Mike Watt will be playing bass on Porno for Pyros‘ farewell tour.
Frontman Perry Farrell revealed the news in an interview with Consequence, noting, “Mike Watt is in my estimation one of the greatest bass players of all time.”
“He’s hardcore,” Farrell says of Watt. “I’m very excited about playing with him.”
Watt, who also played bass in the seminal punk band Minutemen, takes the place of original Porno for Pyros bassist Martyn LeNoble, who announced earlier in November that he would not be taking part in the upcoming tour.
“Martyn LeNoble is a wonderful guy — he loves the outdoors, he loves to track animals out in the wild,” says Farrell. “He really is a naturalist. By the time we got the tour together, Martyn was heading out to the forests. So, we were left to look for a bass player.”
Watt previously stepped in for LeNoble during PfP’s original run in the ’90s, playing in the band from 1995 to their breakup in 1998.
The original Porno for Pyros lineup — Farrell, LeNoble, guitarist Peter DiStefano and drummer Stephen Perkins — reunited in 2022. They had announced a fall 2023 tour, set to mark their first full live run in 25 years, before postponing it to work on new music. Upon unveiling the rescheduled dates, which will kick off in February, PfP deemed the tour their “farewell.”
As for that new music, an EP is set to drop in 2024 ahead of the tour. It’ll feature the single “Agua,” which dropped on November 16.
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