Stream Refused Freedom

Stream Refused Freedom

Legendary Swedish punks Refused will drop their first album since 1998’s The Shape Of Punk To Come next week, and today the record’s been made available to stream in its entirety. In an interview with Consequence Of Sound that went live today, members David Sandström and Dennis Lyxén commented on the noted absence of guitarist Jon Brännström, who was apparently fired in 2013, but still had access to the band’s Facebook page. Back in November, Brännström posted a lengthy Facebook status about his forced departure, and the rest of Refused have been fairly quiet about the matter. Here’s what David Sandström had to say:

We told him we wanted to do a new record, and we didn’t want him in the band. It’s just one of those things that happens in bands. He wasn’t committed. The thing with Refused is that we’re all performing at a pretty high level. We like a good challenge. He really doesn’t sacrifice himself for anyone else, so he couldn’t be a part of it.

But for some reason, he just kept control of our Facebook page. [laughs] He was just trying to sabotage us for some reason. It was weird; he was kicked out of a band that was supposed to be broken up. So we’re like, “Yeah, how do we deal with this?” So we just left it up. But he knew why he was kicked out. He was just pissed.

Lyxén chimed in:

It’s one of those things that we talk about a lot, the internal dynamics of the band. The second you start to air that, it becomes ugly. It didn’t work out, but that’s just part of any work relationship. But we do take it seriously when people are like, “He was a part of the band for so long — what happened?” You have to take it seriously.

We get upset every time they kick Dave Lombardo out of Slayer. Why? He’s so badass! But we don’t know about their internal dynamics. He might be a crazy person. Every time he gets kicked out, we get upset, though. We’re not comparing Jon to Dave Lombardo or Refused to Slayer, but you get it.

Stream all of Freedom now over at Pandora.

Freedom is out 6/30 via Epitaph.

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