The Suicide Machines

ska punk · power pop · punk rock

The Suicide Machines are a ska punk band formed in Detroit in March 1991, originally under the name Jack Kevorkian and the Suicide Machines. Their music combines ska, punk rock and hardcore, often shifting between upstroke skank rhythms and hardcore tempo within a single song, and the lyrics have been consistently political. The current lineup is founding vocalist Jason Navarro with Ryan Vandeberghe on drums, Rich Tschirhart on bass and Justin Malek on guitar. Their debut album, Destruction by Definition, was released by Hollywood Records in 1996 and drew national attention during the mid-1990s ska and punk revival. Battle Hymns followed in 1998 and moved sharply toward hardcore; a self-titled record in 2000 and Steal This Record in 2001 mixed pop-punk melody with protest songwriting; and A Match and Some Gasoline, issued by SideOneDummy in 2003, returned to the ska-punk of their earliest work. War Profiteering Is Killing Us All appeared in 2005, after which the band broke up in 2006. They reformed in 2009 and released Revolution Spring, their seventh album and first in fifteen years, on Fat Wreck Chords in 2020. Most of their profile has been built on the road, through repeated Warped Tour runs and the Black Christmas shows they host annually in Detroit, and they continue to tour North America, Europe, Asia and Australasia. A deluxe vinyl reissue marked twenty years of A Match and Some Gasoline in 2023, and a thirtieth-anniversary world tour for Destruction by Definition runs across 2026 and 2027.

Official site

Subscribe to this calendar

Upcoming shows