The Juliana Theory Return With First New Song in Over 15 Years

Welcome back The Juliana Theory! After splitting up in 2006, the band has reunited and just released their first song in a little over 15 years. Have a listen to "Can't Go Home" in the player below.

The group resurfaced earlier this year and recently signed a new label deal with Equal Vision Records. “Making new Juliana Theory music was not really something I thought would ever happen again. If you had asked me 5 or 6 years ago if the band would ever make new music I would have emphatically said ‘no,’” says vocalist Brett Detar, who transitioned to composing music for films after the band initially split. “But in 2019 lead guitarist and founding member Josh Fiedler and I were asked out of the blue to do a 30-show acoustic tour playing our old songs in a way we never had before.”

He continues, “Much to my delight the tour ended up being one of the most enjoyable things either of us had done in years. We truly had a great time hanging out and performing together and got along perfectly. If anything, I'd say the time we shared gave us each a new-found respect for one another both as musicians and more importantly as humans. Continuing to make music together after the tour ended just felt right – almost like coming home in a way.”

As for the new song "Can't Go Home," the singer states, "I think people are feeling uncertain right now. I'd say that it's pretty impossible not to feel that way. As humans I imagine we've always innately known that there's no way to turn back the hands of time to simpler days but 2020 has fed us all an uncomfortably large dose of unfamiliarity – ‘wayward stranger days.’"

He adds, "Is this uncertainty a new normal? I'm not sure but I've always used music as a coping mechanism and I think this year I've needed it more than at any other point in my life. Many of us are feeling isolated and removed. Joyous collective experiences like live music shows are gone for the foreseeable future along with many of the other communal ways we come together as humans. Longing for that cathartic sense of collective unity one only gets from a gathering of people, we tried our best to capture the sound and feeling of a large group of people singing a simple melody together in unison in the chorus.”

The Juliana Theory were part of a large wave of heavy acts enjoying a breakthrough right at the turn of the century. They issued their first two albums – Understand This Is a Dream and Emotion Is Dead – in 1999 and 2000 and saw some momentum with the singles "Understand the Dream Is Over" and "Do You Believe Me?" In total, they released four albums before their 2006 split.

Admittedly, the new song does stray a bit from their early 2000s sound, but as Detar states, “The Juliana Theory never did shy away from changing our sonic identity from release to release but the emotional core of our songs has always remained the same. At no point have we ever wanted to repeat ourselves and retread the same worn out territory and try and fail at recreating a past era of the band. I like to think this is exactly what The Juliana Theory in 2020 should sound like."

Check out the lyrics for "Can't Go Home" as well as the Brett Detar-directed video below. And you can find the song via the platform of your choosing here.

I don’t care if we don’t come home ‘cos i don’t believe we can
I don’t care if we lose our way ‘cos it comes around again
Never gonna feel what it feels like – never gonna be the same
We can’t go home. We can’t go home.

We turn to run now
Our turn to face the unknown
Unlearn to follow
Defer tomorrow

Wayward stranger daze
Let’s lead ourselves astray

I don’t care if we don’t come home ‘cos I don’t believe we can
I don’t care if we lose our way ‘cos it comes around again
Never gonna feel what it feels like – never gonna be the same
We can’t go home. We can’t go home.

No god is the new religion
Now every new condition
Has a new prescription
(to swallow)

Wayward stranger daze
We gave ourselves away

I don’t care if we don’t come home ‘cos I don’t believe we can
I don’t care if we lose our way ‘cos it comes around again
Never gonna feel what it feels like – never gonna be the same
We can’t go home. We can’t go home.

Never know the difference
If we lost our way
How everything seems distant now i really can’t say
These days we’re searching
For what?
We don’t know
And now the only certain is we can’t go home

Home home home

I don’t care if we don’t come home ‘cos i don’t believe we can
I don’t care if we lose our way ‘cos it comes around again
Never gonna feel what it feels like – never gonna be the same
We can’t go home. We can’t go home.

And now we know we can’t go home