Ohio rock legends Relient K are up to no good, but we’re not sure what that qualifies as just yet. Whispers are emanating throughout the scene today that we’ll see the act back together sooner rather than later, and it seems they themselves are only fuelling the fire. While technically the band have only two members listed as remaining under their name – frontman Matthew Thiessen and lead guitarist Matthew Hoopes – former guitarist Jon Schneck and former drummer Ethan Luck have both made recent posts alluding to a reunion. It’s unclear just when Schneck and Luck were re-initiated back into the fold, but Schneck has been particularly active over the last year, reviving some deep cut Relient K gold on Twitter to boot. Whether that means that the band are working on new music or not is yet to be determined, but it’s a safe bet to say that the boys are back in town.
The last full-length release from Relient K harks all the way back to 2016 in the shape of their studio album, Air for Free. With a couple of EPs dropping after to coincide with the holidays of Halloween and Valentine’s Day, they had all but signed off before unleashing a live album smack bang in the middle of last year. Relient K: Live re-issued performances originally tracked in 2009 at a show at Rocketown in Nashville, Tennessee and in 2016 at The Ritz in Raleigh, North Carolina. The 15-song live collection that was released was previously only available on vinyl and marked a gift to fans waiting patiently to get back to live shows in the middle of the pandemic.
If you’re not a fan of the establishment of Relient K (although if you’re reading Blunt Magazine, odds are that you should be), you might actually be inadvertently consuming their genius anyway. Machine Gun Kelly’s recent single ‘Love Race’, featuring none other than Sleeping With Sirens’ Kellin Quinn, actually credits frontman Matthew Thiessen as a writer. The more you know, huh?
