For his first release of 2025, Tom Nethersole is tapping into the optimism and enthusiasm that many of us feel in the new year. The track, Ardmona Rd, is a love letter directly from the artist to his future forever partner—and it’s one that fills us with joy upon each and every listen.
Not Safe For Queers chats with Tom about the release, and where the idea for Ardmona Rd came from before he shares his advice with young queers looking for love.
NSFQ: Congratulations on the release of Ardmona Rd. What’s the reception been like so far?
TN: It’s honestly been one of my best releases so far, both in terms of streams, and also just the response that I’ve been getting from friends and family and fans. So that feels very nice.
My favourite compliment so far that I’ve gotten about the track is that it feels very authentic to me.
NSFQ: You’ve mentioned elsewhere that Ardmona Rd is a nostalgic and heartfelt take on young, queer love. What was the inspiration behind writing about such a personal topic?
TN: I went into it just wanting to create a song that I could sing to my future partner. I wanted it to be a queer love song about taking my future partner home to meet my family—and that’s because, when I was younger, I was always so scared of bringing people home. So, the idea of looking forward to taking someone home and them seamlessly meshing into my family seemed really, really beautiful. And that’s where the song was born.
NSFQ: So, it’s less about having fallen in love, and more about manifesting a first love?
TN: Yeah, it’s about me thinking about the future and the person that I will fall in love with. There’s probably some speculation about, like, ‘is this someone who I’m secretly dating? Is this about a past love?’ but no. You can have the exclusive hot take—this is about a future lover, a forever partner.
Like, with Hindsight (the EP I released last year), that was all about looking back on the way I grew up. But this song is very much about looking forward to growing old with someone. It feels very hopeful.
NSFQ: It does feel (and sound) very hopeful. But it also sounds different to most of your other tracks. Who were some of your major influences for Ardmona Rd?
TN: I’d say I was influenced by a lot of Ryan Beatty, and lots of Noah Kahan. But also, Ruel and Role Model were some influences that came into it. Pretty much any name that started with R seemed to be an influence in this song. Then also, Johnny Thomas (who produced the track and was one of the co-writers), his energy in the room and his production style really leant itself to being very upbeat and having those influences of folk and country in it.
So, it’s nice that it has those kinds of influences, but still feels very me. I was very scared of it leaning too heavily into those country influences.
NSFQ: Overall, Ardmona Rd is a very optimistic track about a future first love. Thinking about all the little queer babies who might be listening to this track who only really hear about queer devastation and heartbreak in media—what would you say to them about queer love?
TN: Yeah, like you’re saying, so many queer songs and queer stories centre around heartbreak and tragedy and struggle. So, I really wanted there to be a song that doesn’t have a ‘but’ to it. It’s just like, this is the beauty that can come from years of struggling; this is the reward we get when we go through these things, and we find someone who understands us in spite of all the things we were never understood for.
NSFQ: Finally, what is your favourite lyric in Ardmona Rd?
TN: “Brayden knocked a tooth out; he stayed a week in ICU.”
I don’t know why, but it’s so visual to me. And it feels very masculine for me, which doesn’t really align with what I’ve done in the past.
Tom Nethersole’s new single, Ardmona Rd, is out now.