Watching the opioid epidemic take hold was horrific… it sunk into my songs, says Willy Vlautin of The Delines on album

ON an ordinary day not so long ago, Willy Vlautin is strolling to his office in Portland, Oregon. The songwriter catches the familiar sight of “an old lady with her shopping and a mother pushing a baby carriage”. But then he encounters “a 30-year-old guy and his buddies living in tents on the street”. On...