Aubin Paul of Punknews.org recently conducted an interview with Black Flag singer Ron Reyes, who was asked how the reunion of the band came together as a result of Greg Ginn sharing a stage with him on his 50th birthday. He replied:
“I’ve been in contacted with Greg off and on throughout the years. I did the reunion in 1983. I wanted to do the reunion show in 2003, but I couldn’t make it. It was just not the right time and place for me. For personal reasons, I bowed. But we kept in touch. I had a special birthday a few years ago so I called him up, and asked him if he wanted to come up, and he said ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I don’t really like to do that old stuff.’ I said ‘That’s fine. You can just hop on play what you like… or we can play some new stuff.’ So, two days before the show he sent me some stuff he had written. We tried playing one of the songs live, but it was a bit of a disaster. I was actually writing the lyrics the day of the show. I vowed never, ever to do a show with a piece of paper, but I was committed to doing the song and Greg was there, so I did it. He started the song and the lyrics got kicked under the monitor. We’re playing the songs, we only rehearsed it twice and I didn’t have the lyrics. But, you know what, it was great. It was totally in the spirit of the music. The seed was planted and from there we started communicating and sharing ideas back and forth, sharing demos and that eventually moved into a full new album.”
Ron was also asked if the new Black Flag album will be out soon, and replied, “Yeah, it’s all recorded, more or less. There’s a few little touch ups and some mixing and that’s it.”
Black Flag broke up back in 1986, although many of the former members have reunited occasionally since. The members now known as Flag an appearance at the Goldenvoice 30th Anniversary show, which took place at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in December 2011, while other former members Greg Ginn and Ron Reyes have officially reformed under the Black Flag moniker and have mentioned plans to record a new album. Their last studio album, In My Head, came out in 1985 on SST Records.