“Paper Roses”, the final single preview from Scott Lavene’s forthcoming album Disneyland In Dagenham is out now through Cheersquad Records & Tapes.

Scott Lavene was invited by The Hold Steady’s frontman Craig Finn to tour with him last year, which went down so well that they hit the road together once more in February. After a triumphant set at End Of The Road Festival, he then capped 2023 opening for The Hold Steady proper at the band’s legendary annual New York residency. Finn is among the many converted to Lavene’s work, and he appears on Disneyland In Dagenham opener ‘Paper Roses’.

Finn had Tweeted about his enjoyment of Lavene’s music while he was in the studio with Benjamin Woods. “I’m not very good at self-promotion but I was with someone who was. Benjamin was like, ‘Fucking tweet him back! Get him on the album! We went for a coffee and he asked me to go on tour with him, it’s a relationship of mutual admiration really. And what a bloody gift he’s given me – I’ve definitely stolen quite a lot of Hold Steady fans.”

Lavene offers that Paper Roses is, “a song about having a shit time in love. Wrote in five minutes in front of the tele at night. It was one and a half minutes long, a perfect opener. Tried to write more verses but seemed to take away the magic. Asked Craig Finn if he fancied adding some words and they were so good we extended the song to get him in it.”

Disneyland In Dagenham is a record that tumbles together the autobiographical and the imagined, the heart-breaking and the preposterous; the tale of that itinerant drug-dealing horse, for instance is also a genuinely touching allegory for the way friendships can slip through one’s fingers.

The album is due to be released on the 10th of May 2024 and is available for pre-order now!.