Thanks to a band-imposed media blackout, Ron Reyes has a muzzle on when it comes to discussing the reformation of Black Flag, but that’s okay because the singer’s story doesn’t start—or end—there. Indeed, early on in an extended interview with the Georgia Straight, it’s clear that the 52-year-old, East Van–based singer isn’t content to be known simply as the guy who sang on the iconic California hardcore group’s 1980 EP Jealous Again.

Reyes is reached at a Vancouver International Airport hotel, where, having cleared customs, he’s waiting to fly out and join guitarist Greg Ginn for Black Flag’s first West Coast tour since the group disbanded in 1986. By necessity, talk quickly turns to what the vocalist is up to today (outside of his new/old day job, that is) as well as what the hell happened when he seemed to instantly disappear from the music scene in the mid ’80s.

The first part of the briefing has him raving about Vancouver’s Piggy, a new project that’s enabled him to drop the microphone and play guitar, the band specializing in what Reyes describes as decidedly retro-charged rock ’n’ roll.

For the birth of the band, rewind a couple of years to a 50th birthday bash and concert that friends, relatives, and musical acquaintances threw for him at the Rickshaw Theatre. Among those who showed up was Ginn, who joined Reyes for renditions of Black Flag’s “Revenge” and “Jealous Again”.

“My 50th birthday party was all about celebrating a lot of the music that I’ve loved through the ages and through the days,” Reyes says. “It was stuff that I either had a part in doing, or stuff that I really love—I sang quite a few songs from Vancouver bands, like ‘Automan’ by the Young Canadians. Except for one song, where I played guitar, I sang.”

After the gig, which saw him teamed up with such Vancouver luminaries as guitarist John Doe (Rabid, the Scramblers), bassist Anthony Walker (the Bludgeoned Pigs), and punk historian Scott Beadle on drums, Reyes decided he liked not having to always be a frontman. He then began assembling Piggy, with the idea that he would play guitar. He notes that plenty of local punk vets were eager to offer their services. Reyes decided instead to go a more organic path, the quartet today including bassist Lisafurr Lloyd, drummer Craig McKimm, and singer Izzy Gibson.

“A lot of stars, so to speak, wanted to hop onboard, but I didn’t want to go that route,” Reyes says. “I didn’t want to do an all-star band—I kind of wanted to start a ground-level thing with friends and people who maybe weren’t quite so well-known. It was really fun. I fell in love with the process and the position of not having to be the frontman.”

Piggy will release its debut album, Undignified, in time for its Vancouver appearance with Black Flag. (The group will also open West Coast shows for Black Flag on its reunion tour.) For a good starting point as far as Piggy’s sound goes, think the Runaways crossed with the Distillers.

“It’s not fast, it’s not hardcore, and certainly not what you would call traditional hardcore at all,” Reyes says. “That kind of stuff really doesn’t flow through my veins. It draws more on ’70s rock, with some of it more mid-tempo and groovy, I would like to think. Izzy’s vocals are so over the top with a crazy punk kind of thing, though, that we’re not allowed to sit in that comfort zone of ’70s rock.”

That Reyes is back to making music after an extended hiatus pleases him immensely. As noted, Black Flag is hardly the only project he’s been involved in, although it’s the most high-profile thanks to both Jealous Again and his appearance with the band in the essential Penelope Spheeris punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization.

Before hooking up with Ginn in the late ’70s, Reyes was an early member of seminal L.A. bubble­gum punks Redd Kross, sitting in on drums while future Circle Jerk Greg Hetson handled guitar. By the early ’80s he’d moved to Vancouver, briefly sliding behind the kit for the Bludgeoned Pigs, which often seemed less of a punk band than an alcohol-wrecked spectacle.

From there he was a man about town, playing with Jim Cummins in the Braineaters, forming the Stooges-inspired Kill City, returning to California to launch Crash Bang Crunch Pop, and then landing back in Vancouver where, suddenly, he seemed to disappear.

He’s happy to recount why.

“After around ’83-’84, we already had one kid, and our second was on the way,” Reyes says. “So I started to focus on my family, and I pulled out of the music scene pretty clearly at that point. I did that to focus on family—it had nothing to do with my dislike of the scene or the music.”

He has four kids today, his youngest aged 18. For a long time, his kids were completely oblivious as to what their father did during his younger years.

“About five or six years ago, my kids came back from school one day and said ‘Hey Dad—were you in this band called Black Flag?’ ” Reyes relates with a laugh. “They kind of found out through friends. It wasn’t because I was hiding anything, it was more that it hadn’t come up. Up to that point, my kids hadn’t really been interested in subculture and underground-type music. As soon as they did become interested, that kind of came out.”

His kids have since seen Reyes perform with Piggy, something that the singer says they’ll have plenty of opportunity to do in the future. They’ll also be able to catch him singing with Black Flag, which is not only back on the road but also scheduled to release a new record this year.

Reyes, of course, isn’t at liberty to talk about the Flag record or reunion. But he will note that he’s thrilled to be back with the hardcore icons, to be playing guitar with Piggy, and—ultimately—to have reimmersed himself in the world of music after a long break.

“Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve missed until you taste it again,” Reyes muses. “I didn’t miss it. But then, a couple of years ago with the Rickshaw birthday party, that kind of sparked something in me big time. It was like ‘Wow—I still really have a taste for this, and a desire to do this.’ And now I have the ability to do this. Because my kids are older, that’s left Dad with some free time.”