Nashville/West Virginia punks Blacklist Royals were gearing up to perform their 2010 album Semper Liberi in full at The Fest 2020 for its 10th anniversary, until — like basically all other live music in the past year — it got cancelled due to the pandemic. “Like most punks, The Fest cancelation hit me hard,” drummer/vocalist Rob Rufus said. “Then I’m driving around listening to Bruce Springsteen broadcast a special radio show from quarantine and he spins Blacklist Royals’ cover of ‘The Promised Land’ that we’d been practicing for our anniversary set! I couldn’t believe it! I took it as a sign, or some reminder that rock’n’roll must prevail, especially in hard times.”

Meanwhile, Rob’s award-winning punk memoir Die Young With Me had been in the process of being adapted into a film, and Blacklist Royals were working on new music for it. Inspired by their co-sign from The Boss, they decided to turn that new music into the new three-song EP Doomsday Girl, which is due April 2 via Paper + Plastick.

“We’d been working on songs for the movie, revisiting the lyrics Nat and I wrote as teenagers when I was in the hospital with Stage Four cancer and our world was completely upside down,” Rob said. “This pandemic is the first time since then that my health—and my mortality—has been in the forefront of my mind. But now mortality is on everyone’s mind. It’s like we’re all living in the Shadow of Death. So, we decided to face our dread the same way we did back in the day; by cranking it up to eleven and playing the end times rock even as the world burns down around us.”

We’re premiering the EP’s title track, which definitely cranks it up to 11 while delivering a soaring, anthemic dose of heartland punk. It finds this long-running band in fine form, as you can hear for yourself below.

Now, the band are set to perform Semper Liberi and the Doomsday Girl EP at The Fest 2021. Let’s hope this one happens!

—

15 ’80s Punk Albums That Shaped the ’90s/’00s Pop Punk Boom