‘We’re Out on Our Terms’: Stray From The Path Reflect on 20+ Years Ahead of Final Aussie Tour

After more than two decades of shaking stages, stirring mosh pits, and speaking truth to power, New York’s metallic hardcore heavyweights Stray From The Path are officially taking their victory lap. This week, the quartet will bring their final ever Australian tour to Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth – a bittersweet farewell paired with the surprise drop of their swan song album, Clockworked.

Since forming in 2001, Stray From The Path -Tom Williams (guitar), Drew Dijorio (vocals), Anthony Altamura (bass), and Craig Reynolds (drums) – have built an unshakable reputation for groove-drenched riffs, hip hop-inspired vocal cadences, and politically charged lyrics that cut straight to the bone. They’ve never been a band to shy away from hard truths, whether on stage or off, and Clockworked proves they’re going out on the same uncompromising note they’ve always played.

We caught up with guitarist Tom Williams to talk about the making of Clockworked, the decision to call time on the band, and how Stray plan to go out swinging. Read his words down beelow.

Stray From The Path – ‘Shot Caller’

Music Feeds: Thanks for taking the time to sit and chat with us, Tom! I want to start by talking about your latest album, Clockworked. You said it was written and recorded in just a week, basically?

Tom Williams: Instrumentally, yeah.

MF: Did you know that it was going to be the band’s final record when you guys were writing it? 

TW: We did not actually, but it’s funny because the last song ends with Drew saying “peace.” like, “peace out.” And so maybe subconsciously we all kind of knew. But no, we didn’t know. I kind of wish we did because who gets to write a record knowing at the time it’s their last?! I mean, David Bowie did, which is kind of sick.

MF: For sure. If you had known, do you think it would have contributed to that sense of urgency? Would you have finished it so quickly and kept it as a surprise rollout?

TW: I mean, we didn’t shy from telling people that we had a record coming. When we made ‘Kubrick Stare’, we were like, “Yeah, we got a record done. It’ll come out – one day you’ll wake up and we’ll be there.” But the way we did it, we didn’t tell anyone about the artwork until it was out there. And you could buy it at a record store, you could buy it on the website and it ships immediately – you didn’t have to wait for it, there were no pre-orders. We played a festival the week beforehand in the UK and we sold it there. We were throwing copies out into the crowd and people were like, “What the f**k? I didn’t even know there was another record.” And then the second surprise was that it was our last.

MF: With a title like Clockworked and an opening track called ‘Kubrick Stare’, it feels like you draw parallels with some of the themes explored in A Clockwork Orange. How have movies influenced your music? 

TW: The two images that kept coming to mind while we were making it was the A Clockwork Orange scene – keeping your eyes open – and then Jack Nicholson’s ‘Kubrick Stare’, and that’s just how we all felt at the time. Movies have been such a big thing within our band, we’ll quote stuff for movies all the time, like ‘Goodnight, Alt Right’ is one of our biggest songs, and the chorus is “you just got knocked the f**k out”, which is from Friday. We always just like to have fun, even though our whole thing was taking the band very seriously, we don’t take ourselves very seriously. I could quote all these different movies that we took lines from, borrowing from movies or being inspired from them has always been there for us.

MF: Speaking of movies, you spoke about the image of the album cover being a reference to War Games and the quote “The only winning move was to not play”, did that sentiment play into the collective decision to step away as a band at the end of 2025?

TW: No, I wouldn’t correlate it with that. The cover is supposed to be that. There’s the one empty space and if you look at the game, either X or O wins with the next move and you don’t know who’s playing the next move. And in War Games, he defeats the machine by making it play itself, and it just keeps drawing and drawing and fighting itself until it explodes. So the only winning move was not to play. Whether it’s left vs. right or whatever, they have us pitted against each other like clockwork. We fell into their plan, we all got clockworked – that was the whole vibe behind it. But I wouldn’t relate that to us not wanting to play, because the music lives forever and people are going to be discovering Stray until I’m 50. 

I just saw Refused in Europe, and there were young kids around. They’re one of the best bands ever, and one of the reasons why I got into what I do – they broke up in 1999 and their last show was playing in a basement in Virginia. ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ is one of the most important records in my lifetime, and probably will outlive the members of the band. So I’m hoping that our records do that. And if they don’t, then whatever, we still left it on the field. Here’s the thing, too – like Refused, Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Bulls on Parade’ came out in 1996. Now that record is about to turn 30 years old and it’s more relevant today than it was in 96.

MF: It’s funny that you bring up those two artists in particular. Clockworked made me think a lot about ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ and Rage Against The Machine and how they mix hardcore and punk with socio-political lyrics with a sort of rap-rock delivery…

TW: We don’t hide the influences at all. Refused, Rage, and sonically Converge too. That’s all the stuff that got me into playing the way that I do, and now that Craig [Reynolds] is in the band, it’s brought sounds like Meshuggah and Gojira into the fold because that’s the stuff he listens to. That’s what was fun when he joined the band – I have this Rage Against the Machine, Refused style of playing guitar-wise and he has this Meshuggah, Gojira kind of drum style. Then you put it together, and in my opinion, it made something that doesn’t sound like anybody. Especially with Drew on top.

MF: What would you say is the hardest part about keeping a band going after so many years, particularly in this modern climate of music? 

TW: I mean, everything’s different. Some bands are forced into retirement because someone quit or someone died, and we thought it would be kind of poetic and romantic if we could just be like: “We’re out on our terms. This is our last record and we’re going to tour for the rest of the year. So here’s your heads up. You want to come see us or you don’t, it’s fine either way.” 

