Features Refused Are Not F**king Dead: Never Say Never?

And so we wake. We raise our heads, we rub our eyes and lay back down again for “just five minutes.” Ten minutes later, we rise finally and realise that the night before wasn’t a dream after all. No, not that nightmare about being chased down an alleyway by Noel Fielding and Serge ‘From Kasabian’ as they try to pelt you with ripe oranges and tangerines, that was actually a dream. You check your body for bruises; luckily there are none.

But that one you thought you conjured out of nowhere about Refused, the ever elusive and puristic Refused, reforming. Nope, that one was reality. The band that once said they’d ‘rather be forgotten than remembered for giving in’ are currently trending on Twitter for giving in - not necessarily to public demand, maybe not even to financial matters, but to their own artistic urge.

You will always remember where you were at these kind of moments, right? I will always recall that when At The Drive-In reformed, I was sat on my bed. And when these Swedish punks got back together, I was asleep in bed. It’s not going to be too hard to remember that, is it? When the At The Drive-In announcement dropped, seemingly all of our editorial team were either on a train or cooking dinner - which meant that lest we allow the site or a kitchen to burn down, it was all on me to deliver the news. These moments are kind of like the “five minutes remaining” announcements that the exam supervisors would deliver in school, causing your pulse to race, your body to sweat and your entire hand to clench up, delivering a complete inability to write - or in this case, type.

Well I actually got to be the bearer of said news to one Jen Long. When we asked the BBC radio presenter her thoughts on the night of reformations, she succinctly replied: “AT THE DRIVE IN HAVE REFORMED???! HOLY SHIT! FUCK YEAH!” You see, this is the kind of reaction - encapsulated forever in email form - that these bands naturally attract. Refused, alike At The Drive-In, were a band who imploded at their very peak and this only added to their mystique and legacy.



‘The Swedish hardcore anarchists warrant the same kind of fervour as At The Drive-In following their demise after ‘The Shape Of Punk To Come’,” believes Will Grant of Two Tap Digital. “It’s elongated title including ‘A Chimerical Bombination In 12 Bursts’ still stands the test of time as one of the most, if not the most, forward thinking punk albums of all time.

‘Their posthumous film ‘Refused Are Fucking Dead’ gave them the easy reverse tagline fodder, but their statement shows that their intelligence remains ever-present, with their demand (more on themselves than anyone else) to do ‘The Shape…’ right was what led them to the decision. Whether the original statement can carry the same weight is yet to be seen.”

But the Refused reunion remains a puzzle to many, including myself, at why a band so determined not to tarnish their legacy would ever go back on their adamant word. The general consensus is that a band like Refused would never reform if they didn’t think it was right. But are reunions always a good thing, even if they are done with the best intentions? We seem to look down on them when it comes to the pop world. For example, when Westlife reformed late last year, it was plain to see that “milking one last mass UK arena tour” was the layman’s terms of how Louis Walsh pitched it to them.

“Not that I’m against reunions per se - but they can either be amazing or shit,” opins John Brainlove of the forward-thinking London-based label Brainlove Records. “When Pixies did it I found it to be a huge disappointment, the spirit just wasn’t there, even if the sound was,” he tells us.

“Then again, when Pavement toured it was joyful - they seemed to be loving playing those songs again, the atmosphere was right and it was just beautiful to hear those songs again. The Pulp reunion also looked like another really amazing one, I will forever regret not making more of an effort to get into those shows - they are truly one of the best bands of a generation.”



It’s only human nature to want more of a good thing lost. Like getting to the end of a short novella and wishing that the author wrote just a few more chapters, the same can be seen with fans of classic bands that only released a few records. But is it healthy for new music, a prime focus of this very website, to be longing for or dwelling on the past? I, like many others, would rather see an exciting new band in a small venue than experience those conflicting feelings that come with seeing a band you loved in your youth stood right before your eyes, only with a few more wrinkles and grey hairs than you remembered from their old promo shots.

“As someone who embraces new music, it does feel a bit dusty and nostalgic to speculate on bands of old reforming,” Brainlove tells us. ”Maybe I’d rather musicians who’ve found some level of success managed to bravely spur themselves onto new things, like Radiohead did with ‘Kid A’, than run out of ideas, split, then hit the old stuff for nostalgia’s sake.”

“But if it bring people pleasure, it’s fine - it’s just admitting defeat, artistically.”

Ethical issues aside, endless numbers of people are bound to be overjoyed by the news of both bands reforming, least of all some here at DIY. “My younger brother was always the one to know more about punk rock, so midway through my teens, he took it upon himself to educate me,” says our very own News Ed, Sarah Jamieson. “This education pretty much began and ended with Refused. Then, he’d bring us crashing back to earth by assuring me we’d never see them.

“There will inevitably be a lot of doubters; the words ‘sell outs’ will crop up and when the buzz dies, the cynics will come crawling out. But, for a few glorious moments last night, I could excitedly yell at my brother about the reunion; and the renewed hope that maybe, he was wrong after all.”

So I guess that’s what we should treat this and all the other reunions as: something for themselves and for the fans. Neither Refused nor At The Drive-In owe us or anybody else anything. It may dishearten those among us who like things to just be left in the past, not to ever be unearthed. But who knows, maybe we should all take a leaf out of these artists’ books and all give our ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends a call to see if they’ve changed their mind about things being “over”. Perhaps we will all be so lucky!