Cheek Freaks assemble! America's local band Cheekface are back with yet another one-off single and news of a tour with their most expansive Canadian dates yet.
"Hard Mode" starts with an almost "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem-esque verse, complete with their on-brand tongue-in-cheek lyricism. It's a bit more polished than usual, and acts as an omen of what's to come.
"This song is about growth and how fucking awkward it is, and it's about growth's younger sibling self-awareness, which is not the same as growth, and twice as awkward," frontman Greg Katz said in a press release. "The phrase 'living life on hard mode' is something our touring keyboard player AJ likes to say when he does something that makes a routine task needlessly difficult, like reaching for something in a clumsy way when you could just ask someone to hand it to you."
The soup forgetters will embark on their third tour of North America in as many years next year. After visiting Winnipeg's Park Theatre on January 23, they'll play Edmonton's Starlite Room on the 25 as part of Winterruption YEG. As is tradition, the band will hit the road again in spring. They'll disembark in San Diego, CA, on April 3 at the Casbah, then travel eastward, stopping in Toronto to play the Axis Club on May 7. After slowly heading back west, they'll hit up Wise Hall in Vancouver on May 24. The tour will wrap up in their hometown of Los Angeles on May 29 at the Regent.
Tickets for the Winnipeg and Edmonton dates are already on sale, while presale for the spring tour begins tomorrow (December 4) at 10 a.m. local time. General on-sale begins Friday (December 6), also at 10 a.m. Find out where to buy tickets to your nearest show on Cheekface's Linktree.
Listen to "Hard Mode," and check out the full run of dates below.
Cheekface 2025 Tour Dates:
01/23 Winnipeg, MB - The Park Theatre
01/25 Edmonton, AB - The Starlite Room
04/3 San Diego, CA - The Casbah
04/4 Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar
04/5 Albuquerque, NM - Launchpad
04/7 Oklahoma City, OK - Resonant Head
04/8 Dallas, TX - House of Blues Cambridge
04/9 Austin, TX - The Ballroom Inside
04/11 Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall Up
04/12 New Orleans, LA - Chickie Wah Wah
04/14 Orlando, FL - The Social
04/15 Tampa, FL - Crowbar
04/16 Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade Purgatory
04/18 Nashville, TN - The Basement
04/19 Asheville, NC - Eulogy
04/20 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle Back Room
04/21 Richmond, VA - Richmond Music Hall
04/23 Washington, D.C. - Black Cat
04/24 Philadelphia, PA - The Foundry
04/25 New York, NY - Elsewhere Hall
05/03 Boston, MA - The Sinclair
05/04 Burlington, VT - Higher Ground Showcase
05/06 Syracuse, NY - The Song & Dance
05/07 Toronto, ON - The Axis Club
05/09 Pittsburgh, PA - Bottlerocket
05/10 Columbus, OH - Rumba Cafe
05/11 Detroit, MI - El Club
05/13 Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall
05/14 Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon
05/15 Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line
05/17 St Louis. MO - Blueberry Hill Duck Room
05/19 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
05/21 Boise, ID - The Shredder
05/23 Seattle, WA - Neumos
05/24 Vancouver, BC - Wise Hall
05/25 Portland, OR - Hawthorne Theater
05/27 San Fransisco, CA - The Independent
05/29 Los Angeles, CA - The Regent