Fifty Years On, Black Flag Is Still Rebuilding Itself

Today, we cover:

1. Black Flag's fall 2026 tour, the short version. Forty-five dates, September to November, almost all of them clubs.
2. The new lineup, the short version. Greg Ginn, 72, fronting three musicians in their twenties — one of whom he found singing in a crowd.
3. The band's history, the short version. From Keith Morris to Henry Rollins to Bill Stevenson and Kira Roessler, no one has ever stayed long except Ginn.

Black Flag turns fifty this year, and the band marking the anniversary bears almost no resemblance to the one that started it. The tour opens September 3 at Belly Up Aspen in Colorado and closes November 1 at House of Blues in Houston — 45 stops in between, threading through Fox Theater in Boulder, Aces High Saloon in Salt Lake City, recordBar in Kansas City, Crafthouse in Pittsburgh, Electric City in Buffalo, and 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia. Additional January and April 2027 dates are still to come. It's a club tour, not an arena run, which is itself a small statement: a band that could probably fill bigger rooms is choosing the kind of venues it built its reputation in.

That choice tracks with who's actually on stage. The current lineup pairs Ginn — the band's founding guitarist and, notably, its only member who has never left — with three musicians in their early twenties: bassist David Rodriguez, drummer Bryce Weston, and lead vocalist Max Zanelly, who is, by most accounts, the first woman to front Black Flag. Zanelly's path to the role is unusual even by the band's standards: she had never been in a band before Ginn found her singing in a crowd. The lineup debuted overseas and on the West Coast in 2025, played Coachella this past April, and this fall tour is its first extended run through the rest of the country. Ginn has also said the band is working on its first new music in twelve years, which would make this tour something closer to a reintroduction than a victory lap.

None of this is new for Black Flag, exactly — it's the pattern. The band's roster has turned over more or less continuously since Ginn and Keith Morris started it in 1976, with Ginn's brother Raymond Pettibon briefly on bass before the group had even settled on a name. Morris left in 1979 to form Circle Jerks. The lineup most people picture when they think of Black Flag — Ginn, Henry Rollins on vocals, Chuck Dukowski on bass, Robo on drums, Dez Cadena on rhythm guitar — cut Damaged in 1981 and didn't even last through the album's own touring cycle intact. The band's most productive run, four albums and three EPs in sixteen months between 1983 and 1985, came from yet another configuration: Ginn and Rollins joined by Bill Stevenson on drums and Kira Roessler on bass.

Seen against that history, a twenty-something lineup fronted by a singer Ginn discovered by chance isn't a departure from what Black Flag is. It's closer to the only thing that's ever been consistent about it.