Naked Raygun say first album in 31 years is coming this spring
Highly influential Chicago punk veterans Naked Raygun have been reunited for a while, they released some a series of singles on Riot Fest’s label in the early 2010s, and they’ve been talking about a new album — their first since 1990’s Raygun… Naked Raygun — since 2016. Plans for that album were put on hold, and then bassist Pierre Kezdy sadly passed away last fall, but the band now say that their first album in 31 years is coming this spring via Wax Trax! Records. As Punk News points out, they revealed the news in a new video, which compiles old live footage, show flyers, and artwork for their previous albums. Check it out below.
In a 2016 interview with SPIN, vocalist Jeff Pezzati spoke about the album:
Naked Raygun have been back together for almost ten years now. When did you decide to start writing new stuff?
Well, it came down to having new ideas and everybody had some songs. We’re always coming up with little pieces of songs, and some people have more than others, so we decided to crank it out. I think it’s going to be a good one.
Do you see any sort of theme developing as the songs come?
No, it’s pretty much more of the same. You know, vague complaints about the State of the Union and loves lost and frustrations. There’s a little more getting older and frustrated. Eric [Spicer, the drummer] wrote a song about thinking he’d be in a different spot now when he was his age. He thought things might be easier. I never thought that. [Laughs.] But you do expect some relief as you get older — you save some money, you’re at your job for a long time. We all had day jobs, so I guess he’s feeling some frustration there and wrote a song about it. We have to get back in the practice space and hash out a few lumps on these songs before we go back in and nail them down. Hopefully we’ll be doing that in the next month-and-a-half here and then get something out by spring. This album is sort of overdue now.
Now they’re even more overdue… but let’s hope this announcement is the one!
Stream one of the Riot Fest singles here:
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