Dillinger Four<\/a> have released \u201cDon\u2019t Happy Be Worry,\u201d their first new song in 18 years.<\/p>\nDespite not releasing music for nearly two decades, the band has remained active, with singer-guitarist Erik Funk noting that in a lengthy statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s been something like 18 years since we released any new music, and the inescapable questions are why? And\u2026why now? The honest truth? I have no fucking idea. We\u2019ve been active that whole time playing shows, and we never really stopped writing music; we just sort of stopped finishing music.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve never tried to do this band as some kind of a career, and so we\u2019ve never felt the pressure that comes from that. We do feel extremely grateful that, for whatever reasons, people all over the world are still willing to come check us out when we\u2019re playing and hoping to hear us do something new. If we\u2019ve ever felt anything resembling pressure to do the band, it\u2019s for that reason alone.<\/p>\n
The balance of the shit we\u2019ve been doing in our lives, parenting, work, hobbies, etc., has just seemed to fall into place in the past couple years to where now there\u2019s some room to get back to finishing some music. It feels good. It takes more time than it used to still. We can\u2019t just drop everything for two weeks and make a whole album. Slowly but surely, though, we\u2019ve now got a stack of some new stuff, and it\u2019s time to start getting it out there. But as with all things\u00a0Dillinger\u00a0Four\u00a0throughout our history, we reserve the right to do it how, when, and wherever we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t Happy Be Worry\u201d is a direct and melodic punk rock track that wouldn\u2019t have been out of place in the 1970s. Its approach to melodicism is pop punk in the Buzzcocks vein, marrying power pop anthemics to a driving punk base.<\/p>\n
Related Video<\/p>\n
While the song did not come with a proper album announcement, as Funk mentioned, the band has a \u201cstack of new stuff\u201d ready to go.<\/p>\n
Dillinger Four are about to kick off a short tour of Japan. Take a listen to \u201cDon\u2019t Happy Be Worry\u201d below.<\/p>\n