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Alexisonfire talk ‘Crisis’ 20 year plans & new music: “there’s elements of ‘Watch Out'”

Alexisonfire talk ‘Crisis’ 20 year plans & new music: “there’s elements of ‘Watch Out'”

The shapeshifting Ontario post-hardcore vets Alexisonfire are currently in the midst of rolling out singles from their Canadian covers EP Copies Of Old Masters: Volume 1, and they also revealed that they’re working on a followup to 2022’s Otherness, which was their first album since going on hiatus a decade earlier.

Talking to them backstage at Las Vegas’ When We Were Young festival, where they put on the most intense set that I saw at the fest, bassist Chris Steele told me, “We just spent the last few days leading up to this kind of finalizing a bunch of music we’ve been working on for the past year… I don’t wanna disclose much as far as directionally what we’re doing, but there’s elements of Watch Out! that kind of peak through at moments for me with some melody choices and vocal ideas and arrangements.”

“It just feels like the next step for us,” he added, “and it feels exciting. It feels very real.”

Guitarist/co-vocalist Wade MacNeil chimed in as well. “Playing together for so long, and growing as players and growing in what we can do, we’re kind of able to reference stuff in a different way,” he said. “[For example] I always loved Tears For Fears, but I don’t think we knew how to do it when we were getting started. But like, at this point, I feel like there’s some new tunes where you’re gonna be like, ‘That sounds like Tears For Fears!’”

Alexisonfire by Christian Sarkine

Wade and Steele also shared the news that they’ve got plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Crisis in 2026. They hinted at performing the album in full, and Wade said, “I don’t think we have to have our arms twisted too hard to do some cool Crisis stuff.” Stay tuned to find out more about that and the new music, watch my full interview with Wade and Steele at Veeps.com, and check out a clip below. During our convo, they also talked about newer bands they’re excited about, fellow legacy bands that are still pushing forward like Nine Inch Nails and Queens of the Stone Age, the Oi! resurgence, and more.

Meanwhile, Copies Of Old Masters: Volume 1 comes out on November 7 via Dine Alone and features covers of Canadian rock bands Doughboys, Shallow North Dakota, The Tragically Hip, and Rusty. Their covers of Rusty’s “Misogyny” and The Tragically Hip’s “Fully Completely” are out now and you can hear those below.

BrooklynVegan also recently teamed with Alexisonfire for some career-spanning vinyl reissues, a vinyl box set, and an 80-page magazine that tells the story of AOF’s career from their 2001 formation up through 2022’s Otherness. Head to the BV shop to pick up any or all of that now.