Punk supergroup Fake Names (Refused, Bad Religion) release debut album

Fake Names’ self-titled debut album is available now via Epitaph Records. The band features members of Refused, Bad Religion, S.O.A. and Girls Against Boys.

Fake Names have some serious hardcore credentials. The band is made up of Michael Hampton of D.C. band State of Alert (aka S.O.A), Minor Threat co-founder Brian Baker, Girls Against Boys bass player Johnny Temple (another D.C. native) and Refused vocalist Dennis Lyxzén.

Hampton and Baker – the latter of whom is also a long-time Bad Religion member – started throwing around song ideas in 2016. After deciding to form a band, they enlisted their mutual childhood friend Temple on bass. A meeting with Lyxzén at Chicago’s Riot Fest led to his induction and Fake Names was complete.

But despite the members’ hardcore roots, Fake Names is more closely aligned with the melodic end of the Bad Religion catalogue and the anthemic tendencies of Lyxzén’s post-Refused project, The (International) Noise Conspiracy.

Three singles preceded the record. The first, ‘Brick’, features Lyxzén in typically revolutionary form. “You will pay for what you’ve done,” he sings in the chorus. “Gonna destroy what you’ve become.”

The next single, ‘First Everlasting’, was borne of introspection. Lyxzén described it as an “existential song, about taking a look at yourself and accepting the role you’ve played in your own life.” This is reflected in the bridge: “Maybe it’s just me / It’s just me and it’s all that I’ll ever be.”

The album is out through Epitaph Records, the legendary punk label founded by Baker’s Bad Religion band mate Brett Gurewitz. Refused reunited in 2012 after a 14-year hiatus. They’ve since produced two new albums, Freedom (2015) and War Music (2019). Bad Religion released their 17th studio album Age of Unreason in May 2019.