Speaking on behalf of one of the two Black Flags that have recently reunited, frontman and founding member Ron Reyes has explained that his band’s reunion was a long time in the making.
Telling Punknews.org that he and former bandmate Greg Ginn had been in and out of cahoots for years, Reyes said that he endeavoured to finally get Black Flag back together in time for a gig for his 50th birthday gig.
“I’ve been in contact with Greg off and on throughout the years,” he recalled. “I did the reunion in 1983. I wanted to do the reunion show in 2003, but I couldn’t make it. It was just not the right time and place for me. For personal reasons, I bowed out. But we kept in touch. I had a special birthday a few years ago so I called him up, and asked him if he wanted to come up, and he said ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I don’t really like to do that old stuff.’ I said ‘That’s fine. You can just hop on, play what you like… or we can play some new stuff.”
The pair opted for something fresh and, as Reyes tells it, “Two days before the show he sent me some stuff he had written. We tried playing one of the songs live, but it was a bit of a disaster. I was actually writing the lyrics the day of the show. I vowed never, ever to do a show with a piece of paper, but I was committed to doing the song and Greg was there, so I did it.”
It didn’t take long for the lyrics to get lost under a foldback wedge and, having only jammed out the songs twice before, that spelled trouble, yet Reyes still insisted, “It was great. It was totally in the spirit of the music. The seed was planted and from there we started communicating and sharing ideas back and forth, sharing demos and that eventually moved into a full new album.”
Reyes also confirmed that there is a brand-new album on its way, assuring us that, “It’s all recorded, more or less. There’s a few little touch-ups and some mixing and that’s it.”
The other Black Flag band currently doing the rounds sees Keith Morris once again take the reigns.
