Tom Garfield announces the release of his new 4-track EP, Greed — a folk rock-based collection of songs that does not flinch, does not hedge, and does not ask permission. Inspired by the tradition of artists who have always used their platform to call things by their true names — from Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan to Bertolt Brecht and Bad Bunny — Garfield arrives with the rare combination of lived experience, philosophical depth, and the kind of lyrical boundlessness that comes from someone who has spent a lifetime standing for something real.
“Greed” is a scathing indictment of the status quo. It is not subtle about that. It does not need to be.
The music is rooted in folk rock, delivered with a whispery rasp that carries both the weight of raw, deep life experience and the bone-level conviction of an artist who has been paying close attention for a very long time. The lyricism is uncensored, motivational at its core, and shaped by the same moral urgency that has driven every great protest songwriter from the twentieth century forward. Tom Garfield is, without question, an everyman — and he stands here firmly for the voiceless.
“From Woody Guthrie to Bad Bunny and all in between,” says Garfield, “I’ve always been inspired by artists who use their platform to promote a more just, peaceful and equitable world. As Bertolt Brecht put it: ‘Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.'”
That philosophy is not a creative posture for Garfield. It is a life practice. As a lifelong community artist and activist, he has spent decades in service of urban schools, community agencies, and cultural organisations — supporting the kind of work that happens quietly, at street level, far from the spotlight. His music comes from the same place: not from a desire to mesh with any current cultural fashion, but from a genuine belief that art can and must participate in world change.
Greed is what that belief sounds like in four tracks. Visceral, philosophical, compassionate, and completely unwilling to look away.
