Newton Faulkner cut off his dreadlocks – and reinvented his sound

HE’S long been known for his percussive acoustic guitar style paired with pop-folk songwriting, but since cutting off his trademark dreadlocks, Newton Faulkner has undergone something of a rebirth.

The East London-based musician cut off the famous locks on stage at Islington Assembly Hall in late 2024, raising money for the charity Teenage Cancer Trust.

“I felt like it had run its course,” he said.

In his latest album Octopus, released in early 2026, his music shifts toward a more experimental, electronic-influenced and collaborative era.

“I have been through so many phases and this one is the one that’s the hardest to describe,” he said.

“Whenever I play new material to friends they throw a list of names that they think it sounds like. In the past sometimes this list rubbed me up the wrong way because it wasn’t what I was going for at all. With this record it’s been amazing to not hear a single name that I didn’t absolutely love, from early punk stuff to D’Angelo.”

 

He describes the lead single, Alright Alright Alright, as “a bit Sex Pistols, a bit Jilted John”.

Faulkner has also changed the way he performs live. Known for playing seated during his shows, he decided that approach no longer suited the energy of the album.

“With this record I was like, ‘Right, this is not a sitting down record’, so I had to work out how I could use all of my limbs to make the same amount of noise standing up as I was making sitting down,” he said.

With that in mind, he custom-built a pair of MIDI shoes with four triggers that fire electronic percussion samples, including kicks and snares, with every stomp.

The rudimentary footwear was assembled using disc pickups, lens caps and plenty of sticky tape.

“I’m not a man that makes things,” he said. “It’s only the second thing I have made. I made a wooden squirrel in woodwork when I was in Year 9, then a pair of MIDI shoes around 40, which is probably a midlife crisis.”

Newton Faulkner performs at The Northern Byron Bay on Friday 24 April.

For more information and tickets, visit troubadourpresents.com/events/newton-faulkner