EVERY GENERATION THINKS THE WORLD HAS LOST ITS MIND. WELCOME TO THE NEW NORMAL

Once “Too Rock ’n’ Roll” to Fit, Bay Simpson Proves Adam Levine’s Point on The Voice With a Five-Song EP That Refuses to Pick a Lane

“It’s in your bones. The tone and the way you delivered the vocals really showed me an understanding of rock ’n’ roll music… This dude is awesome. He’s going to be different than anybody on the show.”

— Adam Levine, NBC’s The Voice

“Bay, you are the surprise for me. I love your voice. I could see you performing in front of huge crowds, too, but I see your voice being able to silence them.”

— Kelly Clarkson, NBC’s The Voice

Everything is unprecedented. Everything is a crisis. Everyone has an opinion, and somehow everyone else is wrong. On his new five-song EP, The New Normal, Bay Simpson looks at a world where the noise keeps getting louder, the lines keep getting harder and everyone seems determined to pick a side. His response isn't another political anthem. It's a little perspective and one deceptively simple thought: maybe none of this is as new as we think.

Raised in Muscle Shoals, where Country, rock, soul and blues have spent decades bleeding into one another, Simpson has never fit particularly neatly into one lane. After years performing across Tennessee and Alabama and fronting Outlaw Apostles, he stepped onto NBC’s The Voice, where Adam Levine praised his understanding of rock ’n’ roll and Kelly Clarkson described his voice as “sexy and intimate and rock and roll.”

That difference runs straight through The New Normal, a collection of songs that have followed Simpson through different bands, writing rooms, stages and chapters of his career, and are finally getting their moment.

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“‘The New Normal’ is really about being OK with an ever-changing society,” Simpson says. “This song is really my take on today’s social climate. I acknowledge the problems, while understanding that none of it is actually ‘new’ at all.”

Simpson wrote the title track in 2019 alongside acclaimed Americana singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc, Grammy-winning producer and hit songwriter Keith Stegall (Alan Jackson, Zac Brown Band, George Jones), and BMI Songwriter of the Year Vicki McGehee (Jason Aldean, Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich, Faith Hill & Tim McGraw)during one of his earliest Nashville writing trips for Outlaw Apostles. It never made the cut for one very Bay Simpson reason: it was too rock ’n’ roll.

But he never let it go. Years later, its observations about polarization feel sharper, while its refusal to tell listeners what to believe remains central to the song.

“It hints at how polarizing today’s political climate is, without picking a side,” Simpson says. “The underlying message of the song is really one of unity. And, as the song says, ‘The New Normal, it is what it is, and it’s alright.’”

That title became a fitting banner for an EP built from material Simpson wasn't ready to leave behind. Recorded at The NuttHouse Recording Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, with Grammy and Juno Award-winning producer/engineer Jimmy Nutt (Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Alabama Shakes, The SteelDrivers, The Dead South), The New Normal pulls together five songs with histories of their own. These aren't tracks written to fill a release schedule; they're songs that opened doors, became live staples or simply stayed with Simpson long enough to demand a proper home.

“These are all songs that I love, and songs that have meant something to me for a long time,” Simpson says. “I’m happy to finally be getting them off my chest, so to speak, and release them into the world for everyone to hear.”

“Over Me Eyes,” written with Brian Maher, leans unapologetically into Simpson’s rock side, while the final two tracks, “Different Animal” and “Living the Blues,” come directly from the stage, where both typically close Simpson's live show.

Taken together, the five songs capture the pieces that were already there: the Muscle Shoals upbringing, the Country foundation, the rock ’n’ roll instinct, the songwriter who opened doors in Nashville and the performer built through years onstage.

And there’s a certain full-circle irony in the song once considered too rock ’n’ roll becoming the title track of the project. What once kept the song from fitting has become part of what sets Simpson apart—the same rock ’n’ roll instinct Adam Levine recognized on The Voice and the genre-blurring identity Simpson is now embracing on his own terms.

For an EP built around the idea that change is inevitable, Simpson seems increasingly comfortable with one thing that hasn't changed: he was never supposed to fit neatly into a box.

Bay Simpson isn't introducing a new version of himself. He's finally putting all the versions that were already there on the same record.

THE NEW NORMAL TRACK LISTING (songwriters in parenthesis)

1. The New Normal (Bay Simpson, Dylan LeBlanc, Keith Stegall, Vicky Mcgehee)
2. Over Me Eyes (Bay Simpson, Brian Maher)
3. Different Animal (Bay Simpson, Logan Platt)
4. Livin’ the Blues’ (Heath Owen, Brian Maher, Bay Simpson, James LeBlanc)

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