All 4 members of Refused are starting a new band

Refused are about to be fucking dead for good this time, and having already brought their final tour to North America, they’ve just announced their very last run of shows, which wraps up in their home country of Sweden in late December. As Stereogum points out, drummer David Sandström also announced that the entire current lineup of Refused–he, vocalist Dennis Lyxzén, bassist Magnus Flagge, and newer guitarist Mattias Bärjed–have started a new band that isn’t Refused. He calls it “a band with no baggage, no fans to please, limited only by our wildest musical hopes and dreams.”

Here’s his full statement:

A few people have insinuated that like some other bands who, in the fashion of the great Larry David, quit with bells, whistles (and blood raining from a lacerating sky) only to return within a few years as if nothing had happened, Refused would do the same. Well, we won’t, and i feel the need to elucidate.

We only broke up once and it was involuntary. Most of you might not remember but at the end of our reunion year 2012 we kept things ambigious in our final statement: “The hatchet is buried … we’re going home”, for plausible deniability, because we weren’t sure our attempt at a permanent reunion would fly. It did, but only so far. The reasons for ending the band are legion, but the two most important ones are:

1. Refused was never good for mine and Dennis’ relationship, we both have our own idea of what the band should be and how we should behave and never the twain shall meet. And we’d rather be friends than play in a popular band.

2. A new band has been born within the band and we (Mattias, Magnus, Dennis and me) want to explore that, a band with no baggage, no fans to please, limited only by our wildest musical hopes and dreams. We’re very excited about getting around to taming this new wild beast.

But before all that, we have some business to attend to. The last of the last shows are soon upon us and it’s come together better than we could have hoped for. The lineups are stacked with old friends, comrades and collaborators as well as some of the best newer bands in the heavy, punk and/or violent music spectrum. For one thing, we’re bringing Youth Code over from LA to join us, a band we love both artistically and socially. Whenever i want listen to some really intense, violent new hardcore I always end up listening to Youth Code instead, and I can’t think of a band that better embodies the maelstrom of hatred and insanity that is presently consuming the US. Also, the low key best death metal band in Sweden right now, Harrowed, are joining us. Think Autopsy, Bredäng in 1989 and a toilet full of human remains and you will get an idea of what a perfect death metal band they are Division of Laura Lee was a new band when we broke up in 98 but consisted of friends from other hardcore bands (guitarist Pär Stålberg being the very first outside scenester to come check out UÅHC back in the summer of 1993) and we’re very happy to be playing together again. Also our old friends Millencolin are joining us!!! We actually played the release party for their very first EP and in a sense they’re repaying that 30-year old debt in Umeå on the 19th of December. On a more personal note Abhinanda, Fireside, Nix and Matti Alkberg were all there at the very start, either just hanging out or playing in other bands at our very first show. Pelle from Fireside even produced half of our recorded output (they also did a better job than we did at returning with new material to rival their old stuff). Fun fact: with Dennis’ brothers Jonas and Fredrik in Nix and Left hand of darkness respectively we’ll have three sixths of the Lyxzén Clan represented, how about that? Now, the line between Abhinanda and us was always pretty blurry, with most of us hanging out constantly in the early years, but our most explicit intersection was the band Final Exit, which was an outlet for our shared passion for, and sense of humor about, hardcore punk in the nineties. So when the three bands converge on the very last show, expect some weirdness, some blurred lines and, of course, some total moshpit mayhem. Add Mackan from Regulations new band Svart Hål, our old touring mates from before the pandemic Rome is not a town (one member of which plays with Dennis in Vännäs Kasino) to all this, as well as Spøgelse, Darla, Lost Faith, Twin Pigs, Deppa and Top 10 Babies, and you have a pretty glorious marriage of old and new, of underground and established, of traditionalists and risk-takers, and nothing could sum up our band more than this amazing catalog of bands.

This is going to be an absolute blast of a finale.

Go tell it on the mountain.

See the final list of Refused dates below, and check out our pictures and review of their Brooklyn Paramount show with Quicksand and Orange 9mm from earlier this year.

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Refused — 2025 Tour Dates
10/01 – Glasgow, GB @ SWG3 *
10/02 – Manchester, GB @ O2 Victoria Warehouse *
10/03 – London, GB @ O2 Academy Brixton *
10/05 – Dublin, IE @ 3Olympia *
10/07 – Tilburg, NL @ Poppodium 013
10/08 – Paris, FR @ Elysee Montmartre *
10/09 – Lille, FR @ L’Aéronef
10/10 – Cologne, DE @ Burgerhaus Stollwerck
10/11 – Leipzig, DE @ Felsenkeller
10/12 – Munich, DE @ Muffathalle
10/28 – Barcelona, ES @ Razzmatazz 1
10/29 – Madrid, ES @ Sala Riviera
10/31 – Sao Paulo, BR @ Terra SP
11/01 – Palermo, AR @ Palermo Groove
11/03 – Santiago, CL @ Teatro Coliseo
12/11 – Goteborg, SE @ Pustervik w/ Division of Laura Lee & Spøgelse
12/12 – Goteborg, SE @ Pustervik w/ Rome Is Not a Town & Darla
12/13 – Norrkoping, SE @ Arbis w/ Fireside & Lost Faith
12/17 – Stockholm, SE @ Fallan w/ Abhinanda & Twin Pigs
12/18 – Stockholm, SE @ Fallan w/ Youth Code & Harrowed
12/19 – Umea, SE @ Vaven w/ Youth Code, Left Hand of Darkness & Millencolin
12/20 – Umea, SE @ Vaven w/ Fireside, Mattias Alkberg, Top 10 Babies & Deppa
12/21 – Umea, SE @ Vaven w/ Abhinanda, Final Exit, Nix & Dream Warriors

* – w/ Quicksand