Buckle up, of us. You’ll have quite a lot of phrases coming your means, however they’re the nice type of phrases. Those with nothing however earnest intentions, that wish to assist folks, not damage them. Whereas Refused are extra know for his or her overbearing aural sounds, they’re aiming to contribute a bit extra to society. A world society that wants it for positive. Now that the band is approaching the upcoming begin of the European leg of their farewell tour, they’ve received a plan that entails them elevating hella cash to donate to pro-Palestinian causes throughout the land.
Moreover it being the suitable factor to do, their determination got here after discovering out details about among the festivals they’re scheduled to play, and who is likely to be financially backing these festivals. They name out KKR particularly, saying how they “put money into Israeli cyber safety amongst different fucked up issues.”
Learn the band’s prolonged however explanatory assertion and motion plan beneath:
“So per week in the past we came upon that among the festivals we’re enjoying this summer time are backed by an leisure conglomerate known as Superstruct through which a nasty unhealthy actor named KKR is an element proprietor. KKR invests in Israeli cyber safety amongst different fucked up issues. Our first intuition was to instantly leap ship, to boycott. We communicated this to the festivals and the organizers wrote again saying they shared our values and felt like we did, that they beloved what they did and have been pleased with the festivals they’d created, that almost all of their viewers can be sympathetic to our place and that they have been gutted that bastards like KKR had purchased into Superstruct after they began working with them, staining their life’s work by extension.
One among them additionally questioned our different associations (cheeky, however he was proper), saying that stay nation are behind another festivals and reveals we’re enjoying, considered one of whose homeowners are Blackrock, a multinational closely invested in weapons manufacturing, and that our music is on Spotify which donated cash to Donald Trump’s inauguration and likewise invests in army AI. The scum of the earth mainly.
These festivals additionally informed us they needed us to make noise for the Palestinian trigger, considered one of them even supplied to offer us a big amount of cash simply to donate to pro-Palestine organizations.
So, the conundrum grew to become: boycotting these festivals would make us be ok with ourselves, the band’s legacy wouldn’t be tarnished by affiliation with these disgusting corporations. it will really feel good. Nevertheless it wouldn’t do any good; being morally superior doesn’t put meals within the mouths of ravenous Palestinians. additionally, it wouldn’t make headlines; we’re not high billing on these festivals as a result of, though we now have a powerful following inside a selected subgenre of heavy music, we’re not an enormous band. Some Swedish leftists sitting out a number of festivals wouldn’t elevate many eyebrows.
We’ve mulled this over and though there’s a powerful argument for taking a stand in opposition to KKR and this growth of amoral personal fairness and hedge funds shopping for into the humanities as a result of it’s non-controversial and relatively protected, it will be naive to assume our boycott would even register for them. Relatively the alternative, if folks like that knew what we talked about on stage they’d fairly have us keep dwelling, and with the charred our bodies of Palestinians burned alive stacking up within the focus camp/graveyard that Gaza has change into, we now have determined to make some noise, to go meet our folks, to rejoice the resistance and lift cash for the Palestinian trigger this summer time.
To us, it’s the proper factor to do, to get on the market and be a thorn within the aspect of Zionists, fascists, enterprise capitalists and to fire up discontent along with our vibrant, knowledgeable comrades throughout Europe. A whole lot of you may have already purchased tickets and predict us, so we’d like to get strategies from native organizations and activists we may work with in all of the international locations and cities we’re enjoying.
Free Palestine!!!”
In a comply with up submit, they continued their assertion with:
“These sorts of deliberations will not be new to us. In our late teenagers, popping out of the DIY underground, we have been obsessive about ending our involvement in systemic oppression by the ability of boycott, by spreading consciousness of the human rights abuses within the international locations that produced the buyer objects our era coveted, the environmental affect of consuming meat, the horrific abuses carried out by the USA in South America to ensure that us to have low cost bananas.
