Outspoken have spent much of 2026 doing something their singer once had serious doubts about: playing their old hardcore songs together again. The Huntington Beach straight edge veterans have returned to the East Coast, shared stages with Endpoint in California, and brought their 1993 release “The Current” back on vinyl.
They’re now preparing for a European tour with Ignite and Cancer Bats. John Coyle, who struggled for years with the idea of reuniting the band, is enjoying it enough to start talking about writing new songs.
Back in early 2024, when Outspoken announced their show at Programme Skate & Sound in Fullerton, John was still deeply protective of what the band had made in the early ’90s.
He’d spent a long time trying to find a reason to play together again. In a conversation with No Echo that February, he admitted that he hated the word “reunion” and wanted the Programme gig to be treated as an ordinary Outspoken show. Those old records had documented a very specific period of their lives, and he worried about spoiling it.
The band had formed in Huntington Beach in late 1989, developing their early straight edge hardcore alongside an Orange County scene that included Uniform Choice and Insted.
John and drummer Dennis Remsing had initially been working on songs as Spotlight, rehearsing at John’s father’s machine shop. Guitarist Mike Hartsfield got in touch about starting a band with similar ideas, and Outspoken came together.
Their debut 7″, “Survival”, arrived in July 1990, followed by “A Light in the Dark” in 1992 and “The Current” the following year. The early recordings grew out of the late-’80s straight edge scene, but Outspoken were already writing about subjects that went well beyond abstinence and the usual hardcore arguments.
The songs dealt with personal behaviour, social problems, violence and the things John was trying to work out for himself. By “The Current”, their writing had developed considerably. John has previously called it the band’s strongest work, remembering that the lyrics came together much more easily than they had on earlier recordings.
That history was part of why he was so careful about coming back. A conversation with a friend eventually got through to him. The friend mentioned how much Outspoken meant to him, and John’s immediate response surprised even himself.
โI really had no interest in Outspoken getting back together for a magnatude of reasons,โ he tells IDIOTEQ.
The band had begun discussing reissues, which gave them a reason to get together for a few gigs. Then something unexpected happened. They enjoyed themselves.
The guys were getting along, the shows went well, and the idea of keeping Outspoken active began to seem much easier than John had imagined.
โThis short run together has been remarkable, we are getting along. Nik has also brought a fresh, new energy and level of excitement to the band that has helped tremendously. So we are going to let it rideโ
The recent East Coast dates also brought some conversations John hadn’t anticipated. People wanted to talk about the songs, sometimes explaining how a particular lyric had helped them or stayed with them over the years. He had written those words as a young man, hoping they might be useful to someone, but hearing what people had taken from them decades later gave him a different understanding of the band’s work.
“Innocent” was the clearest example. John had originally written it to himself.
โThe song Innocent was written to myself. To have other people connect with it and have it be really meaningful is beyond humbling. Those conversation definitely gave me a renewed interest and understanding that what we did was meaningful beyond the 5 of us.โ
That was something he’d already begun recognising around the 2024 Programme show. Outspoken belonged to the people who’d been living with those records for thirty years, including younger musicians who hadn’t been around when the songs first came out.
One of them was Nik Piscitello.
Nik plays in Spark Of Life, the Los Angeles-area post-hardcore band who shared the Programme bill with Outspoken in March 2024. He’d known the musicians for years, and several of his previous bands had released records through Mike’s New Age Records. He was happy to be there as a friend and a fan, with absolutely no expectation that he might end up joining Outspoken.
There’s another connection that makes the story quite funny. Spark Of Life took their name from Outspoken’s song “Spark”.
โNo. Never crossed my mind. We have been friends for a long time and a few of my bands have put out records on New Age. I was purely an honored fan to be part of the new whatโs next for Outspoken that night. Fun fact, Spark of Life took our name from their song Spark.โ
When Outspoken needed someone to fill in on bass, Mike called Nik with very little notice.
โMike called me up and said, โHey sweetness what are you doing next weekend?โ I learned the set in three days we had one rehearsal and we were off to Boston.โ
Nik went along assuming he’d be helping out for a few shows. Once the tour was over, the others called and asked him to stay. He’d gone from watching a band he’d loved since his younger days to standing onstage playing their songs, after three days learning the set.
โThere was no world I was living in that I thought I would be in the band full time. After tour(which was so much fun)they called me up and extended the call. It was crazy how full circle this band had stared to materialize right in front of me when they asked the question. And of course I said yes.โ
He’s careful with the existing bass parts. These are recordings he grew up listening to, and he wants people to recognise the songs when they hear them live. At the same time, he’s spent years developing his own way of playing guitar and bass, and some of that naturally comes through.
โI try to stay true to what was on the records. But I have found moments to make certain parts mine for sure. But I donโt want to take away from what I grew up on.โ
The bigger surprise has been discovering how much Outspoken still mean to the other musicians themselves. Nik knew the songs mattered to him. Once he started rehearsing with the band, he found the same enthusiasm among the people who’d written them. He’d also become close friends with Mike, and the others made him feel welcome from the beginning.
โThat they still love the music as much as I do and just because we are older now, doesnโt mean the messages change. They are equally excited about sharing their music live again as I am being on stage with them.โ
“Spark“, the song that gave Nik’s band its name, is also the one John keeps returning to when he talks about what Outspoken accomplished. He considers it their last and best recording, and he’s carried its words with him through some extremely difficult experiences.
