Interviews

Tom Williams - Stray From The Path 'A Culmination Career Termination Down Under'

Cody-James Henderson

Writer, Professional Talker

Aug 4, 2025

8 min read

New York's finest Hardcore outfit Stray From The Path gave fans the ultimate double take in May of this year. The band would surprise drop their brand new record Clockworked to massive ovation, that would be followed by the ultimate backhanded news that this would be their final record and that they plan to break up at the end of 2025 after 22+ years of some of the most intense anti-authority, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, politically charged mayhem the genre has ever seen.

Featuring the lead singles 'Kubrick Stare' and 'Shot Caller', Clockworked has been met with high praise for its unrivalled intensity and pulling no punches collection of tracks that also feature appearances from the newly reformed Poison The Well and upcoming French Metalcore outfit LVNDMVRKS. Stray have decided that this would be the perfect finale on a stellar career.

The band was met with multiple cries on their farewell post about one final visit to Australia for one last hoorah. At time of announcement (May 30th) they had no plans to make it back to our shores. However, one quick email and 19 days later, the lads announced their final trek down under - bringing Nashville hardcore five-piece Orthodox for their first visit, as well as local legends Diamond Construct.

As the ticket sales pick up speed, founding member and guitarist Tom Williams had a sit down with Wall Of Sound to talk about the final album, how a classic video game made its way into the record, why they almost didn't make it here and a list of a few names that nearly made their way onto previous records.

The full interview with Tom can be watched here or read on for excerpts...

When asked why the band took a risk to surprise drop the record with no PR or teasing in the lead up to release, Tom compared it to the release schedules of video games and Netflix shows.

“I love the video game Metal Gear Solid. I remember they remastered Snake Eater for PS5 and I saw the trailer for it and I was fucking stoked. At the end of the trailer (released in 2024) it said “Coming in 2025” and I was like “I have to wait a fucking year for this?” But right after, I also love the show Squid Game. I watched the trailer for season two and then it was like “Coming December 26th” and I was like “that's next week!”. And then what was cool, they started their press then. Then you see them answering questions about the episodes, so you get to hear the press for something that you already got to enjoy."

Although the band is set to have one final tour of Australia, Tom explains that if it wasn’t for the intensity of the fans on their last visit with In Hearts Wake, this tour was unlikely to happen.

“Before that, we did okay in Australia. But it was never like 'oh fuck they love us in Australia' it was always like 'yeah we can get there'. We were doing 300-400 cap rooms and it was good right? But it wasn’t something like, hey we only have a certain amount of time. If it was like that now how it was back then we probably wouldn’t be coming.

But when we came out here with In Hearts Wake, people went fucking ape shit for Stray. We weren’t expecting that.

Sydney was the first show and we sold every piece of merch we had with us. Our show was ridiculous, it’s up there with the London and Germany shows we’ve played. That show in Sydney was nuts. And then when we announced we were breaking up, there was hundreds of 'come to Australia' comments, and it was 'fuck maybe we should come back'.

‍Stray From The Path has had a massive list of guests featured on their records over the years (Knocked Loose, Architects, Enter Shikari, Every Time I Die, Counterparts just to name a few) but a surprising name nearly ended up on the band's 2022 album Euthanasia.

“Julian Baker (Boygenius) was supposed to be on the last record. We have a mutual friend. I met her once in Nashville and she was the first person through the door. First thing she did was buy a shirt from Stray. I was like “Wait a second? Hold the fuck on” And I found out that she had listened to Stray for forever which is fucking cool. Anyway from there, I knew her drummer and I asked him “Would she ever do this?” and it was “Yeah she’s down” and then we reached out but it just didn’t work out.

There are some people I always wanted to get though. Daryl (Palumbo) of Glassjaw. Chino (Moreno) of Deftones would’ve been awesome. And then, we never even tried but Zach (De La Rocha) from Rage Against The Machine.”