Ax and the Hatchetmen

Chicago, 2018, and a name borrowed from someone's father

Ax and the Hatchetmen formed in Chicago in 2018, six players who met while studying jazz at a music school in the city. The name was not a marketing decision: it came from frontman Axel Ellis's father. The jazz training is the thing that still separates them from most guitar bands of their age bracket. Phil Pistone on trumpet and Quinn Dolan on saxophone are full members rather than hired hands, and the brass is written into the songs rather than bolted on afterwards.

The founding line-up was Ellis on lead vocals and guitar, Salvatore Defilippis and Kenny Olzewski on guitars, Hunter Olshefke on bass, Nick Deputy on drums, plus the two horn players. Olzewski left in 2023. Deputy played through the entire first rise, the debut album included, and departed in 2026, with Chaandmon Croft taking over the drum stool that year. Everyone else has been in place since the start, which amounts to roughly eight years of the same six-person argument about arrangements.

Side projects run alongside the band. Ellis plays with The Runarounds, while Defilippis and Olshefke have a separate outfit called The Back Alley.

Three EPs, a festival résumé, and a major label

The recorded output arrived in instalments before any album existed. 'Bear on the Roof' came out in 2020. 'Love Songs' followed on 16 August 2024, and 'Constant Change' in 2025, with several of its songs later folded into the debut rather than left as a standalone release.

The live résumé built faster than the discography. A Lollapalooza booking in their home city in 2023 was the first large-stage outing, and Shaky Knees in Atlanta followed in 2024. Somewhere in that stretch Arista Records signed them, a deal that brought in Jake Sinclair as studio partner. Sinclair's credits run through Panic! At The Disco, Weezer and Avril Lavigne, and he has produced everything of consequence the band have released since.

The debut record, and the sleeper inside it

'So Much to Tell You' was released on 24 October 2025 through Arista: twelve tracks running a little over half an hour, with the title taken from a lyric in 'Hotel Room'. Sinclair produced, and he opened two doors the band could not have opened on their own. Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes plays on the lead single 'Blurry Lights', and a long-dormant Rivers Cuomo demo became the basis of the track '7×9'.

'Blurry Lights' reached number 30 on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart, the band's first appearance on a national radio chart. Ellis has described the track selection as instinct rather than concept: 'we really just went on our gut feeling of what felt right together.' The album gathered up the earlier singles 'Flagstaff', 'Love Songs' and 'Stay // Honestly' and set them against new material about the tail end of adolescence and about seven years spent inside the same friendship group.

A deluxe edition appeared in March 2026. The genuine sleeper, though, was 'Hotel Room', which kept accumulating long after release and had passed 56 million streams worldwide by late summer 2026.

Where they stand now

The 2026 festival run took in Summerfest in Milwaukee and Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee. On 25 September 2026 the band opened for The Revivalists at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, and put out a new EP the same day.

'Stick & Poke' runs five tracks: 'Stick & Poke', 'Loser', 'Funny Valentine', 'Prius' and 'Dance to Different Songs'. Sinclair produced again. 'Loser' went out as a single in July 2026, and the title track arrived with the EP announcement on 28 August 2026. Ellis framed the record without much ceremony: 'As an artist I'm still just trying to make sense of my life through these songs, hoping to capture the highs and lows of my twenties.' On 'Funny Valentine' he added, 'Sometimes Cupid lets you down. It's bound to happen if you keep your heart open.'

By the time the EP was announced the band had reached three million monthly listeners on Spotify, a figure that explains the size of the rooms on the current tour better than any of the chart data does.

The Late Checkout tour, October to December 2026

The headline run behind the EP opened on 14 October 2026 at HI-FI in Indianapolis and is booked through to 13 December in Miami. The first week took in The Basement East in Nashville on 15 October, the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia on 16 October and The Windjammer at Isle of Palms, South Carolina on 17 October, before heading west to the Granada Theater in Dallas on 20 October and Mohawk Outdoor in Austin on 21 October.

The west-coast leg runs through Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix on 24 October, the Music Box in San Diego on 25 October, The Bellwether in Los Angeles on 27 October, August Hall in San Francisco on 28 October and The Crocodile in Seattle on 31 October. Phoenix, San Diego, Lakewood and St Augustine had all sold out before the tour began. The east-coast and midwest stretch includes Summit Music Hall in Denver on 3 November, Citizens House of Blues in Boston on 10 November, Irving Plaza in New York on 11 November, the Howard Theatre in Washington on 14 November, Skully's in Columbus on 19 November, Delmar Hall in St Louis on 20 November and The Loft in Atlanta on 7 December.

The hometown date is the Riviera Theatre in Chicago on 21 November, all ages, doors at 6.30pm and stage at 8pm. Support rotates across the run: The Hails on the southern dates, including Athens on 16 October, and John-Robert on others, Chicago among them.

What is booked beyond this run

Two British shows are on sale for May 2027: Gorilla in Manchester on 11 May and The Dome in London on 12 May. These are the band's first announced UK dates, and they sit at a scale that suggests the label is testing the market rather than assuming it.

Before that, the band are down for High Water Festival at Riverfront Park in North Charleston, South Carolina on 18 April 2027. Nothing has been announced about a follow-up to 'So Much to Tell You', and on current form the band's pattern is to keep releasing in short instalments between tours rather than disappear for a full album cycle.