Photo by Rob Wallace, via BlackFlag.com

Black Flag frontman Mike Vallely has announced a new, folk-leaning project with guitarist Matt Baxter, dubbed The Morning Trail.

And while the acoustic duo is definitely a departure from Vallely’s more hardcore work, the pro-skateboarder/Deadhead views The Morning Trail as an avenue for his reflections on the modern era, including the Black Lives Matter movement.

“The lyrics to ‘Sooner or Later’ were written in less than ten minutes,” Vallely tells Jambands.com of the band’s first single. “I woke up with the first few lines already formed in my head and the rest ensued before the coffee finished brewing. I was thinking about the BLM movement in the streets, and it struck me how important saying those three words to one’s self, and then proclaiming them out loud was. The song is about accepting, healing, and growing.”

Vallely also notes that a full-length album from The Morning Trail is currently in the works.

Previously, with his family-owned company Street Plant, Vallely collaborated with the Jerry Garcia family to produce a line of Garcia-inspired skateboard decks.

He also wrote about his love for the band in the September 2019 issue of Relix.

Watch the lyric video for “Sooner or Later” below: