For years, X swore it would never happen. New music? Not a chance. Tour the hits, keep the legacy intact, but why risk it? Then, out of nowhere, Alphabetland arrived, their first album in 27 years, an unfiltered, unrelenting blast of punk fury. And no, it’s not some legacy act going through the motions. This thing is alive—loud, biting, and full of the same restless energy that made Los Angeles a generational landmark.
“Look, I’d usually try to be coy in interviews,” John Doe says, laughing. “‘You never know, we might record again,’ that kind of thing. But the truth is, none of us were really expecting it.”
So, what changed?
The short version: a few test sessions. A “let’s see if we still got it” moment. “We started with some older songs, kind of hedging our bets,” Doe admits. “Like, if these sound good, maybe we’ll try some new stuff. If they don’t, well… we won’t embarrass ourselves.”
They did not embarrass themselves.
The band—Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom, and D.J. Bonebrake—clicked instantly. The chemistry was intact. The fire was still there. And suddenly, the floodgates opened. “Next thing we know, we’re writing new songs, recording, actually getting excited about it,” Doe says. “It was like, ‘Oh shit, we’re doing this.’”
A Punk Rock Time Capsule That Feels Like Right Now
Despite being recorded before the pandemic, Alphabetland somehow feels tailor-made for the chaos of 2020 and beyond. “It’s weird, right?” Doe muses. “We weren’t setting out to write about a global crisis, but that’s the thing—our songs have always been about culture on the edge, characters in crisis. And guess what? That never goes away.”
Take Water & Wine, a sharp jab at class divides that somehow sounds like it was written specifically for the modern tech bro era. Or Goodbye Year, Goodbye, which reads like a farewell letter to, well, every year since 2016. “That one was just supposed to be a reflection,” Doe says. “Then the world imploded, and suddenly it felt prophetic.”
Not that Doe is thrilled about the state of the world. “You see the same problems repeating. The same assholes in power. The same racist bullshit. It’s not like we’re sitting around going, ‘Wow, what a new and interesting crisis!’”
He pauses. “At least we know punk will never run out of things to be pissed off about.”
Revisiting Old Wounds (and Old Songs)
A few of the tracks on Alphabetland aren’t new at all—they’re re-recordings of X songs that never quite got the treatment they deserved. “We did I Got a Heater back in the day, but honestly, I don’t love the idea of singing about a guy breaking into an apartment with a gun anymore,” Doe says. “So I rewrote it as I Got a Fever, because hey, let’s lean into the metaphor of looking for sanctuary instead of glorifying some film noir fantasy.”
Another highlight: Delta 88 Nightmare, a love letter to beat-up American muscle cars and the open road. “That song goes back to the late ‘70s,” Doe says. “Exene and I took a trip to Monterey because we’d read Cannery Row and thought, ‘Let’s go see where the bohemians used to be.’ Turns out, nope, it had already been gentrified to hell. And that was then.”
Still Furious, Still Loud
For all the moments of reflection, Alphabetland is still a punk rock record—and punk rock needs fire. “If you’re just phoning it in, it shows,” Doe says. “You can’t fake fury.”
And he’s still plenty furious. “Look at Free—it’s about all the ways women are still getting screwed over, still being paid less, still being ignored,” Doe says. “I’d love for Pussy Riot to cover that one.”
The record also takes a moment to correct the past. The song Los Angeles originally featured a racial slur in its lyrics—one that X has since retired from performances. “When we wrote it, it was a mirror,” Doe explains. “It was calling out racism, not promoting it. But now? If I sang it that way, it wouldn’t be a mirror—it’d just be me saying the word. And I don’t want to do that. We’re not here to be shocking for the sake of it.”
No Grand Plans, Just Loud Guitars
For all the energy and urgency of Alphabetland, Doe isn’t about to make big promises about what’s next. “Oh, people are already asking, ‘So when’s the next one?’” he says. “Jesus, let us breathe for a second.”
But he’s not ruling it out. “We proved we can still do this,” he says. “And honestly? It felt good.”
And just like that, a band that once swore off new music is back in the game. “We’re not a nostalgia act,” Doe says. “We never were. If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it for real.”
X marks the spot, once again.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the an interview with John and Kyle from 2014.
