Canadian punk band We Outspoken will tour Cheonan, Gwangju and Seoul this week with U.S. band Urethane and Japanese band Stone Leek. Courtesy of Stephan Peralta

Canadian punk band We Outspoken is embarking on a tour of Korea and Japan with the U.S. band Urethane and Japanese band Stone Leek.

We Outspoken has been releasing a torrent of singles over the last couple months, building up to the release of their latest album, "Epidemic."

Although the 2003-formed Toronto band has toured Japan multiple times since the first in 2016 up to the last time early last year, this will be the first time in Korea for all its members except one.

In recent years, the band welcomed Japanese punk musician Akira Fukurai to join the band permanently on lead guitar and vocals. And Fukurai has already toured Korea with his own band, Stone Leek.

Akira Fukurai performs with his band Stone Leek at Club SHARP in western Seoul's Mangwon-dong, July 23, 2022. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

"We have been friends for many years, and Akira has always helped us with our Japanese tours," the band members said in a statement given to The Korea Times by Anthony Mascarin, We Outspoken's lead vocalist and guitarist. "When we needed a fill-in guitarist on the road, Akira was always our first choice. He is one of the best! We have toured all over the world together so it made sense for him to become a permanent member of our team after the fourth or fifth tour. We lost count how many times we have toured with him."

The members of We Outspoken practice in a studio. Courtesy of Alex Mascarin

In 2020, Mascarin and Furukai put down their guitars and met in the ring — they were featured in the virtual Canadian Rock Wrestling, in which digital avatars of themselves fought each other pro wrestling style.

"There is a company out of Montreal that puts band members together in these comedic wrestling matches," Mascarin explained. "They take your name and likeness and put them into characters. It's quite amazing, actually. They asked us to be a part of the series, and we said 'yes.' I didn't know I'd be wrestling Akira. They surprised us!"

The road to Korea began for We Outspoken on its Japan tour last year. While on the tour circuit there, they met the Daejeon band Smoking Goose, as well as the crew at Korean punk label Victim Records.

We Outspoken performs in Japan. Courtesy of Daiya @icingcolor20

Tour poster / Courtesy of Donny Gillies @dirtydonnyart

"They were both amazing," the band members said. "We got a taste of the scene from them. We look forward to experiencing it and keeping an open mind. Adventure awaits."

Of course, it made sense for We Outspoken to tour with Stone Leek.

To make it even better, they'll be joined by the U.S. punk band Urethane, labelmates of We Outspoken on Cyber Tracks.

"They are fantastic human beings and great musicians. We learned a lot from them. We are excited to take our music overseas with them," We Outspoken said. "This tour came about while we were on tour with Urethane in Europe last summer. We had so much fun with the Urethane team and we got talking about other tours and Japan came up. Urethane has never been to Japan so on our last show with them and Pennywise we decided to set it up with Akira's help. Akira was on this tour with us so we hammered out all of the details. When we returned home, Akira reached out and suggested that we go to South Korea as well. I asked Tim from Urethane if they would be interested in adding South Korea to the schedule and they loved the idea!"

The three bands will play four shows in three cities across Korea. The first stop is on Thursday at Cheonho-ji Skate Park in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province. Then on Friday they'll be at Gwangju's Boojik for a show. On Saturday, the biggest show of the tour, they'll be at Rolling Hall, the largest non-corporate venue in Seoul's Hongdae area. The tour winds down on Sunday with a more intimate show in Club Victim.

Visit weoutspoken.com for more information or follow @weoutspoken on Instagram.

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