Influential Swedish hardcore punk band Refused has announced they will be splitting up following a farewell tour next year.
In a statement from Refused drummer David Sandström, he explains that the band had planned to call it quits at the end of this year, and were set to embark on a farewell run. However, shortly before a show in Stockholm in June, vocalist Dennis Lyxzén suffered a “massive” heart attack.
With Lyxzén now on the road to recovery, Refused will begin touring in the Spring. They’ll be starting with North American dates, with support coming from Quicksand.
Sandström states the band are “looking at what else we can do with the rest of the year” with the aim to play their final show in Sweden in late 2025.
Here’s David Sandström full message on Refused‘s split:
“We were supposed to do this in May. Roll out our modest farewell run, starting with the Rosendal Garden Party in Stockholm and then doing a few shows here and there before calling it quits end of year. The rehearsals had been magnificent, the vibe was great and two days before the show we played a secret show at Kulturhuset Femman in Uppsala. There were no pictures taken and it wasn’t filmed but it was a great show in front of maybe 60 local scenesters. We hung out afterwards, I had a few beers and me and Dennis, still vegan and basically straight edge, traded stupid stories about bands we love. It was a fine evening. Next morning I get a call from Dennis’ wife and a couple of tumultuous hours later it’s confirmed that he’s had a heart attack at the hotel.
We played our first show in February 1992. That same week George H.W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin held a press conference at Camp David to declare that the cold war was over. That’s how long ago it was. It was so long ago that I can’t quite remember who we were that wintry Saturday when we piled into a car and drove up to Luleå to play 4 Gorilla Biscuits songs, a Shelter song, an AC\DC song and I think 3 original compositions to a crowd of 50-60 blind drunk northerners. I had just turned 17, had never travelled outside of Sweden and by the time the band broke up in 1998 we had played over 500 shows all over Europe and the US. To say that the band changed our lives would be a gross understatement, and to say that we got to know each other in those seven years is as well. A band that tours becomes like a family, especially when you do it in a van, with maps, scrambling to find a squat in Halberstadt where you were supposed to have started playing an hour ago. And family relations can be difficult. So it was with us.
That was partly why we wanted to give it another shot in 2012. We had made a decent splash in the nineties and the breakup had been very sudden and chaotic, there were feelings and they were not aired out and the whole thing had been such a shitshow that it was almost inevitable that we’d get back on the horse at some point. We wanted a do-over, to see what was still there, if anything, and what could be made of it. There’s a Neil Young song called “Buffalo Springfield Again” where he sings:
“I’d like to see those guys again and give it a shot. Maybe now we can show the world what we got
But I’d just like to play for the fun we had”.
And that was basically it. We gave it several shots between 2012 and 2024. We all have different takes on how it went and what the legacy of the reformed band will be, but personally I felt we couldn’t quite agree on what we were supposed to do musically, and we were still struggling with that when the pandemic hit. Kristofer (Steen – guitarist) felt that he’d done what he wanted to do and left the band in August of 2020 and although there was a delayed effect to the death blow, a death blow it was.
So in the beginning of this year we started making plans to have one last big hurrah, to make the end of the band a fun, generous, indulgent affair. And that’s how it felt after the first show, it’s the best we’ve ever sounded and we were really enjoying ourselves, tossing in old songs we haven’t played since the nineties and even a Misfits cover. And then disaster struck. I visited Dennis in the hospital the day after he was admitted and true to form he was not happy about the hospital gown he was forced to wear. Hooked up to all these machines, unshaven with tousled hair, I swear the first thing he said was: (pointing to the gown) “I mean, this is not great”. I guess they don’t let you wear suits or Negative Approach t-shirts in the hospital.
So on to the good news: Dennis is doing great. He’s one of the healthiest dudes I know, he can’t sit still, exercises a lot and it follows that his recuperation would be swift. He’s gotten excellent care and his doctor has run all the physical tests on him and they all indicate he’s making a full recovery. Needless to say, he’s itching to get back on tour to play shows and he even suggested we should keep preliminary dates set up for the late fall and winter, but we decided to postpone those shows and instead start up in the spring. So yeah, that’s where we’re at. We’re coming to the US in March/April 2025 and we’re looking at what else we can do with the rest of the year, all we know is that we want to finish back home in Sweden at the end of the year. Let us know if there are songs you want us to play and we’ll give them a shot. Hope to see you out there.”
Refused Announce ‘The Shape Of Punk To Come’ 25th Anniversary Release
Although Refused won’t be touring until next year, that hasn’t stopped them from celebrating 25 years of their landmark album – ‘The Shape Of Punk To Come’. November 8th will see them release a limited collector’s edition version of the album. It’ll include a 3 x LP version of the album on exclusive coloured vinyl, and will include unreleased demos and rare alternate versions of songs.
A 5 x LP variant will include a 12-track tribute album titled ‘The Shape Of Punk To Come Obliterated: A chimerical bombination in 12 bursts’. It will feature covers and remixes from the likes of Quicksand, Zulu, Gel, IDLES, Touché Amoré, Brutus, and more.
The Shape of Punk to Come (25th Anniversary Edition)Side A
Worms of the Senses / Faculties of the Skull
Liberation Frequency
The Deadly Rhythm
Side B
Summerholidays Vs. Punkroutine
Bruitist Pome #5
New Noise
Side C
The Refused Party Program –
Protest Song ’68
Refused Are Fucking Dead
Side D
The Shape of Punk to Come
Tannhäuser / Derivè
The Apollo Programme Was a Hoax
Side E
Summer Holidays (instrumental demo)
Refused Are Fucking Dead (instrumental demo)
The Shape Of Punk To Come (instrumental demo)
Tannhauser Derive (instrumental demo)
Side F
New Noise (Straight Edge As Fuck compilation)
Worms of the Senses (rehearsal tape)
The Deadly Rhythm (rehearsal tape)
Blind Date (rehearsal tape)
New Noise (live)The Shape Of Punk To Come Obliterated: A chimerical bombination in 12 bursts
Side A
Gel – Worms Of The Senses / Faculties Of The Skull
Quicksand – The Liberation Frequency
Brutus – The Deadly Rhythm
Snapcase – Summer Holidays Vs. Punkroutine
Side B
Idles – New Noise (remix)
Ho99o9 – New Noise
Fucked Up – Refused Party Program
Zulu – Protest Song ’68
Cold Cave – Refused Are Fucking Dead
Side C
IGORR – The Shape Of Punk To Come
Cult Of Luna – Tannhäuser / Derive
Touche Amore – The Apollo Programme Was A Hoax
Side D – Etching
Pre-orders can be found here.
