“Refused Are F**king Dead and This Time They Really Mean It”, Refused are dead and this time it's for real. With the announcement of a North American tour so titled, the Swedish band confirmed their dissolution and announced at the same time the release of a 25th anniversary edition of their most famous album, The Shape of Punk to Come of 1998. In March the band announced their participation in the Rosendal Garden Party festival as their last performance in Sweden.
“We were supposed to do it in June,” reads their Instagram in a message signed by drummer David Sandström. “We were supposed to do our little farewell tour starting with the Rosendal Garden Party in Stockholm and then a few more shows before we call it a day at the end of the year. The rehearsals were great, the atmosphere was great, two days before the festival we did a warm-up show at Kulturhuset Femman in Uppsala. No photos, no videos, just a show in front of about sixty locals. We go out, I have a few beers, me and Dennis (Lyxzén, the singer, ed.), who is still vegan and basically straight edge, we tell each other stories about the bands we like. It's a great evening. The next morning Dennis' wife calls me and within a couple of hours the confirmation arrives: he had a heart attack in the hotel.”
Sandström remembers the first show in February 1992 in Luleå when they played in front of about fifty people. “We were teenagers, we had never really traveled. By the time we broke up in 1998 we had played over 500 shows in Europe and the US. To say that the band changed our lives would be a colossal understatement, as would to say that we got to know each other well in those seven years. A band on tour becomes a family, especially when they are driving around in a van, using maps to find a squat in Halberstadt where they were supposed to go on stage an hour earlier. Family relationships can get complicated, and that’s what happened to us too.”
After the “sudden and chaotic” split, the drummer writes, the band tried again in 2012. The ending wasn't good and “we wanted to start over, to see what was still there, if there was anything.” Various attempts were therefore made between 2012 and 2024. “Each of us had a different idea of how it went and what the reformed band leaves behind. If I have to say, we couldn't agree on the music we wanted to make and we were still working on it when the pandemic arrived. At that point Kristofer (Steen, the bassist, ed.) had had enough, he quit in August 2020 and it was the final blow, even if he made himself heard late”.
To give themselves a better and more fun ending, the band has prepared one last tour in early 2024. “We had fun, we played songs that we hadn’t done since the 90s and even a Misfits cover. Then disaster struck. The day after he was admitted I went to visit Dennis in the hospital. He wasn’t happy with the gown he was forced to wear. I swear the first thing he said to me, hooked up to the machines, unshaven and with his hair all messed up, was, was pointing at the gown: ‘This stuff is not the best’. I guess in the hospital they don’t let you wear tracksuits or Negative Approach t-shirts.”
Sandström closes the message with some good news. “Dennis is doing great. He is one of the healthiest people I know, they have treated him really well and the tests say he is making a full recovery. Needless to say, he is looking forward to getting back on tour. He even said not to move the very first dates planned for late fall and winter, but we have decided to postpone them anyway and start again in the spring.”
The first North American show is set for March 21, 2025 in Brooklyn, the last one scheduled for now will be in Sacramento on April 10. After the dates in the States, “we'll see what we do for the rest of the year. All we know is that for the winter we want to be home, in Sweden. Let us know if there are any songs you want us to play and we'll give it a try. Hope to see you out there.”