Tony Wolski on the mystery of The Armed — the punk collective that maintained anonymity for 14 years

Q26:53From anonymity to playing arenas: Tony Wolski on the mystery of The Armed

For years, The Armed chose to keep their individual identities a secret.

That secrecy became a significant part of their artistry: the live lineup could vary from night to night and tour to tour, photoshoots would be shot with stand-ins for the band, and aliases were used in interviews.

But now, the once-anonymous Detroit-based hardcore collective has come clean about who they really are — and the big reveal is accompanied by a new album, Perfect Saviors, which is being called one of the best punk records of the year.

"For the first time ever, we're just pulling it back a bit," The Armed's lead singer and creative director Tony Wolski says in an interview with Q's Tom Power.

"We started this when we were very, very young, and you're just trying to keep ego out of it…. But what had happened over the last few years, especially with [the success of our 2021 album] Ultrapop, was that this thing that was created so that no one would focus on our individual identities made everyone solely focused on our individual identities."

As the band's profile grew, fans became obsessed with figuring out who was part of The Armed and how it all came to be. More than 100 artists have been associated with the group over the years, with Wolski acting as a spokesperson (formerly under the alias Adam Vallely).

There was more scrutiny on individuality because of this thing that we made to eliminate individuality from the equation.- Tony Wolski

"Our whole thing with The Armed was like, 'The Armed is The Armed' and that's it," he says. "We're not going to wear masks, we're not going to do whatever, we'll just not really ever list people and that'll be that. And then over time, it just became so confusing."

"I think people got very imaginative and very creative with what they thought it could possibly be that then every article about us was mostly focusing on how to solve that. So there was more scrutiny on individuality because of this thing that we made to eliminate individuality from the equation."

WATCH | Tom Power's interview with Tony Wolski of The Armed: 

With its new album, the band's network has become bigger than ever. Perfect Saviors features members of Queens of the Stone Age, Jane's Addiction, M83, Boygenius, Metz and even a video cameo from Iggy Pop.

"We reverse engineered anonymity by just making it so f–king hard to understand anyways, that it has become anonymous again," Wolski says with a laugh.

"I couldn't even tell you every single person on every song and I was there when they were all recorded, you know what I mean? There's just a lot of people participating. So our thing was like, we're still always going to say, 'The Armed is The Armed.' But then here's the performers on this one and, you know, dig into that as you will."

Wolski says he started the band in 2009 because he and his cousin Kenny "were playing music together as kids and liked playing — and that's it." But what does he make of it all now?

"It's all very silly and very cool," he tells Power. "If this would have happened right away, we'd probably be insufferable, but the fact that it's happening now, it's just cool and we appreciate it. It's incredibly flattering anyone gives a sh-t…. And that's really neat to us, so it's been a fun ride."

The full interview with Tony Wolski of The Armed is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Tony Wolski produced by Mitch Pollock.