Circle Jerks’ Keith Morris Says It’s Time They Put Out a ‘Fuckin’ Ripper’

The Circle Jerks have not released a new studio album in 30 years, and singer Keith Morris says he knows exactly what the band must do as it begins a new project. “We’ve gotta put out a fuckin’ ripper that just blazes your ears,” he says in his signature rasp.

The hardcore originators last released an album with 1995’s polished Oddities, Abnormalities and Curiosities, a record Morris is no fan of and in the past has actually said, “It should not exist.” He has higher expectations for how the band he formed with guitarist Greg Hetson in 1979 approaches the next one.

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“What I need to stress upon them is we’ve gotta come out like our lives fucking depend on this,” he says of his fellow band members. “We’ve got to come out like we’re the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and the Green Berets.”

The Circle Jerks are in the very early stages of a new album, with the outlines of three new songs begun at the Los Angeles studio of Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, who is guiding the sessions. It marks the band’s first attempt at an album since 2010, which collapsed amid anger and disagreements, sending the band into an open-ended hiatus as Morris spent the next decade with the critically acclaimed OFF!

He’s been back with Circle Jerks since 2021, a reunion delayed by the COVID pandemic, and they have never been more in demand than they are right now. Since those first shows, the band have widely toured the U.S. and, for the first time, Europe, with stops in Australia and South America. Shows in Japan and Southeast Asia are on the horizon.

During two weekends at Coachella this month, they were especially fired up, delivering some of their best performances since reuniting. Backstage after their first set, Morris was relaxing in the band’s trailer, still in the stars-and-stripes cowboy hat he wore onstage. He’d just picked it up at a hospital gift shop back in L.A., while getting a checkup on his bronchitis and a nasal infection, and notes that it would fit well with Coachella’s sister festival for country music at the same location, Stagecoach.

“This hat has Stagecoach written all over it: line dance, square dance, Coors, Coors Light, a hot dog,” he says. “It doesn’t get any more American than that.”

Other band members wander in and out, on their way to catch one of the festival’s other acts, or to slip out and back to Los Angeles. Early responses to their 40-minute Coachella set are enthusiastic, coming in via text, including from punk fans watching the livestream from home. Morris credits their current drummer Joey Castillo, formerly with Queens of the Stone Age and Danzig, as the reunited Circle Jerks’ secret weapon.

“We are beyond fortunate to have an engine named Joey Castillo,” he says. “If we didn’t have him, we wouldn’t be here.”

The Circle Jerks, which also includes longtime bassist Zander Schloss, have essentially been performing the same set of songs since reuniting, expanding to 50 minutes when headlining. “One of our management people had suggested that we get back from Europe and rehearse for Coachella, and that was not fucking going to happen,” Morris says flatly. “No reason in the world to beat it into the ground. The joke that we had going earlier in the day was: ‘You guys remember the songs?’”

Morris will be keeping busy in the coming months, with and without the Circle Jerks. He returns to Punk Rock Bowling on May 26 to sing with FLAG, his band of former Black Flag members singer-guitarist Dez Cadena, bassist Chuck Dukowski, and drummer Bill Stevenson, with Descendents guitarist Stephen Egerton. “Oh, they’re a blast,” Morris says of FLAG shows. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed because our senior member has stated that he’s not going out on tour,” he adds, referring to Dukowski, not quite two years older than Morris. “But we’re hoping that when we play Punk Rock Bowling that he’ll have such a good time, he’ll go, ‘I might as well jump in there and play a few gigs’—because we’ve got offers.”

In June, Morris is back in Vegas to spend a few days leading tours at the Punk Rock Museum. His appearance there makes sense for someone who has seen so much punk rock history first-hand, starting from his time as the singer of Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and OFF! 

“I’m extremely fortunate because I’ve been in three important bands. I know this. And my ego should fill this entire space and lift this trailer off the ground with all the helium in my head,” he says with a laugh.

One favorite story happened one day back in 1984, when he got to watch Public Image Ltd audition bass players at Perkins Palace in Pasadena, hours before the band was to headline there. Founding bassist Jah Wobble was long gone, and a newspaper ad brought in many contenders. 

Morris’ friend Flea was one of those to try out. “Flea was the last bass player,” Morris remembers of the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist. “They started playing, and when Flea started to hit his notes, all of their jaws dropped. Like they knew immediately this is the guy. And Flea was playing along, and he kept prodding them.”

Flea got offered the gig, but ultimately decided to stick with the Chili Peppers, much to leader John Lydon’s irritation. “I saw the whole thing. But it was fucking great. I got to see a Public Image Ltd performance, the only one with Flea.”

Other stories from punk history are darker, such his encounters with the influential but drug-addled guitarist Johnny Thunders. “It’s real easy to get into some negativity. How else can you talk about Johnny Thunders besides him being a very influential guitar player?” he says. “But he was a fucking junkie. Two or three of the times I saw him, he was just barely able to play. And one of the shows that I saw, he actually tripped and fell over the front of the stage at the Whisky a Go Go and couldn’t play that set. He was knocked out.”

After playing some European festivals with the Circle Jerks in August, they returned to the Hollywood Palladium for the singer’s “70th Birthday Bash,” with the Circle Jerks headlining a night with Ceremony, Rocket From the Crypt, and Negative Approach.

The band has also recorded a handful of cover songs recently, including a few by the Descendents that appeared on a split EP last year. The Circle Jerks also recorded a ripping cover of DOA’s “The Enemy” for a tribute album to the Vancouver punk band last year. They’ve also recorded a still-unreleased take on the Gun Club’s “Bad Indian” for a movie project still in the early stages. “It’s undeniably great,” Morris says. “I’m proud of it.”

Morris is happy with all those tracks, but he says the stakes are much higher on any new original Circle Jerks material that gets put out into the world. He’s characteristically blunt about what’s required from each member of the veteran punk band in 2025, and he says it’s crucial that any new album hits hard. Even with the three new originals already begun, he says they still have a ways to go.

Making a new Circle Jerks record “ain’t no Beatles recording session,” he says. “You’re gonna [record] standing up and you’re gonna be in a down-stroke and you’re gonna leave soaked in sweat. You’re gonna be sore.

“If we’re just gonna dilly-dally around and come off like a bunch of old guys playing fast music, that doesn’t work,” Morris insists. “We gotta go back like we’re fuckin’ teenagers because we’re competing with a bunch of young dudes and young gals. And we just have to rip people’s faces off.”

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