New Music

Joe Longobardi joins The Amity Affliction as their new drummer ahead of Download Festival 2019

Dec 21, 2018

7 min read

Following the shock departure of their long-term drummer Ryan Burt, The Amity Affliction fans were kinda left in limbo about the state of the band moving forward and if they'd just be a three-piece with a studio/session/touring drummer... Well, today the band has announced that Defeater drummer Joe Longobardi has joined them on a full-time basis.

Longobardi, for fans who didn't know, was the guy they used to record the drums on their new album Misery, so it was only a matter of time before he joined the band after finishing his commitments with Defeater. In a statement, the band revealed on Facebook:

"We’re over the moon that we can finally announce our long time friend Joe Longobardi will be joining Amity on a full time basis. We’ve been speaking with Joe for a long, long time, however his touring commitments with Defeater meant that he couldn’t join as soon as we wanted him to.

Fast forward to recording, Joe came into the studio and absolutely smashed it, and we had a fucking amazing time with him there. We offered him the spot again, and lucky for us he said yes.

We’ve been wanting to spill the beans for ages now because we are so so psyched that he’s with us now moving forward. Give him a warm welcome please; in his own words, let’s fucking GO."

The band will be playing Download Festival Sydney & Melbourne in March, but as frontman Joel Birch told us when he co-hosted out Wall of Sound: Up Against the Wall podcast, the guys are planning a "Pretty Fucking Crazy" Australian Tour for late 2019.