Chicago Punk Vets Sludgeworth Announce First New LP in 35 Years
Second Time Around Out June 19 via Red Scare
New Single “Hold Steady” Out Now
Announce Shows with Teenage Bottlerocket and Record Release Shows in Chicago this Summer
For Fans of Naked Raygun, Bad Brains, Fugazi, Samiam
“Sludgeworth have to be the most underrated Chicago punk band ever. They should have been huge.” – Joe Principe, Rise Against
Sludgeworth — the Chicago punk band who came of age alongside Naked Raygun, Steve Albini, and Ministry in the city’s legendary 1980s underground scene — are returning with their first new album in 35 years. Three and a half decades after their debut LP What’s This? rattled punk kids everywhere, the veteran outfit is coming out of dormancy, ready for the Second Time Around.
To mark the announcement, the band has shared new single “Hold Steady,” available today exclusively via Riot Fest.
“I don’t think anyone had Sludgeworth putting out a full-length record in 2026 on their Bingo card,” jokes drummer Brian McQuaid. “But during the hiatus, there were plenty of moments where I found myself imagining the record we never got to make — the one that should have come out as a follow-up in 1992. I think we finally made that record.”
Out June 19 on Red Scare, Second Time Around is full of the band’s tried-and-true hooks and daggers like the tongue-in-cheek anthem “Can’t Change Yesterday” and the friendship anchor “Hold Steady,” a song about “allowing difficult emotions to simply pass without clinging to them,” reveals singer Dan Schafer. “A painful yesterday doesn’t have to define today. We’re always allowed to begin again.”
The 12 tracks – which reunite McQuaid and Schafer with guitarists Dave McLean and Adam White alongside new bassist Simon Lamb (Violets and The Methadones) — feel like a natural progression for the beloved pop punk band that ultimately disbanded in 1993, but not before making a sincere impression on fans and future generations of music makers. Not the least of which is McQuaid’s son Max who’s behind the kit in up-and-comers Feral Tact and also added instrumentation to Second Time Around.
The roots of the band go back to 1989 when McQuaid and Schafer left another legendary group, Screeching Weasel, and found just as much attention with their new project. But, really, it begins even before then when all the members were cutting their teeth in teenage riot acts in the Chicago suburbs, Schafer singing in the hardcore band Generation Waste. “I’ve always liked hardcore and still do, but I wanted to play something with melody, like Naked Raygun, Effigies, Descendents, and the Ramones,” recalls Schafer of the organic shift in sound that ended up defining Sludgeworth. “We were pop punk before there was pop punk.”
In their first life, Sludgeworth shared stages with an early Green Day, alongside The Offspring, Tool, Primus, Henry Rollins, ALL, Jawbreaker, Rise Against, The Effigies, and Naked Raygun. Their posthumous 1995 compilation Losers of the Year was released on the venerable Lookout! Records, which helped launch bands like Green Day. Red Scare reissued it in 2022 with two unearthed bonus tracks, never-before-seen photos, and liner notes from Rise Against’s Joe Principe, Naked Raygun’s Jeff Pezzati, Mikey Erg, and Dillinger Four’s Patrick Costello — deepening the lore and the demand for a comeback.
That demand proved real. When the band announced a return to the stage at Chicago’s Cobra Lounge in 2023, the show sold out in five minutes. A Riot Fest appearance and dates with Smoking Popes followed, as did their first post-reunion release, the Together Not Together 7-inch in 2024.
This summer, Sludgeworth hits the road with Teenage Bottlerocket, with hometown record release shows in Chicago.
Dates with Teenage Bottlerocket
6/25 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
6/26 – Detroit, MI @ The Sanctuary
6/27 – Logansport, IN @ Bonus Pints
Record Release Shows
8/29 – Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge w/ The Copyrights, Feral Tact
8/30 – Chicago, IL @ Cobra Lounge w/ The Brokedowns, Josh Caterer (of Smoking Popes)
Adam White, Simon Lamb, Brian McQuaid, Dan Schafer, Dave McLean
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