Following his stellar set on the Hot Press Lockdown Sessions last month, Tiz McNamara has returned with his debut EP, April Fool.

The five-track project powerfully captures McNamara's journey as a songwriter. From banging pots and pans as a three-year-old to building up his skills on a drum kit, he was awarded a place at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts – the prestigious Music and Arts school founded by Sir Paul McCartney.

However, in his second year of the degree, McNamara was moving a piano when it fell four feet down and burst his foot. Although doctors initially wanted to amputate, his mother, who had flown over, convinced them to try anything else. He narrowly avoiding amputation, but McNamara had no choice but to drop out of the degree of his dreams, and begin again.

After making a full recovery, he re-auditioned and carried on.

“I re-auditioned on vocals and wrote a song called ‘ Falling Asleep’ [the opening track on the EP] which is played with only my thumb on the guitar as I did not know how to play at the time," he says. "Thankfully I was accepted in and have been singing ever since.”

The EP also explores the tragic losses McNamara suffered in his early years – with his father and two brothers dying before his first birthday.

“My eldest brother and father died in a tragic boating accident and my other brother David died of Cot death when he was just a couple of months old," he says. "I have always found this extremely traumatic and for me music was always my release and way of getting these feelings and emotions out.”

Every year on their anniversary, April 1, Tiz releases a new single in memory of them to make a difficult time of year into a more productive one.

McNamara also openly acknowledges his battles with depression in his lyrics, and decided to end the EP with the hopeful track 'Days Like These'.

"This song is about getting out the far end of the hard times and savouring the good days," he explains. "Depression is a recurrent theme in my music but I love life and adventure, so this song is about the good times.”

The April Fool EP was recorded in a cabin in Nova Scotia with producer Dan Ledwell. Tiz and Dan spent six days tracking the songs in his lakeside cabin, and recorded all the instruments themselves, with some guest vocals from Breagh McKinnon.

Listen to the April Fool EP below: