'It's Kind Of Empowering': Max Zanelly On Taking Over The Mic For Black Flag's New Era

Tyler Jenke

As Black Flag prepare to showcase their new line-up on their upcoming Australian tour, Max Zanelly, the band's first-ever female vocalist, discusses what it's like to take on such a lofty role.

Black Flag(Credit: Supplied)

Black Flag

It would probably be fair to say that just over a year ago, the vast majority of the musical world would have not heard of Max Zanelly.

She'd never performed in a band before, but in April 2025, the Canadian vocalist was just about to be announced as the new singer of iconic punk act Black Flag.

Months earlier, professional skateboarder Mike Vallely had departed the role of vocalist, but before that, Zanelly had attended one of their final shows, positioning herself at the front of the crowd, and singing loud enough to capture the attention of founding guitarist Greg Ginn.

"I think I was at the right place at the right time, to be honest," Zanelly tells The Music over a glitch-laden Zoom call.

"I had every reason not to go to the show. I had a broken arm at the time, I was going to the show by myself, it was winter, it was cold, and the venue was far from where I lived," she adds. "But I really wanted to go, so I went to the show. I'm front row, I'm just enjoying it, and I'm singing along to all my favourite songs."

When the show concluded, Ginn – who has been the only constant presence since the group's formation in 1976 – approached her, and the pair began to talk. Clearly impressed by her vocal ability, the discussion turned to Zanelly's musical desires, and before long, they'd exchanged contact details.

"I really thought nothing would come from it, but then I received a text from him a month after and he very nonchalantly asked me to be in the band," she remembers. "He texted me and was like, 'Oh, like, the lead singer of the band just left. I wanted to check in on you and see if you wanted to try it out yourself.'

"I didn't believe it at first. It was a really crazy experience because I was on my way to a trip too. I was going to Brazil at the time, I was at the airport, and then I hear this news, and I was like, 'Is this serious right now?'"

Indeed, it was serious, and in April 2025, the world was welcomed to the new line-up of Black Flag.

Featuring Ginn on guitars, Zanelly on vocals, Dave Rodriguez on guitars, and Bryce Weston on drums, it was a line-up that inspired mixed feedback, but one that heralded a brand new era for the enduring punk band.

Having first formed in 1976 as Panic by Ginn, vocalist Keith Morris (who would later front Circle Jerks and OFF!), and Ginn's brother Raymond Pettibon (who would design the group's iconic logo), they adopted the Black Flag moniker in 1977, releasing their first single in 1979.

For many people, however, the Black Flag story didn't begin until Henry Rollins took on vocal duties in August 1981. Rollins, the band's fourth vocalist after Ron Reyes and Dez Cadena, was undoubtedly their most visible and most prolific, appearing on all six of the studio albums released during their initial era.

Black Flag would split in 1986, and following a run of reunion shows in 2003 (with Cadena on main vocals and Vallelly also appearing), the band officially reformed in 2013.

It got messy, however. Lawsuits surrounded another version of the band touring, Reyes was officially fired and replaced by Vallely while mid-show during the band's first Australian tour, and a new album even arrived in late 2013. Sadly, that album – fittingly titled What The… – received almost universally negative feedback.

Another split would occur in 2013, but by 2019, the band were back together. All of this is to say that Black Flag's history is not one that can easily be summarised onto a bumper sticker.

By Zanelly's own admission, she wasn't exactly a Black Flag superfan, but rather someone who resonated with the band upon discovering their music in her teen years.

"I think it was one of the first punk bands that I really got into," she explains. "It was at the end of high school, when I started working full-time, I just feel like a lot of the lyrics of the songs kind of resonated with me, my experience, and what I was living at the moment.

"But Black Flag was the first band that kind of introduced me into the whole punk genre."

That isn't to say she was unaware of the history that comes with any mere mention of the band, however. In fact, she realised just how lofty the task that lay ahead of her actually was.

"I was just unsure of where my life was going to take me at the time," she explains. "I was traveling a lot, I was working a lot of random jobs, I hadn't gone back to school yet, and I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

"Then this opportunity kind of came to me and it was just as I was going to Brazil for a week. This was February of last year, and then I ended up staying there for, like, two months because Greg was like, 'We'll start practicing in May.' And I was like, 'Okay. So now I have this kind of timeline.'

"So I ended up staying there for two months instead," she adds. "But the entire time was just me contemplating. Like, I lost sleep over it because I really just stressed myself out."

Thankfully, this stress didn't manifest in negative ways, but it did result in Zanelly finding herself asking about just what sort of role she would play in the band's legacy.

After all, with so many members peppering the band's history, and with so many vocalists each embodying that frontperson role in different ways, how did she approach the role? Was it a case of attempting to emulate the past, or trying to carve out her own niche?

"A lot of the past singers are super influential within the band and they've definitely played their part in making the band what it was and what it is," she explains. "And I really respect that, and I definitely do look at that with some influence, you know? I would look back on the old live videos and see so much energy coming from these guys, like, the way they would sing the songs with so much passion, just giving their all.

"I remember when we first started practicing together and I was still kind of shy and a bit more reserved, me and [Rodriguez] were like, 'Let's watch some old live footage and just kind of study.' Using that, I was just able to get that inspiration to go into it by giving it my all."

Zanelly's role within the band has also gained some attention due to the fact that she is only the second woman to join the group (following on from bassist Kira Roessler, who previously performed with Black Flag from 1983 to 1985), and the first woman to serve as vocalist.

While she admits she doesn't pay too much mind to the attention paid to her gender, she does note that it's been refreshing to provide some much-needed representation in a heavily male-centric genre.

