Welsh indie rock band The Tubs, led by Joanna Gruesome co-founder Owen Williams, were probably content to have a home on great Chicago-based Trouble in Mind Records, who released the band’s first two (great) albums. But in 2025, the label decided to shutter after 16 years, and The Tubs found themselves free agents; we heard their recent free show at Brooklyn’s Union Pool was a feeding frenzy of other labels looking to sign them. One victor emerged: Merge Records.
The Tubs have announced their signing with Merge by releasing a fantastic cover of Metallica’s “Fade to Black.” They’ve turned the original, the slow-burn classic from their iconic 1984 album Ride the Lightning, into a Tubs song, jangly and full of minor key harmonies but still with the original’s dark undercurrent.
“Signing to Merge is a dream come true for The Tubs,” says Williams. “We’ve been huge fans since we were teens. They’ve put out some of our fave records of all time and we could tell you them all here but we don’t have the space. I’ve always been a big fan of a Metallica ballad. Obviously I like the riffs too but I think there’s a weirdly beautiful and singular quality to their ballads, even though the lyrics are basically always trash. We thought it’d be fun to jangle up ‘Fade To Black’ and give it a sort of folk rock reinvented outro to announce the signing.”
Listen below.
The Tubs have UK/EU dates line up this summer and fall and all are listed below.
The Tubs – 2026 Tour
May 16 Sheffield, UK – Get Together Festival
Aug 07 Brighton, UK – At the Edge of the Sea @ Concorde 2 (Supporting The Wedding Present)
Aug 20-23 Crickhowell, UK – Green Man Festival
Aug 29 Loxwood, Nr Billingshurst, UK – The Wake
Sep 21 Bristol, UK – Exchange
Sep 22 Cardiff, UK – Clwb Ifor Bach
Sep 24 Liverpool, UK – District
Sep 25 Glasgow, UK – Stereo
Sep 26 Manchester, UK – The Deaf Institute
Sep 27 Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
Sep 29 Nottingham, UK – The Bodega
Sep 30 London, UK – Scala
Oct 01 Brighton, UK – Chalk
Oct 02 Southampton, UK – The Joiners
Oct 03 Norwich, UK – Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom
Dec 04 Paris, FR – Le Chinois
Dec 06 Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso (Small Hall)
Dec 07 Bruges, BE – Cactus
Dec 08 Nijmegen, NL – Merleyn
Dec 09 Rotterdam, NL – V11
Dec 11 Cologne, DE – Artheater
Dec 12 Hamburg, DE – Nochtwache
Dec 13 Frankfurt, DE – Nachtleben
Dec 14 Munich, DE – Kranhalle
Dec 16 Berlin, DE – Kantine am Berghain