Mark Hoppus has announced that Violent Soho are reuniting.
The blink-182 bassist revealed the news while on stage at the Sydney Opera House last night (March 21), where he was performing on the ongoing Australian leg of his Fahrenheit-182 spoken-word storytelling tour.
He made the announcement shortly before bringing out Violent Soho frontman Luke Boerdam and guitarist James Tidswell for an acoustic performance of blink-182’s ‘Dammit’, later telling the crowd: “I wasn’t joking by the way, they really are getting back together,” per Blunt Mag.
It marks the first time Boerdam and Tidswell have appeared on stage together since the band’s final show on September 10, 2022 at Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane, which came shortly after they announced their indefinite hiatus.
Check out the moment below.
Neither band member addressed the claim on stage, and Violent Soho have not yet issued a public statement confirming a reunion. However, the timing of the news is significant with this month marking the 10th anniversary of their seminal fourth album ‘WACO’.
NME gave their final show a four star review, which read: “Whether or not this truly is the end for Violent Soho remains to be seen – Tidswell stressed repeatedly that songs were being played “for the last time ever”, but when announcing their disbandment, they assured fans that they only aim “to take a break and lay low for a bit”.
“Whatever the case, the band’s legacy will continue to live on, whether in Henery’s side project Total Pace, Tidswell’s role in leading UNIFIED imprint Domestic La La, or Boerdam’s work as a producer. And they’ll always have a place on the stage: as Boerdam sang sweetly in the show’s closing salvo, “I don’t ever want to go / This cathedral is my home.”
The group formed in 2004, and released their ‘Pigs & T.V.’ EP in 2006 before signing to Ecstatic Peace! (the label spearheaded by Sonic Youth‘s Thurston Moore).
They released their first studio album, ‘We Don’t Belong Here’, in June of 2008, however they would eventually “scrap” it retroactively and released their self-titled album – which featured all but three of the songs from ‘We Don’t Belong Here’, re-recorded (and in some parts re-written) from scratch – in March 2010.
In the years since, the self-titled album has been acknowledged as their “debut album”.
Their mainstream breakthrough came in 2013 with the follow-up the self-titled record, ‘Hungry Ghost’, and the band made even bigger waves with the 2016 release of ‘WACO’.
Six of the 11 songs on that album became successful singles, with all of them charting in triple j’s Hottest 100 – ‘Like Soda’ came in at Number 15 in 2015, while ‘How To Taste’, ‘No Shade’, ‘So Sentimental’, ‘Blanket’ and ‘Viceroy’ all made it into the 2016 countdown (at Numbers 92, 73, 69, 53 and 14, respectively).
The band’s fourth album, ‘Everything Is A-OK’, arrived in April of 2020. It too spawned six singles – ‘A-OK’, ‘Vacation Forever’, ‘Lying On The Floor’, ‘Pick It Up Again’, ‘Slow Down Sonic’ and ‘Canada’ – and was followed by a making-of documentary the month after its release.
NME labelled it the 17th best Australian album of 2020, with writer David James Young calling it “proof that Violent Soho’s best days aren’t behind them even after 16 years in the game”.
