The spirit of infamous punk rockers Black Flag remains alive in the creation of two new bands that feature members of the original group’s lineup.
Singer Keith Morris, drummer Bill Stevenson and bassist Chuck Dukowski will be joining together under the name Flag, while singer Ron Reyes and guitarist Greg Ginn continue using Black Flag for their own group.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Dukowski and Morris spoke enthusiastically of getting back on the road and hammering out their trademark tunes. While Black Flag has now recorded a new album of their own, Dukowski made it sound as if Flag were hesitant to do the same, wanting to celebrate the songs of their history together, instead.
We’re really paying tribute to our past. We’re going to get out and rock the hell out of that stuff, and try to do it with the full intensity and emotional commitment that we always did, and was always so joyful for us to do it when we did it at the Civic.
In the meantime, there seems to be no desired ill will amongst the two spawns of the original Black Flag, particularly in that Dukowski speaks fondly of the upcoming collaboration with his new group and former BF guitarist Dez Cadena.
We’d been talking about bringing Dez [Cadena] in too, so we brought Dez in. I’m so looking forward to it – it’s going to be great. Especially when I think of stuff like, there’s a video of the five-piece band at Mabuhay Gardens, and it’s just so powerful. And I’m looking forward to doing “My War” with the two guitars, which it was always intended to have. Some of these later tunes were designed to have an interplay between the two parts. And then we’ll bring some of Dez’s later stuff, too, that never really came out. Maybe we can do “Ain’t No Time Here Now” – I know he recorded that with DC3.
Both Flag and Black Flag will be out on the road this Spring, so it’s easy to anticipate either band will be providing us a rambunctious reminder of the rebellious spirit Black Flag has instilled in us all.
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