These have been all sizzling subjects within the leftist punk underground on the time (and if we’re being self-critical for a second, it’s apparent now that we have been deluded in pondering that creating leftist utopias exterior of the mainstream would obtain the good system change we have been aiming for. As a substitute we left the parliaments to the neo-Nazis we used to battle within the streets [Antifa did the lion’s share of the fighting, but once or twice we fought them as a band, though most of the time we were too outnumbered and out-menaced to do shit], who gladly placed on fits and toned their rhetoric down so as to acquire energy, an endeavor through which they succeeded past our wildest nightmares, as we will see all around the west proper now), and it took us uneducated working class morons some time to be taught what many picked up throughout two or three courses at UNI: that each one of us within the west are complicit within the exploitation and subjugation of an enormous a part of the non-western world and whereas we labored arduous to rid ourselves of this complicity by turning into extremely aware shoppers, we slowly began to grasp the immense machine of oppression that Europe and the US have constituted from the 1500s to this present day, a indisputable fact that made our twenty-something shopper selections within the north of Sweden appear fairly insignificant. This didn’t deter us, however it undoubtedly put us in examine.
What we shortly realized although was that we have been all the time gonna be a gateway band. The underground neighborhood is a wonderful place, however after having seen the hundredth band preaching concerning the evils of capitalism or organized faith to a crowd of individuals dressed precisely the identical as them, studying the identical books, listening to the identical bands, you begin to marvel what the purpose actually is: will we wish to be proper or do we wish change? Refused was all the time a special animal than the pure, DIY or die-bands, and we did issues they may not. That was type of the purpose, to try to convey these concepts into the sunshine.
The centre-right authorities of Sweden gave us an award as soon as (thanks @psl) and though we fucking hated their guts, we accepted the award simply so we may stand proper there within the corridors of energy and mock them, humiliate them to their faces.
There have been minor offers with minor devils made, however by all of it, we reached youngsters who would by no means have been uncovered to those concepts in any other case: we turned lots of people on to vegetarianism and veganism by our music, and there’s no counting the quantity of people that have come as much as us and mentioned that our songs sowed the primary seed of what grew to be a radical political life.
It’s what we’re most pleased with, the various activists, academics, human rights legal professionals, docs and environmentalists for whom we have been a companion (or perhaps a stepping stone) on the way in which to a lifetime of serving the better good. They didn’t preach to the transformed, they didn’t freak out about bar codes on CDs, they really went on the market and did shit.
I assume what we’re attempting to say is, these selections will not be straightforward for us however we take them very significantly, and we’ve pushed ourselves mad attempting to bat 100 in a crooked recreation. Which is why our subsequent venture can be DIY, extra on that later…”
Refused are sticking to their justice-forward, equal rights, mutual support roots, and that’s what we’d like proper now.
Refused European 2025 Dates:
06/11 Hradec Kralove, CZE @ Rock For Individuals
06/13 Nickelsdorf, AUT @ Nova Rock
06/15 Berlin, GER @ Huxleys (feat. Phantom Bay)
06/19 Clisson, FRA @ Hellfest Open Air
06/24 Frankfurt, GER @ Batschkapp (feat. The Chisel)
06/25 Hamburg, GER @ Docks (feat. The Chisel)
06/26 Ysselsteyn, NET @ Jera On Air
06/27 Munster, GER @ Vainstream Rockfest
07/09 Biarritz, FRA @ Atabal (feat. Pinpilinpussies)
07/10 Madrid, SPA @ Mad Cool Competition
07/11 Zurich, SWI @ X-tra (feat. Lifecrusher)
07/12 Lille, BEL @ Sjock Competition
07/16 Bontida, ROM @ Electrical Fort Competition
07/18 Gijon, SPA @ Tsunami Xixon
07/18 Sano Domingo de la Calzada, SPA @ Rock Land Fest
08/05 Tolmin, SLO @ Punk Rock Vacation
08/06 Budapest, HUN @ Sziget Competition
08/06 Olso, NOR @ Oya Competition
08/07 Gothenburg, SWE @ Method Out West
08/08 Rimini, ITA @ Bay Fest
08/08 Oberbildein, AUT @ Image On Competition
10/01 Glasgow, UK @ SWG3
10/02 Manchester, UK @ O2 Victoria Warehouse
10/03 London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton
10/05 Dublin, IRE @ 3Olympia
10/08 Paris, FRA @ Elysee Montmartre
10/09 Lille, FRA @ L’Aéronef
10/11 Leipzig, GER @ Felsenkeller