Letter from Max: “Working hard” on new album, Tom Hobden officially announced as new band member

Matt on October 23, 2020

“It’s been a while.” That’s how Max begins a lengthy band update letter that fans are starting to receive via email. And yes, it sure has.

Coming on the heels of those signs of life we mentioned a week ago, the email pretty much serves as the start of the band’s new campaign surrounding their upcoming third album.

It has several newsy items:

  • Gang of Youths has “spent this raging bin-fire of a year getting our shit together and recording our third album.”
  • They recently leased a space in London where they’re working on the album. If you’ve been paying attention to the band’s Instagram stories over the past week, you’ve seen that space already.
  • The email officially introduces Tom Hobden as the band’s newest member. Max describes him as “consummate British gentleman and new member,” and adds, “We love him.” Believe it or not, this is actually the first time the band has formally announced Tom as part of the lineup. They shared some sneaky clues on social media early in the year, and Tom played the band’s final three gigs of the year before the world shut down — including that epic Down to Earth relief concert in Melbourne. But the band never said anything official about him being part of the lineup until today. Welcome, Tom.
  • That new merchandise we mentioned last week? Max’s letter says the shirts are “more sustainable and ethical” — printed on Fairshare or Salvage t-shirts.

Not mentioned in the email is that the band … well, Warner Music more likely … has updated GangOfYouths.com. Rather than the Go Farther In Lightness image, the home page now features a silent video of the band performing — further confirmation that the GFIL era is over and they’re onto the campaign for album #3. Some of the other website content is the same as before, but now the Merch section has options for “Australia store” and “Rest of World store.” If you choose the latter, you end up at Warner Music’s UK store.

All of this is wonderful news and points to more activity in the leadup to that new Gang of Youths album. Pretty sure I can safely speak for fans around the world when I say: Bring. It. On.