The song deals with suicide. When John originally wrote it, he was still very young. Years later, he went through a heartbreaking, life-changing period when he couldn’t see a way out of what he was dealing with. He found himself thinking about “Spark” repeatedly.
The words he’d written as a teenager ended up helping him through something he faced much later in life.
โIt was weird to have the younger me quietly talking the older me through an intensely depressing moment in my life.โ
He still has strong feelings about “Burning” too. The problems he was writing about back then haven’t gone away, and he finds that depressing in itself. Some of the other lyrics are harder for him to revisit. He knows he was young, and there are passages he’d approach differently now.
“A Light in the Dark” is an obvious example. John has been looking at the record again as the band approach its 35th anniversary in 2027. Some of its songs addressed rape and the objectification of women, subjects he still believes were worth confronting. He also thinks the writing could have been better.
โSome of the songs now may be a tad naive or clumsy but they were written by a teenager. We are working on A Light in the Dark and a few of those songs could be better, but the intent is great. Looking back its remarkable that as kids we were already addressing topics like rape and the objectification of women, but those songs could have been stronger.โ
He’s never been entirely happy with how that album was recorded, either. In an earlier conversation with No Echo, John remembered making it cheaply at somebody’s house, with an engineer who wasn’t used to recording hardcore. When he started singing, the engineer told the others to find a different vocalist. John finished his parts in a couple of days, but felt the record could have turned out better.
Whether any of those old recording frustrations have anything to do with the band’s current anniversary ideas remains unclear. John is giving very little away.
โWe have a few tricks up our sleeve. Maybe right some wrongs of the past. I would also not cancel out adding some new songs to the set in anticipation of the 35 year anniversary of the A LIGHT IN THE DARK’S release.โ
There hasn’t been an announcement about a new edition of “A Light in the Dark” or any specific changes to the original album. For now, John is leaving it at that.
His willingness to reconsider the past extends to a much more contentious part of Outspoken’s history.
In October 2012, the band toured Europe with Germany’s Suffer Survive. IDIOTEQ covered the trip at the time, which was presented as their first tour overseas. Original guitarist Travis Guichard was back in the line-up, but John wasn’t involved.
He later spoke about those reunion years in a 2017 interview with No Echo, saying he believed Outspoken had lost something during the European tour. Playing the Jon Bunch tribute show had helped him feel that the band had recovered some of it.
Now he’s much more direct about how angry he was when the 2012 tour happened.
โWhen that tour first happened I was furious. I felt it was disingenuous and stood for everything I was against. I always felt we /Outspoken were lucky because we did something that meant a lot to a lot of people so lets not destroy that.โ
John had watched the band he helped create go overseas and play songs he believed should be treated with more care. He disagreed with the whole idea of those shows, and the fact that he wasn’t there only made the situation harder.
Fourteen years later, he’s able to see Mike’s intentions differently.
โLooking back now Mike was just trying to keep it alive. The band belongs to all of us so who was I to stop it. Although I am actually excited for people to see Outspoken with the people that wrote the songs.โ
That’s a considerable shift from how John felt when those dates were originally announced. It’s also what makes the November 2026 tour so interesting. Outspoken are returning to Europe with a singer who once strongly opposed the band’s touring activity there, and he’s now looking forward to getting in front of the people who have been waiting to see them.
The shows with Endpoint on 16 October at Che Cafรฉ in San Diego and the following night at Suburban Clampdown in Garden Grove have already given them another chance to play together in California.
Europe comes next, with Outspoken joining Ignite and Cancer Bats for a run scheduled between 12 and 21 November, starting in Cologne and finishing in Chemnitz.
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The announced itinerary includes Wrocลaw on 19 November. There is still a discrepancy around that date: Outspoken were included in the band’s original European announcement, although the current local promoter’s listing for the show at Piwnica Starego Klasztoru names Ignite and Cancer Bats without confirming Outspoken. Anyone planning to catch the band in Poland should check the final billing.
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The reissue that helped get Outspoken playing again is also available now. Originally released on 22 October 1993, “The Current” has been remastered for vinyl by Brian McTernan and issued through Equal Vision Records as a 12-inch for the first time.
The new pressing brings together the original EP recordings and additional tracks, including “Spark” and “Spoke”. Equal Vision have two limited variants, while Revelation Records have offered a separate exclusive pressing.
“The Current” also happens to be the recording John keeps bringing up when the conversation turns towards making new music.
There have been genuine discussions inside Outspoken about writing again, and the band still have unused riffs from their earlier years. They haven’t started recording a confirmed new release. John wants to make sure whatever they write can stand alongside what he considers their best work.
โWe are in the tossing around idea stage. We also have some left over riffs from before. It needs to be special so it will take a minute to get it right. We will not release anything new unless we feel great about it. We have work to do.โ
The prospect of more gigs, recording and European festivals is being discussed as well. The band will see what they can organise once their November dates are finished. For John, who was so reluctant to put Outspoken back onstage in 2024, there’s now a genuine desire to carry on.
โAfter the tour we will be looking at more shows, hopefully recording and playing some festivals in Europe. We will see what we can make happen.โ
“The Current” is available through the Equal Vision Records shop, with the separate Revelation Records edition listed at RevHQ. You can also revisit the original recordings on Outspoken’s Bandcamp. The European tour begins on 12 November at Gebรคude 9 in Cologne.
More live pics below:
