Vancouver was a hub for Bryan Adams' knockout new album Roll With the Punches

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Roll With The Punches is the first Bryan Adams album to come out on the singer’s own label Bad Records.

Released on Aug. 29, 2025, the 16th album from the chart-topping singer has already delivered one global top-10 single with the funky jam A Little More Understanding. Driven by a groovy Adams bass line, the track is a solid indicator of the new record’s rocking sound.

“We had a playback session at the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver with about 30 or so radio people,” said Adams. “After I played them A Little More Understanding, everyone just stood up and clapped. The bass line is just me being comfortable doing something I know how to do.”

As with 2022’s So Happy It Hurts, Roll With The Punches finds Adams completely in control of his creative process, with occasional contributions from long-time guitarist Keith Scott and drummer Pat Stewart.

Another familiar name to anyone who follows popular music is platinum producer Mutt Lange, who contributes background vocals and keyboards on five of the 10 new tunes. Lange also co-wrote the title track.

“The first time we worked together was in 1989 on Waking Up The Neighbours, and he just gets it,” said Adams. “I’ll send him an idea and he comes back with a revised idea that is just that much better. There is nobody like him that I can think of, with a track record that eclipses everybody.”

With the song Roll With The Punches, Adams knew he had both the title and the vibe for his new recording. The artist says he has a long history of knowing the anchor for an album when he hears it, and using that as a launch pad for the rest of the material.

“I started down the path with a bunch of songs that didn’t make the record, because when Roll With The Punches came together, it just became the cornerstone for moving forward,” he said. “Any time I get a track like that, and there have been quite a few across my career, from Cuts Like A Knife to 18 Till I Die, it becomes the title of the record. From there, it’s just a matter of building what goes right with it. And it was a lot of fun to make.”

If So Happy It Hurts had moments that hearkened back to ’50s-style rockabilly like You Belong To Me, Roll With The Punches draws a line right back to Adams’ roots in Vancouver glam rockers Sweeney Todd. Not that the recording isn’t up to the slick, radio-friendly standards that have been a signature of the singer’s brand of classic hooks.

Among the staples in Adams’ arsenal is the Hammond B-3 organ, which turns up everywhere from Will We Ever Be Friends Again to A Little More Understanding and others.

“I’ve got an old 1959 Hammond at the Warehouse and I just love the way it sounds in the room,” he said. “We recorded in Vancouver and a little bit down in the Caribbean. As always, I did a lot of the initial writing in my home studio.”

In his current self-managing role, Adams has an active role in all of the music videos being made for the singles. In the clip for Never Ever Let You Go, the singer and model Elizabeth Hurley turn up together in a roller-coaster ride that echoes the song lyric of relationships ups and downs. Asked whether the shoot was at England’s celebrated family amusement park Alton Towers, Adams laughs.

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“No, it’s us in a real roller-coaster car and a lot of CGI,” he said. “You probably can’t shoot at Alton Towers. We also went to Iceland for Will We Ever Be Friends Again.”

The Roll With The Punches tour starts Sept. 11 in Kamloops, with a Sept. 12 gig at Rogers Arena for his hometown fans to take in. Opening act is Prairie rockers the Sheepdogs. Tickets are available at ticketmaster.ca.

Bryan Adams highlights in Vancouver: Through the years

Born in Kingston, Ont., singer Adams grew up all around the world before moving to North Vancouver with his mother and younger brothers. Dropping out of school, he cut his teeth playing in local Vancouver bands including glam rockers Sweeney Todd. Adams replaced the group’s original singer Nick Gilder when he was 16, but left a year later.

His first charted single was a disco number titled Let Me Take You Dancing in 1979.

Changing directions for his self-titled debut in 1980, he experienced some success with the album and its 1981 follow up, You Want It You Got It. Then 1983’s Cuts Like a Knife arrived and his career took off. It never slowed down.

Adams has over 100 million in sales and a U.K. record for No. 1 singles. As recently as 2023, the single So Happy It Hurts was nominated in the best rock performance category for a Grammy Award.

Here are some career highlights of his over the years in Vancouver.

In a May 22, 1982 review of a Loverboy concert with Adams in the opening spot, writer Neal Hall noted the singer’s “different style of rock.”

“Adams, who has spent the last six months touring as the opening act for the Kinks and Foreighner, seems to have developed a personal, physically exciting style that suggests the best is yet to come from the 22-year-old rocker from North Vancouver.”

Only a few years later, Adams was playing back-to-back, sold-out shows at Pacific Coliseum. Province writer Tom Harrison was deeply impressed by the performance on night one. The review noted Adams spectacular growth as a performer.

“This was the concert everybody wanted, this was the concert everybody got. … It really was that kind of rare event at the hockey rink where the adrenalin rises like a flash flood and sweeps away everyone.”

Over the years, Vancouver fans were also treated to other sides of the artist’s creative output.

His 2014 Bryan Adams Exposed photography exhibit was a huge hit with patrons who thronged to take in his pictures of celebs such as Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger and assorted supermodels.

And in 2010, the rocker brought his high-energy show to Empire Field for the PNE’s 100th Anniversary. Appearing with The Beach Boys as opening act, Adams put on a blazing show. Vancouver Sun reviewer Francois Marchand noted how in his element the singer was at the performance.

Appropriately enough, How Do You Feel Tonight and Can’t Stop This Thing We Started followed (even the set list told a story, it seemed), and Adams was not about to stop any time soon.

“Adams was indeed at home, soaking it up and giving it all back — classic melodies, crunchy riffs, solos (courtesy of Keith Scott) and classic softies.

And it was pretty much relentless: Let’s Make A Night to Remember, a rollicking Kids Wanna Rock (where Adams did a quick guitar switch without missing a beat) melding into 18 ’til. I Die, which finally got the wave going around the stands in the end.

Delivering hit upon hit — Summer of ’69, Everything I Do, Cuts Like A Knife, Baby When You’re Gone (with Killarney girl Anna doing some backup “singing”), heaven, and Run To You to wrap things up — Adams launched the 100th edition of the PNE with a bang, proving that, just like his songs, good things never really get old.”

sderdeyn@postmedia.com with files from csoltau@postmedia.com

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