Birkenhead-born newcomer Ty Freeman has released Better Man, which he describes as his “most personal and powerful single yet“. Released on 17 October, the track was recorded in Real Sound Recording Studio in Milan and mastered by Graeme Lynch at Liverpool’s Kempston Street Studios.
Written during a period of deep emotional collapse and awakening, Better Man finds Freeman confronting trauma, abandonment and the lingering ghosts of a relationship that pushed him to a breaking point. “It’s not a heartbreak song”, Ty explains. “It’s a spiritual reckoning. It’s about learning from the wreckage you made of yourself all those years battling manic highs and crushing lows without realising what it really was and walking out stronger, even when you’re left for dead in the gutter. The harsh truth is no one else is coming to save you but yourself”.
The track comes to a head during an explosive bridge section, led by a blaring guitar solo and Freeman’s commanding vocals. Charged with a gritty self-assurance, the lyrics read as a cathartic declaration; “I left you in a distant life, one that I don’t really wanna have to go back to” / “I’m a better man, bigger plans, and a nicer view”.
“I’d been chasing that hard-rock energy for years and it was failing to resonate with me personally, but something shifted,” Ty explains. “I started writing these more fragile, emotionally-coloured songs that felt truer to who I really am. Looking at this song now, it feels somewhere between The Verve’s Northern Soul era and those B-sides like ‘Slide Away’, that same weight of honesty and soul in the voice that moved me when I was seventeen. Back then I was listening to bands like Cast, The Coral, and Radiohead, alongside Jeff Buckley, artists who knew how to balance vulnerability and power. This solo record is about returning to my roots, but this sound is my evolution.”
Directed by Frank Felsen, the accompanying music video – a key scene of which is teased in the single’s artwork – channels the themes of transformation and self-reflection into a cinematic journey, which Ty describes as a “symbolic merging of strength and vulnerability.” “The video mirrors that same rebirth… It’s about reconnecting with the softer, more intuitive energy within myself, the part I’d ignored for years”. Ty explains that Sina Härtel,who depicts his double in the video, “represents that balance coming back into focus”. “It’s not about one side destroying the other, but about integration healing the divide between strength and vulnerability. That’s the real transformation.”
Ty Freeman – Better Man
Freeman is fast making a name for himself with his raw vocals, vintage tone, and electrifying stage presence. With a debut album already in the pipeline – produced by Chris Taylor (Blossoms, The Coral) – earlier this year Ty played a sold out 200 capacity headline show at Zurich’s Dynamo Werk 21, while making his official UK live debut at London’s The Shacklewell Arms in June.
Ty will be performing a London headline show at the Moth Club on 20th November – you can grab tickets via tyfreemanmusic.com.
Stream Better Man on all streaming platforms now.
