Against Me! Leaves Sire Records, Gets New Drummer

As you may remember, this past October, Florida’s Against Me! surprised everyone by cancelling all of their remaining tour dates for 2010. No reason was given other than “unforeseen circumstances;” and nothing was mentioned even when they announced plans to join The Dropkick Murphys on a tour in early 2011.

Now, however, Tom Gabel has updated his blog apologizing for the cancellation saying that they were a lot of circumstances that needed their attention and therefore they were forced to head home and figure everything out. They also mentioned their decision to leave Sire Records saying:

“[A]fter almost a five year relationship we are leaving Sire/Warner. We have nothing but gratitude towards all the people we worked with at the label and feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to make the records we made while with the label.”

The band had signed a two album contract with Sire Records and have fulfilled that contract with the release of New Wave in 2007 and White Crosses this year.  There’s been no word yet as to what label the band will release their next album with.

On top of the label changes, the band also underwent some recent lineup changes as Gabel announced that drummer Jay Weinberg will be playing drums for them in the new year, replacing George Rebello who recorded with them on White Crosses and previously played in Hot Water Music. You may remember Weinberg’s name as he was recently involved in a little scandal with Madball which resulted with him leaving the band in the middle of their Canadian tour with Comeback Kid.

Tom Gabel also promised to try and reschedule all the cancelled dates and also mentioned some upcoming tours with Fences and Cheap Girls. The full blog entry can be read here.