Richard Thompson to answer Guardian readers’ questions ahead of new album

Richard Thompson is set to answer readers’ questions for the Guardian ahead of his new album, Hippies, Thugs and Heroes. The newspaper opened its online callout on Friday, 9 October, and is asking readers to post questions in the article’s comments before 10am BST on Monday, 12 October. It plans to publish his answers later that week.

The invitation covers the forthcoming record and the rest of Thompson’s career, according to the Guardian. For readers, the immediate opportunity is to submit a question; the interview and its answers have yet to appear. The callout gives no number of questions that will be chosen and does not promise a response to every submission.

How to send Richard Thompson a question

Questions should be posted in the comments beneath the Guardian’s callout before the stated deadline. The newspaper says Thompson will answer questions about the album and anything else in his career, so the invitation extends beyond the new songs. The Guardian says it intends to publish the answers in the following Friday’s Film & Music section and online.

That schedule puts the proposed answers close to the album’s planned release. The Guardian gives 16 October as the release date for Hippies, Thugs and Heroes, and Thompson’s Bandcamp album listing also states 16 October 2026. The publication of answers remains a plan described in the callout; the questions have not yet been selected in the information published there.

What is confirmed about Hippies, Thugs and Heroes

The same listing offers vinyl and CD pre-orders. It gives shipping as on or around 16 October, wording that leaves the exact delivery date open. The listed editions include standard and signed physical versions, with prices in US dollars that vary by format. The album page therefore describes several ways to obtain the record, while the Guardian’s invitation concerns the separate reader interview.

According to the artist and label’s Bandcamp description, Thompson recorded the album with longtime band members Taras Prodaniuk on bass, Michael Jerome on drums and David Mansfield on guitar and fiddle, with Zara Phillips on backing vocals. The page says sessions at Hobosound Studio in Weehawken, New Jersey, often took two to four takes. Those are details supplied by the artist and label about how the record was made.

The Bandcamp description presents the songs as a collection of characters and stories, and names Sorcerer’s Apprentice as the opening track and Stringer as the closer. It links the opening song to Thompson’s experience of 1970s spiritual movements. Those descriptions offer a sense of the themes the album’s promoters are emphasizing, but the reader interview may provide Thompson’s own answers about the songs if the planned exchange goes ahead.

Why readers may have questions about Thompson’s career

The Guardian calls Hippies, Thugs and Heroes Thompson’s 20th solo studio album. Its callout looks back to the start of a career that began in his teens with Fairport Convention. It singles out the band’s 1969 album Liege and Lief as part of the British folk canon, placing the new release in the context of more than five decades of recordings and performances.

The newspaper also recounts Thompson’s musical partnership with Linda Thompson, whom he married in 1972. It names I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight and Pour Down Like Silver among the albums they made together. That period, as well as his Fairport Convention work and subsequent solo records, falls within the open-ended career remit of the reader callout.

Other chapters identified by the Guardian include Thompson’s conversion to Islam, specifically Sufism, a period away from music and a return in the late 1970s. It also cites collaborations with Werner Herzog, David Byrne and Harry Shearer, and his show 1000 Years of Popular Music. The range helps explain why the newspaper has invited questions beyond the forthcoming album.