’ So I just keep going and it’s a method that’s worked for me over the years because as a freelance musician, we’re all so busy trying to make ends meet, the songs that make it through have a special place in my heart.
The flipside of Hopium is drawn from Manning’s live appearance at the 2018 International Pop Overthrow Festival at Molly Malone’s in Los Angeles. Those five songs include a pair from his 2006 album The Land Of Pure Imagination, one from his previous Omnivore release, 2023’s Radio Daze & Glamping, and another pair from his former band, Jellyfish. The live band appearing alongside him for the IPO date includes Chris Price, Dan Rothchild, Ben Lecourt, Alex Jules, and Emeen Zarookian.
Roger Joseph Manning Jr. is internationally known as co-founder or member of the bands Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, The Moog Cookbook, TV Eyes and The Lickerish Quartet, in addition to being a member of Beck’s band and an in-demand session player. Over the years, he’s contributed to albums by Beck, Morrissey, Lana Del Rey, Blink-182, Johnny Cash, Cheap Trick and Adele, among many others.