We’re all still really close and still really great friends and we still will continue to be. But you definitely grow apart in certain ways, whether it’s creativity or in other passions. I was definitely a big proponent for us stepping away because I have a full-time job, I have a family and I’ve been in this band since the start. It’s changed drastically – the only thing that hasn’t changed is the band name. But I’ve been in this band since I was 14 and I don’t want to be in a band anymore, I’m 38 now. It started with me and four other people and then Drew joined, and when Drew joined was when we really started to go full-time and started touring and getting in vans. I don’t want to say you grow apart because we definitely haven’t, we still are like brothers. But there’s just other things that everyone wants to do now and being on tour is hard. It’s difficult unless you’re filthy rich – your back hurts and you’re sick and you’re away from your family and you miss the birthdays and you miss the funerals. And you just also miss doing nothing and being on the couch.

We put so much work into Stray and I’m happy with where we’re at. We just went to Europe and did festivals and had some of the biggest moments of our career. And that makes me want to break up even more, because I like that we’re leaving on a high note and not waiting to be in a basement playing to fucking 50 people. It’s a victory lap. Whereas if someone quit, it’s like, “oh, well, I guess that’s it.” We always said that the four of us is the last lineup of this band. So if someone quit, that would have been it anyway. But for this, we’re all on the same page. This is what we want. We get to do a victory lap.

MF: The band’s been not only a voice for the voiceless, but you’ve also done a lot of active work with foundations and organisations. How have these experiences resonated with you and the band?

TW: We do what we can to raise money. We’ve done Reclaim the Block in Minnesota. We’ve done stuff with Cop Block back when we did Warped Tour. I talked about that today with my wife, coincidentally, where on Warped Tour everyone is just doing whatever goofy shit, and we were handing out little pamphlets telling people what their rights are. We do a bunch of stuff. 

Jesse from Stick to Your Guns has a leftist bookstore and they do a lot of communal outreach in Los Angeles. We had a vinyl variant that was strictly for them where all the money went to them. I’m not trying to say like we’re some sort of saviours though. We could always do more and we always just did as much as we could and we always tried to make our money count whenever there was a surplus of it. And if we could do better with that, then we wanted to. 

MF: For anybody that’s discovering the band post-2025, what do you want most for people to take away from your time together as a band?

TW: That we never compromised anything. We always wrote our own songs, which people are like, “of course, that’s what everyone does” – no, they don’t. We never used backing tracks. If you come and see us live, it’s the four of us playing. We always made music that we wanted to hear and nothing else. We always talked about what we wanted to talk about and nothing else. And we were as authentic as we could be. And that’s just what I want from everyone – I hope that there are 15 year olds that want to start a band that sounds like Stray one day. Then fuck yeah, that’s cool. We did our job.

And for me, the reason I love Rage Against The Machine so much and why throughout my career I’ve tried to emulate Tom [Morello], is because I thought it was so exciting that we have all these guitar dorks just working on scales, and I’m like, “I don’t know a single note.” If you ask me to play a G major, I don’t know what that is, I have no clue. I practice guitar by writing riffs, that’s what I did for fun. And I watched a video of Tom and he was talking about how when he got signed they had money for gear, and he bought a bunch of shit, and he didn’t read the manuals he just started fucking with it until it made cool notes. And I thought that was awesome. And that’s what I do. I’ve made some stuff that is unique to me, and I’m stoked on that. That laser gun noise – that’s mine. There’s a song on the Anonymous album called Radio, where I made my guitar sound like you’re changing the stations on a radio – I came up with that! That’s mine. So I’m stoked on that. And then all the two octave up Digitech whammy stuff, I stole it from Tom. And he hasn’t made music for Rage in over 20 years, so I made music to fill that void. Rage was my favorite band and it still is. So I want that from people. I want people to be authentic and I want people to try to push the fucking boundaries of the music that you can make and talk about your own shit. I just want authenticity.

MF: Your last Australian tour is coming up this month. What does Australia mean to you?

TW: It’s like the one time, besides Japan, where it really feels like, “Man, I’m really on the other side of the world.” And it’s such a privilege to be able to go there and play six shows, and it’s always special. I’m trying to compare it – it’s kind of like Europe and the UK combined, but it’s not. Australia is so unique and so animated, there’s no place like Australia, and a lot of bands don’t even get to go there. That’s why I’m stoked that we get to bring Orthodox with us because they’ve never been and they’ve been wanting to go for like five, ten years, you know? And now we get to go bring them. That was a big important part for us for all of these final shows is that we’re passing the torch.

MF: So what can Aussie fans expect from this upcoming final tour? 

TW: I don’t think we’re going to play anything prior to Craig joining the band. We’ll probably play ‘First World Problem Child’, that’s one of our biggest songs and we still like playing it. But it’ll be 99% mostly songs from after when Craig joined… I don’t really know what to expect myself. But I do know that set list wise, it won’t be career-spanning, it’s going to be anything starting with Craig to now.

Stray From The Path 2025 Australian Tour Dates

Supported by Orthodox (USA) and Diamond Construct

• Friday 15 August: The Tivoli, Brisbane 18+
• Saturday 16 August: Manning Bar, Sydney 18+
• Sunday 17 August: King St Bandroom, Newcastle 18+
• Wednesday 20 August: 170 Russell, Melbourne 18+
• Thursday 21 August: Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide 18+
• Friday 22 August: Magnet House, Perth** 18+ 

Tickets on sale now via Destroy All Lines. 

Further Reading

Stray From The Path Announce ‘Final Ever’ Australian Tour

Stray From The Path Talk The Changing Politics Of The Hardcore Scene

ALBUM REVIEW: Stray From The Path – Subliminal Criminals