Draft:Bravest of the Brave

Bravest of the Brave is the upcoming seventh solo studio album by Adam Ant. It was recorded in 2014 and is due for release in at the earliest. Originally, the title track was to have been released in advance on Ant's sixtieth birthday, 3 November 2014; a different track was then scheduled instead for release a week later, again being delayed until early 2015. Since then, the album release has been pushed progressively further back while Ant has toured various back catalogue material.

Production
In 2013, as Ant released his first album in 18 years Adam Ant Is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter, he revealed to music magazine Vive Le Rock that he was already at work on ideas for songs for a follow-up album. Interviewed by the same magazine a year later, he cited his next album as an example of the forward planning which was possible for him on his own label. "I'm looking ahead to 2015 already now, planning the next album and working out when to release it, because I'm releasing it."

By early 2014, sessions for the album had commenced at One Louder Studios in London, England. Interviewed at the time by John Robb for his online music magazine Louder Than War, Ant reported that the cancellation of a tour of Germany and seven of the twelve UK warm-up dates for his live performance of debut Adam and the Ants album Dirk Wears White Sox at the Hammersmith Apollo was due to the commitment to making the album. "I’m sorry that I had to cancel some of the gigs because I had some problems with access to a producer in LA that I may be working with on the new album, and we managed to get some time with him right slap bang in the middle of the tour. So I had to knock seven of the shows on the head so I could start the sessions for the new album. The producer contacted me and schedules were very tight. I’ve written lots of new stuff, and I’m going out there to do the work and get the new album started."

The new album was officially announced by Ant when he appeared on the 7 August 2014 edition of Let's Do Lunch with Gino & Mel as a birthday surprise for co-host Melanie Sykes, a fan of Ant. On the show, Ant announced the release of the Bravest of the Brave single with B-side Garden of Earthly Delights for 3 November, with the album to follow shortly after. This was subsequently confirmed in an electronic press release. It was subsequently announced that the first single would instead be The Rokka and that this would be released on 10 November. In the event, no such release took place.

Interviewed in March 2015 again by Robb for Louder Than War, Ant reported the album would be out in 2016. "I have been working on the new album for a year and a bit on a very consistent level. I’ve been doing it non-stop. I started the new album in January last year and I have been plugging away at that all the while. ... For my new album, I’ve done all the recording. I’m listening to it now and working out the running order and doing the touch-ups here and there. I will then move on to the artwork and it should be ready for the new year ... I’m very pleased with it. I’m quite confident with this one and I’m in no rush to bring it out until I get the Dirk thing (2015 Dirk Wears White Sox UK tour) and the Kings project (reissue of Kings of the Wild Frontier) out of the way and it will come out early next year and I will take the time to put (it) together properly ... There are 13 tracks so far. It’s a nice thing to have the chance to listen to it and getting the running order right, that’s quite important." At the end of the year, commenting on 2015 in retrospective, Ant identified his musical highlight of the year as being "putting the finishing touches" to the album, which he said, "has ventured into new musical territory for me personally."

The wait for the release
With the Dirk tour duly completed the aforementioned "Kings project" was released in May 2016 and the Kings tour ran from 23 May in Ipswich to 10 June in Brixton, followed by a performance on 18th December 2016 at the Roundhouse and a US leg of the tour in January/February 2017. A UK "Anthems" singles tour took place in May 2017 and this show toured the USA in autumn 2017 followed by Australasian dates for the Kings tour, one more Anthem show in December 2017 at the Roundhouse and further US Anthems dates in early 2018 and in summer 2018 and two more Roundhouse shows in December 2018. A tour of the 1982 album Friend or Foe took place over September/October in North America and November/December 2019 in the UK with further North American dates originally scheduled for April/May 2020 but rescheduled due to COVID-19 to September/October, then to April/May 2021 and finally to 2022 before being cancelled, with a stopgap UK "Antics" tour booked for March that year but postponed to June due to Ant suffering from nervous exhaustion, with a few dates postponed further until September due to Ant contracting COVID-19. An appearance at the 2023 Cruel World Festival plus a warm up date was cancelled and there otherwise was silence until October 2023 when a late 2024 UK tour was annnounced. Since that time, a US tour for earlier in the year has begun with a replacement 2024 Cruel World performance also announced for 11 May 2024. By early 2024, a decade had passed since the start of the album sessions.

Asked about the album in late 2017, Ant opted to keep his counsel. "That's the $4 million question. Basically, certainly with social media now, it's best to wait until everything's done, tidied up, and ready to rock before you announce what you're going to do. I'm not just being secretive about it but I find that even rumor now becomes a kind of entity.  I'm a busy person.  When the time's right, all will be revealed." Asked again about the album in early 2018, Ant replied "Well, I tend to announce things when they’re ready. It’s a work in progress. For now, I’m kind of dealing with the catalog and songs that have already been recorded. But it’s not ready yet. You just keep working on these things until they’re ready. "

Style
In the March 2015 Louder Than War interview, Ant also commented on the new album sound: "Musically, it’s hard to describe. It’s pretty much all the band on it and I have done it with a guy called Peter Olive – he is my keyboard player and I’ve never worked with the keyboard before. He’s brilliant, genius – the guy is like a young Eno, and just having said that the sound is very different from anything I’ve done before ... It’s like I say, the first time that there will be a measure of electronic and keyboards involved. It’s even quite classical in parts. The rulebook has gone out of the window. I have kept certain mainstays of the style – with my vocal and the writing style. It’s as different as Dirk was when that came out. It’s really quite experimental on that level but there are a lot more singles on it this time. I tried to get thinking in terms of singles from the start. Not to make the tracks too long. "