This Black Flag saga doesn’t want to die! What happened to the mighty hardcore band? Why has this story turned into a soap opera or a bad sitcom? I am sick of it but I can’t stop reading about it at the same time. Why? Just because anyone loves drama. So if you have followed the story, you know that singer Ron Reyes was fired by Greg Ginn from the Black Flag reunion, but last week, Reyes gave an exclusive interview to Beatroute.ca to explain what happened.
Ron said that he wrote a lot of lyrics for the new Black Flag album, anf Greg was always approving, and everything seemed going fine ‘What do you think of that performance Greg? Awesome Ron. Great performance.’ Nothing but praise, acceptance and approval.’ But, according to Reyes, things became nasty when Ginn hired drummer Gregory Moore. Reyes found him lame and Ginn yelled at him saying ‘How dare he question his decision!’ The tour wasn’t a success, and they got in competition with the other band, FLAG, and Reyes understood they should ‘take the high road on this’, ‘Do not disrespect those guys in public’, he said to Ginn ‘They have the public’s support. People LOVE Keith Morris, people LOVE Chuck Dukowski, people LOVE Bill Stevenson. If we come against those guys we are going to look like bitter old men’, but Ginn was mad and bitter. He sued FLAG as we all know, and Reyes did not approve at all: ‘Once the lawsuit came out (August 2013) we were the Evil Flag. There was the Good Flag and the Evil Flag…it was really hard. When I started I was on good terms with those guys. All of a sudden they stopped responding to my emails. Relationships were severed and I was guilty by association.’
Reyes was fired from Black Flag midway through an Australian show, has since reconciled with the FLAG people and is working again with local band PIGGY. But things have even become more serious since Reyes is now saying that Ginn threatened his family, without giving more details,… if anything, this interview confirms what a jerk Greg Gin is!
Pro skateboarder Mike Vallely is the new Black Flag singer, but skateboard legend, artist & Juice Magazine contributor Steve Olson declared to Beatroute: ‘there is no Black Flag since Keith went to form the Circle Jerks. Opinions are like Assholes… Greg whatever his last name is (the guitarist for Black Flag is a DICK). Put a dick next to an asshole and you’ve got some buttfucking going on.’ And this tells us what we needed to know about the future of the band.
There are bands which should understand when their moment is over, this Black Flag revival, fueled by punk nostalgia, brought back two bands, a lawsuit, these threat allegations and turned to be the worst ever. What’s next in the saga? Ginn responding to these allegations? They are destroying what’s left of Black Flag’s legacy.