Focus Track “Big Plan 3” Confronts the Collapse of a Relationship with Stark Honesty
Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and longtime Billy Idol touring keyboardist Paul Trudeau releases his deeply personal new album Lost Diamond Boy today. A poignant, 13-track journey through the emotional wreckage of divorce and recovery, the album delivers a powerful mix of vulnerability, storytelling, and classic-rock sensibility.
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The focus track “Big Plan 3” cuts to the emotional core of the album, anchored by the stark lyric: “Lean on bad dreams, I don’t think we’re gonna survive.” It’s an unflinching portrait of a relationship in free fall, where hope flickers but reality bites harder. With Trudeau’s earnest, resolute vocal front and center, the song stands as one of the record’s most honest and emotionally revealing tracks.
“We met at a 12-step meeting, and it still traumatizes me,” Trudeau admits. “These songs are a way for me to process and work through that emotional pain.”
Produced by Camilla Darling at Dave’s Room in North Hollywood, Lost Diamond Boy showcases Trudeau’s gift for melody and lyrical truth. The album moves fluidly across genres—rock, country, folk, soul—echoing influences like Elton John, Paul Simon, Jackson Browne, and Neil Young, while remaining entirely his own.
To celebrate the release, Trudeau will perform a special album release show on August 7 at Molly Malone’s in Los Angeles, bringing his deeply personal songs to life in an intimate live setting.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Trudeau was a prodigy who studied at the New England Conservatory of Music by age 11 and cut his teeth in Boston garage-rock bands. After moving to Los Angeles at 18, he was signed to Polydor with the band Darling Cruel and found success with songs featured on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and Jag. As a touring and session keyboardist, he’s worked with Rick Springfield, Melissa Etheridge, Meredith Brooks, Susanna Hoffs—and for the last decade, Billy Idol, with whom he is currently on a national tour running through fall 2025 alongside Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
The album’s collaborators include Idol guitarist Steve Stevens, drummer Erik Eldenius, and Trudeau’s own 21-year-old son Lucien Valen, whose guitar solo on “One at a Time” adds a generational layer to the album’s themes of loss and healing. Other standout tracks include the melancholic string-filled duet “Break You” (with vocalist Kathleen Fisher), the defiant rocker “Kindness of Strangers,” and the searching final track “Which Way to Go,” featuring Blue Élan labelmate Bernie Barlow.
“I’ve learned not to be too precious about the process,” Trudeau reflects. “The beauty of songwriting is the alchemy— That magical moment where something literally comes from nothing. Then I let the song dictate what to do next.”