Refused Announce Festival Show in Sweden

I had no idea they were parting ways again. Not exactly surprised as I have a feeling their post-reunion albums and tours didn't always meet their expectations.

 

Where does it mention it's final? I'm confused by the headlines I'm seeing regarding this annoucement alluding to a breakup even though in December, Dennis was on the Anti-Matter newsletter pretty much saying they had (or at least, at some point) new stuff in the works.


I feel like we’re at the stage of our lives where a 30th anniversary tour is not a given. So tell me a little bit about the lack of public acknowledgement of the 25th anniversary.

DENNIS: So here’s the thing. There is a Shape of Punk 25-year anniversary vinyl package coming out. It’s a compilation with the record, plus demos and weird stuff. And then there’s a whole record of covers coming out and there are some fucking killer covers on it. It was supposed to come out now, but because of the last couple of years of pressing plant issues, it will come out early next year. So we’re doing something, but not a whole lot. We’re not playing shows though.

Is there some sort of reasoning behind that?

DENNIS: Not really. I think it’s just different wills of what we want to do. The main part doesn’t even have to do with Shape 25 or anything. The main part is that we put out a record right before the pandemic and we felt that we had some good momentum. And then the pandemic came and it really knocked the wind out of our sails. It really made us wonder why we were doing this. So we started writing new material. We have a lot of new demos. But then we decided early this year that we were going to take a break from doing Refused full-on—not breaking up, but I think we all felt that if we’re going to do Refused we need to be fully focused. Like, I don’t know if you know this, but two months ago David put out his first crime novel. He’s been working on this book for like three years. It just came out and he’s already been nominated for the Best Debut Crime Novel in Sweden. So he’s been writing a follow-up, and he’s super busy.

I mean, as always, I’m entertaining ideas because I think it could be fun, so I was like, “Maybe we should do a Shape 25 tour…” But then it got shut down early on in the conversation and we just decided the next thing we’re doing is new music. We’re not gonna be that nostalgic band. But I think David said something funny when we were talking about this. He said, “I’m too young to go out and play Shape in its entirety” [laughs].

 

Yeah I hope this isn’t a break up. Their last album had some pretty rad songs on there.

 

The press release the festival sent out said it.

 

Ah bummer... kicking myself for missing them a few years back then

 

One of my biggest regrets is missing their run with Thrice, they played in Germany around my birthday then, but I had my own tour and would have to go right the next day after coming back home, I was definitely too exhausted, but still, I wish I would've powered it through