Joe Longobardi exits The Amity Affliction after eight years on drums

Joe Longobardi stepped away from The Amity Affliction after eight years behind the kit, closing a run that helped anchor the Australian post-hardcore band through touring, recording, and repeated lineup changes. His departure leaves a real hole in the band’s live identity, because Longobardi was the drummer who carried the group from 2018’s Misery through Everyone Loves You... Once You Leave Them, Not Without My Ghosts, and House Of Cards.

Longobardi joined in 2018 as a session player after Ryan Burt left the band in February that year, then became an official member as the lineup settled around Joel Birch, Dan Brown, and later Jonathan Reeves. That continuity mattered. The Amity Affliction has spent the past several years reshaping itself around a heavy, emotionally direct sound, and the drum chair has been central to keeping that sound locked in onstage while the rest of the roster shifted.

The timing makes this more than a routine personnel update. House Of Cards, the band’s ninth studio album, arrived on April 24, 2026 through Pure Noise Records, and the group was already presenting it as a major new chapter. The Sydney Opera House Forecourt show was billed as The Amity Affliction’s only Australian headline date in support of the album, which put the current cycle and the lineup churn in the same spotlight. Longobardi’s exit now lands in the middle of that momentum, not after it.

For drummers, the open question is not just who will take the seat, but what parts of Longobardi’s feel the band needs replaced. The next player will have to handle the same touring load, the same punchy post-hardcore dynamics, and the kind of tight, forceful playing that keeps breakdowns, tempo shifts, and big chorus lifts from feeling flat. That is a different job from simply learning the parts on paper. It means matching the stamina and control that made Longobardi a steady fit across Misery, the 2020 and 2023 records, and the new album cycle.

The Amity Affliction formed in Gympie, Queensland, in 2003, and the band has spent the last decade and a half evolving without losing its center. With Ahren Stringer’s departure confirmed in 2025 and Jonathan Reeves now handling bass and clean vocals, Longobardi’s exit makes 2026 another transition year for a band that is still defining how its songs should hit when the lights go up.