{"id":73980,"date":"2026-09-30T18:13:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T18:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/30\/the-format-are-back-after-two-decades-and-writing-protest-anthems\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T18:13:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T18:13:33","slug":"the-format-are-back-after-two-decades-and-writing-protest-anthems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/30\/the-format-are-back-after-two-decades-and-writing-protest-anthems\/","title":{"rendered":"The Format Are Back After Two Decades \u2014 and Writing Protest Anthems"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tWhen the Format<\/a>\u2018s Nate Ruess and Sam Means took to the stage at Ohana Festival in Dana Point, California, over the weekend, they brought the thrill of nostalgia and something else, too. Alongside \u201800s hits like \u201cDog Problems\u201d and \u201cThe Compromise,\u201d the duo performed new tracks that confronted the social and political landscape of today.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this year, the band released their first album in 20 years, Boycott Heaven<\/em>, a stark contrast to their past work. Their audience and the world around them had changed in those two decades since the Format released their LP Dog Problems<\/em>, a brilliant power-pop ride through heartbreak and dysfunction that is beloved by many millennials (and has found a new audience with Gen Z fans).<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the Format announced their hiatus in 2008, Means continued to make music and released his debut album, 10 Songs<\/em>. He also launched Hello Merch with his wife, Anita, creating merchandise for fellow artists like Elvis Costello and Sleater-Kinney. Meanwhile, Ruess linked up with Jack Antonoff, then of New Jersey indie rock band Steel Train, and former Anathallo member Andrew Dost to start a new band. After fun. dropped the chart-topping, Grammy-winning song \u201cWe Are Young<\/a>\u201d in 2012, Ruess once again swerved. The singer rolled out his solo album, Grand Romantic<\/a><\/em>, three years later, went on tour, and then took a step back from the music industry. While he\u2019d dip back every now and then, songwriting for Keith Urban and Pink, Ruess focused on his growing family and also picked up the guitar.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo why did Ruess and Means split at the height of their fame? \u201cA thing that is really important to us in this band is we don\u2019t do things unless we really want to,\u201d Means says. \u201cIt has to feel right, and maybe at that time it just wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRuess adds, \u201cI stopped making music and started paying attention to the world. When you have kids, you start to look less at yourself and start looking at things around you. All I can think about is just all the bad stuff happening now, and so I just started to write about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tIn 2020, Ruess and Means were ready to get back together for a run of reunion shows. \u201cWe came back at a time where we were both really kind of were itching to do it,\u201d the singer adds. Those plans were swiftly nixed when Covid put the world on lockdown. Still, Means wanted to make a new album \u2014 but Ruess initially had no interest.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe took a few years off, and sometime in that two years in between, I was like, \u2018Huh, I\u2019m starting to write music. It\u2019s weird.\u2019 So I called up Sam, and we got it back together,\u201d says Ruess, before remarking, \u201cAnd now we\u2019re here, and it\u2019s weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the new music they began making, Ruess aimed his pen at the current administration\u2019s hostile immigration policies and tactics that have shaken communities in the U.S., as well as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as Palestinians face severe food insecurity<\/a>, mass displacement, and the breakdown of basic infrastructure as the death toll around them rises.<\/p>\n

\n\tRuess points to \u201cLeave It Alone (Till the Morning),\u201d from Boycott Heaven<\/em>, which he says he wrote a week after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack<\/a> and the launch of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. In the song\u2019s chorus, Ruess sings, \u201cAll the kids in Gaza are dying to go home\/The problem is they got nowhere to go,\u201d while one verse asserts: \u201cI\u2019m not proud to be American no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLiving an affluent life, you\u2019re surrounded by a lot of people who aren\u2019t as aware as they should be of how awful things are,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to do a string of days that don\u2019t go by where I don\u2019t break down, so it felt like that was something that I needed to do, and I felt it was very important to put on the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMeans adds, \u201cWe have kids, and how can they look up to us if we\u2019re not being authentic with ourselves and honest with ourselves? They are the hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tBoycott Heaven<\/em> erupts with \u201cHoly Roller,\u201d the kind of searing anthem the Format does so well, and packs another criticism of the war in Gaza into \u201cHuman Nature.\u201d Ruess says that one of the songs that didn\u2019t make the album, \u201cThe Bar is Set So Low,\u201d took aim at the government\u2019s appalling treatment of immigrants in America. All proceeds of the song, which the band posted on Bandcamp<\/a>, go toward the Women\u2019s Foundation of Minnesota\u2019s Immigrant Rapid Response Fund, the Immigrant Defense Network, Advocates for Immigrant Rights, and Latino Memphis.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the Format\u2019s dedication toward activism evolved, the pair decided that they wanted to do more. \u201cThere comes a point that when things get so bad, you really have to start pushing forward and taking some kind of action,\u201d Means says.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn January, the band launched the roaming Saturdays in the Park<\/a>. The event sees the Format play a free show at a park and invite local organizations to set up booths and chat with their communities. \u201cPeople are bringing their families and they\u2019re treating it sort of like a picnic, [while also] getting informed by what\u2019s happening and getting an opportunity to see things that normally are swept under the rug or hidden behind a curtain,\u201d says Means, who hopes the movement inspires other artists to build a similar network. The Format\u2019s next Saturdays in the Park stops are at Malcolm X Park in Washington, D.C, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where they\u2019ll be joined by Phantom Planet in October.<\/p>\n

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\n\tLooking forward, Ruess says that he is moved by other artists speaking out against the war in Gaza and credits Macklemore, who was dropped<\/a> from Ed Sheeran\u2019s stadium tour after voicing his support of Palestinians onstage. \u201cPublic opinion has changed, and it\u2019s because of the Macklemores of the world that have made that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the Format take the stage at Ohana later that afternoon, the crowd belts out the lyrics to nostalgia-fueled tracks \u201cTie the Rope,\u201d \u201cThe First Single,\u201d and \u201cIf Work Permits.\u201d\u00a0Then, Ruess delivers \u201cLeave It Alone,\u201d and when he gets to the outro, he roars out the last line: \u201cIt\u2019s probably best we just leave it alone till the morning.\u201d His delivery is a stark contrast to the recording, which soars almost reluctantly, and his voice is as determined as ever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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