Black Flag recruit new singer Mike Vallely, apologise for underwhelming 2013

2013 was a pretty eventful year for Black Flag. They sued former band members, released a critically-panned comeback album and sacked their vocalist mid-set. Now, they’ve announced the arrival of a new singer and look to right some wrongs.

Pro-skateboarder Mike Vallely, who fronted the band briefly in 2003, will replace Ron Reyes, telling Rolling Stone that band leader Greg Ginn was determined to do better in 2014.

“We feel that, generally, the band fell short in 2013 because of a difference in the philosophies of Ron and Greg—it just led to dysfunction… It could have been better,” Vallely is quoted as saying. ” can be a stronger, more cohesive, tighter band. We want to prove that”.

Vallely continues: ”

Greg just felt like, ‘I don’t want the Black Flag name to fizzle out with this or be tainted with this record that’s proven to be subpar compared to what the expectations for it were. He told me he made a mistake by working with Ron and trying to pander to a sort of old-school thing. He just thought that I was the guy for the job. . . I’m not gonna say no to that… I talked to Greg about and he said, ‘I write a lot of music, and I’ll write a lot more music. I’m not gonna cry over one fucking record.”

You can read the full interview here.

[via Pitchfork]