"I just feel like I'm a vocalist," she states succinctly. "Yes, me being a woman definitely makes the experience a bit different, but at the end of the day, I just feel like there's another vocalist in the band. I don't feel specifically singled out because I'm a woman, I just feel like when I'm in the band and when I'm touring with the guys, I end up feeling like such a guy myself. It's a weird sensation.

"I think the one thing that I do notice a lot is that we do get a lot of girls that come to our shows, and I think that makes me really happy. We get young girls that come to our shows, we get fathers bringing their daughters to the shows, and we get a lot of young women coming out and they're always in the front row.

"It feels like a special experience for me to be up there and just showing them that I can do this," she adds. "A woman can do this. A woman can take the role that's been a man's role for the past however many years and make it her own. It's kind of empowering in that way."

While punk can certainly attract some audience members with problematic views regarding topics such as gender as times, Zanelly admits that she's been lucky enough to avoid any negative comments (and pop quizzes from genre nerds who might test her knowledge with the standard "Name three songs" quiz).

"To be honest, it's been pretty fine," she laughs. "I feel like the most backlash that we get is that we're young, which I think is crazy. But it's usually just online. People will be talking shit that me and the other guys in the band are so young compared to Greg and that we're just little kids or babies.

"But if you think about it, we're in our 20s, just like they were in their 20s back in the '80s when the band was at its peak. So it's kind of a ridiculous thing to criticise that we're younger."

Indeed, if one were to look at the era of Black Flag which saw them release the classic Damaged album in 1981, Ginn and bassist Chuck Dukowski were 27, drummer Robo was 26, and both Rollins and Cadena were 20.

While Ginn is now 71, at the end of last year, both Zanelly and Weston were 22, while Rodriguez was 21. Sure, Ginn's the sum ages of Ginn's bandmates might not equal his own, but should that warrant unfair comparisons to School Of Rock?

Of course not, and in fact, Zanelly admits it's something which she feels takes away from the wider experience.

"I just think it's something that people are focusing way too much about online," she suggests. "But then when we go out and we play a show, nobody's ever going to say that to our faces, you know? We usually have a lot of really good feedback when we do play shows.

"I think a lot of the stuff that is said online is said without much understanding of what we are and what we've been doing. It's people who just don't get it, I guess."

On the opposite side of things, it provides the band a good opportunity to prove the haters wrong when they do take to the stage.

"At first, I was looking at the comments online and obsessing over it a little bit, being like, 'Oh my gosh, people hate us,'" Zanelly remembers. "But now that we're actually playing shows, we hear so many more positive things in person, and I'll see comments online of people defending us.

"It provides a lot of positive feedback that outweighs the negative, so I don't really focus on that anymore. I just do what I do."

The current iteration of Black Flag first took to the stage in June 2025 and have toured relentlessly across Europe and North America since.

In April, they played some of the biggest shows of their career, appearing at both weekends of Coachella, and providing one of the first opportunities for many audience members to catch the band live in any era.

Footage from these shows portrays a band which are performing with an intensity far beyond their years. For Zanelly, the experience of bringing Black Flag on the road has been one she can only describe as "crazy".

"I never pictured myself in this position where I'm in a band where, after I play a show, people ask me for my autograph, want to take pictures of me, want to talk to me, and even just do interviews," she explains. "I never expected to be in this position, but I'm taking it all in and it's a really interesting experience.

"I don't think I'll ever let it get to my head because I just feel very lucky to be in this position. I don't feel like I'm anybody special, I'm just myself."

Zanelly does admit though that this pipeline of going from being 'cool by association' to actually being a drawcard at these shows is something that brings with it high expectations.

"I feel like there's also a lot of pressure," she explains. "In terms of coming up with new music, it's something that kind of… not scares me, but I feel a little bit iffy about it, just because I know that this is a band that's been around for a long time and they're very influential.

"To make new music is something that I'm… I want to make sure that we're putting out stuff that's of good quality and lives up to expectations."

Upon the announcement of Black Flag's new line-up last year, it was stated that the group had "already begun writing and rehearsing together, building on their signature sound while embracing new influences brought in by the latest members."

This soon led to reports that the band was in fact working on new music – something Ginn denied while chatting to the Trusty Chords podcast recently.

"I just like to announce stuff when it comes out," he explained. "I'm not being tricky, that's just an unsubstantiated rumour that I can't substantiate. I'm not being tricky about that, I'm sure that we will at a certain point. We've just been kind of preoccupied with trying to fill out our set."

Zanelly is a little more eager to chat about new music, claiming that there has been new music in the works, but whether it's being made with the intent to release is another story entirely.

"[Greg] has been recording for the past few years, he's had stuff that he's been kind of recording and collecting," she explains. "And [Weston] just recently added some parts to some of the recordings, but I think now it comes the time for me to write lyrics and kind of finalise everything.

"But I'm taking that a little bit slowly because I want to make sure that I'm doing things well."

In the meantime, the band's biggest focus is their live schedule, which includes a four-date visit to Australia – Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast – later this month which sees them playing two sets each night.

Needless to say, it's an experience that Zanelly is eager to share in with the local audiences

"There's a lot of chemistry with us as a band," she says of the live experience. "That's something that I've been hearing a lot from people that have been going to our shows. They're like, 'It sounds like you guys have been playing together for years,' because I think we've just spent so much time together the past year, and we've definitely built that up on stage and we have a lot of fun when we play.

"We love to interact with the crowd as we play, and I just love having that connection with the people and I think that's really important."

Tickets to Black Flag's upcoming Australian tour are on sale now.