Grammy-nominated British singer-songwriter Thomas Dolby chatted about his 2026 U.S. Tour dates, and being an artist in the digital age.
A new wave and synth-pop musician, Dolby is known for his smash ’80s hits “She Blinded Me with Science” and “Hyperactive!”
2026 American show dates
On his U.S. tour, he remarked, “I am thrilled! I am very excited to be going out and touring again. Very often, I play solo, but on this particular tour, I’ve got some guest musicians of very high caliber with me.”
On Wednesday, April 15th, 2026, Dolby will be headlining Racket NYC. “We will be doing new arrangements of songs, and I’m sort of interspersing that with some storytelling about recollections from the 1980s,” he said.
Perennial success of ‘She Blinded Me with Science’
On the perennial success of “She Blinded Me with Science,” he expressed, “Not that many songs have that perennial lifetime. So, I am very proud of that!”
On the song’s inception, he said, “I like playing around with new technologies and new musical ideas and idioms and things like that. So, I’m always very attracted to things that are unexplored, whether that be MTV videos or synthesizers and samplers and drum machines.”
Dolby on the ’80s musical era
“The ’80s were a very exciting era,” he admitted. “It was a lot of different musical styles coming together from around the world, enabled by new technologies that took the music business out of the hands of big record companies eventually, and recording studios and the budgets that went along with them, and they allowed people like me to go into our back rooms and experiment.”
“Then, I think the arrival of MTV sort of broke the deadlock that radio had in terms of formulas and genres of music,” he noted.
“If a video was exciting, MTV would play it, and then the radio stations had to sort of follow that format. So, it really opened things up musically,” he observed.
“It’s an incredible honor really to still be up there getting paid to do the things that we love,” he acknowledged.
“It’s also really heartening not only see people of our own age, but also young people who are discovering ’80s music and they’re fascinated by it,” he added.
Dolby on Gail Ann Dorsey
David Bowie’s longtime bassist, Gail Ann Dorsey, will open his shows with her solo set, and she will subsequently join him on stage with his band.
“Gail was David’s bassist for 12 years,” he said. “She is also an incredible alto singer, and a wonderful bassist. I’m lucky enough to have her with me, not only opening for me but also guesting with my band, and sharing some of the lead vocals, which is very exciting.”
The digital age
On being an artist in the digital age, he said, “I know a lot of people that see the glass half empty. They are scared of streaming audio and they are scared of AI and things like that.”
“I’ve always been on the positive side,” he said. “I always see emerging technologies as an opportunity for new forms of creativity. I think art and music need to keep evolving.”
“They have to keep rolling forward… it’s fine to be nostalgic about previous eras, but you can’t be a Luddite, put the brakes on and say, ‘no, this is wrong.’ You know, we’ve got to revert to the way things were. You can’t stop the march of progress,” he elaborated.
“So, I would rather be one of the pioneers that is out there at each point, showing the world what is possible with new technologies. I think it’s an exciting era to be an artist,” he added.
Advice for young and aspiring artists and bands
For young and emerging artists and bands, Dolby said, “Well, I mean, it’s really tricky because of the competition. These days you’ve got to be a marketer, you’ve got to know a bit about business, because you’re not going to have a team of people at the record company doing that for you. You’ve got to be the one blowing your own trumpet.”
“I think that’s uncomfortable for a lot of artists because we don’t really like to be blowing our own trumpet and bigging ourselves up in that way,” he noted.
“We would rather somebody else is on the phone every morning singing our praises and getting us out there. The days, you have to be self-serving really. I think that’s the tricky thing… how to balance art and commerce,” he explained.
Thomas Dolby — The College professor
Dolby is a college professor at John Hopkins University, where he teaches film music.
“It has a conservatory called the Peabody Conservatory, which is actually the oldest in the United States, which is close to 150 years old now,” he said. “It’s an incredible place with lots of very talent musicians that have been playing their instruments since they were toddlers.”
“I’m very honored to be in the faculty there alongside people with doctorates in music. I left school at 16 years old to go work in a fruit and veg shop. I’m sort of amazed to be allowed to walk the same corridors as those guys,” he elaborated.
“To be fair, I think the students realize that I bring them something else that they don’t get from their theory professors… I bring them the school of life, really, and I learned by trial and error,” he said.
“What I try and teach them is how to make the best of what they have given the cards that you’re dealt with, and how to find their own voice as composers and musicians,” he added.
Dream duet choice in music — Billie Eilish
Dolby listed Billie Eilish as his dream duet choice in music, because her father Patrick raised both her and her older brother FINNEAS on his music. “Their dad used to spoon feed them my music on cassette, when they were in the car and when they went to camp,” he said.
“So, a dream collaboration would be to do something with Billie,” he added.
Stage of his life
On the title of the current chapter of his life, Dolby revealed, “The Next Frontier”
“Working at a conservatory, I hear the orchestra tuning up and practicing and these are people who have devoted their lives to their instrument and they’re playing an instrument that has centuries of legacy in the craftsmanship,” he said.
“They are playing music that has been fine-tuned over the years, he noted. “Sometimes, I go and sit in the back of the hall when they’re rehearsing and when they’re really on it, it’s like watching a school of fish or a flock of birds moving… you don’t hear the individual choices.”
“When it all comes together, it’s just an amazing thing,” he said. “So, my ambition at this point is to compose for a symphony. That would be cool!”
Success
On his definition of the word success, Dolby said with a sweet laugh, “Well, never having to worry about the repo man coming to take away your big screen TV, really, I suppose.”
“I’m not spendy or wealthy in that sense. So, I feel very successful because my artistic choices are not influenced by needing to pay the rent every month,” he said.
“I’m very grateful for that, and I feel bad for people who are great artists for which making that rent payment every month is still an issue. It is very hard these days to make a living. Recorded music is not profitable now,” he elaborated.
“It’s really a case of whether you can make money out on the road, and that’s not even possible for everybody to do,” he noted.
“So, I consider myself successful because I’m able to make choices based on expressing myself, exploring music, and finding a new way to entertain my fans, expand my audience, and find a way to interest younger crowds with my music so that they can get into it,” he explained.
Message for his fans
For his fans, he remarked, “Come on down! As you get older, it gets harder and harder to get out to shows.”
“You’ve got kids, dogs, mortgages, and roof repairs to worry about. I think it’s a worthwhile thing to come down to my shows because this is music that you probably loved when you were younger,” he explained.
“Who knows how long they’ll still be an opportunity to see me out there playing it while I’m still thankfully fit and healthy to do so,” he elaborated.
“Bring your kids, younger friends, and neighbors to get into the music that they want to hear… This is some different kind of ’80s music from what they hear in the rewinds and retro type shows,” he added.
Closing thoughts on the 2026 U.S. tour
For listeners and fans, he stated, I want them to get a new perspective on that era. I think the ’80s were actually a very dark decade. By today’s standards, they seem fairly innocent, but if you were around back then, it was very dark.”
“I think that darkness is reflected in the music of The Smiths, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and a lot of my contemporaries from the United Kingdom, and that’s something that I want to lean into more,” he concluded.
To learn more about British new wave and synth-pop star Thomas Dolby, check out his official website, and follow him on Instagram.
