Silent Running release new single 'Walking Wounded' ahead of upcoming Belfast Limelight gig
Belfast band Silent Running will play the Limelight, Belfast on Friday, March 3rd; but this isn’t the first time the band has played the venue.
Lead singer Peter Gamble explained: “We’ve actually played the Limelight before, around the time of our album ‘Deep’ in 1989. It’s a fantastic venue with a rich history – a bit like us! We’re really looking forward to playing for all the Silent Running fans again – old and new. We’ll give it everything we have as usual”.
Ahead of the gig, the band has released a brand-new single ‘Walking Wounded‘ which is available now on all streaming platforms – https://fanlink.to/WalkingWounded
“Walking Wounded is a song about the human spirit’s amazing ability to overcome the great challenges life throws at us which I find very inspiring”, explained Gamble. “When you get to a certain age in life everyone has had to deal with some kind of adversity and suffered a little damage; everyone has been knocked down but most get up, dust themselves down and push on, survive and thrive, so I hope it is a song a lot of people can relate too. The chorus says it all: “the Walking Wounded, they get knocked down but they never stay down, the Walking Wounded just gotta roll the punches to the end of each round, we’ve all got something…”
Silent Running were one of Ireland’s biggest musical exports in the 1980s releasing 3 albums and a host of singles before folding after the third album. During this time they headlined numerous nights at London’s legendary Marquee club and toured extensively across Europe and the USA with some of the biggest names in the music business including Simple Minds, Robert Palmer, Talk Talk, and Stevie Van Zandt. They are now back after a 30-year break.
This came about after the band got together in 2019 to play a few songs at a band member’s wife’s birthday and this led to a sold-out gig at Belfast’s Voodoo. A live concert CD of the show was released in 2020. Before this, in late 2019 they released the single ‘Lost Boy’ followed by the single ‘Live Right Now’ in November 2020.
‘Lost Boy’ and ‘Live Right Now’ led to the writing and recording of the band’s first album in nearly 30 years ‘Follow The Light’. The album was recorded at Novatech in Belfast; the same studio in which they recorded the demos for the 80s albums, and was released to critical acclaim in April 2022.
Lead singer and songwriter Peter Gamble says, “I feel that ‘Follow the Light’ is Silent Running’s best album to date with the best and most consistent songs, and the band’s arrangements of the songs are really strong. My favourites of the songs I wrote in the 80s were the more collaborative efforts we wrote together as a band; songs like ‘Emotional Warfare’, so it has felt really good to produce together what we believe is a special album”.
Two singles were released from ‘Follow the Light’; ‘Beyond Your Wildest Dreams’ in February 2022 and ‘Darkest Hour’ (in aid of the Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal) in April 2022. In August 2022 Silent Running were asked to support Simple Minds when the band played to a massive crowd in Custom House Square, Belfast. The response was overwhelmingly positive and the band is now in the process of writing and recording a follow-up album.
A new single ‘Walking Wounded’ has already been recorded and is available now on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, and all streaming platforms.
The official video for ‘Walking Wounded’ is available on YouTube:
Industry Quotes/reviews:
9/10 - 'A Damned Good Album'
'All eleven tracks shine with the band's renewed life'
8.5/10 – ‘Follow the Light is a cracker and it felt like Silent Running have never been away’
'Follow the Light is an excellent record’
'A career-defining album in the shape of Follow the Light’
'It’s not often you can say that a rock album has heart and soul. This one does'
Tickets for Silent Running live in the Limelight, Belfast on Friday, March 3rd are available here:
