VOLBEAT drummer Jon Larsen (pictured) will miss four shows on the band’s ongoing North American tour due to “a family commitment back home” in Denmark. Filling in for him once again will be former SLAYER and TESTAMENT drummer Jon Dette, who previously stepped in for Larsen in January/February 2022 after Larsen tested positive for COVID-19.

Earlier today (Wednesday, August 6),VOLBEAT released the following statement via social media: “Hello, East Coast friends! Unfortunately Jon has a family commitment back home and won’t be able to join us tonight in Charlotte, Thursday in Bristow, Saturday in Camden or Sunday in Holmdel. Fortunately for us, our dear friend Jon Dette has answered the call once again and will be lending us his talent for those four shows. Jon (Larsen) will be back on the drum riser with us in Bangor next week. See you all very soon!”

VOLBEAT will play the following shows with Dette on drums:

Aug. 06 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion
Aug. 07 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live
Aug. 09 – Camden, NJ – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion
Aug. 10 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center

Back in March 2022, VOLBEAT frontman Michael Poulsen discussed what it was like for him and his bandmates to play several shows with Dette after Larsen tested positive for COVID-19. He told 95.5 KLOS‘s “New & Approved” show: “It was very early on [our U.S. co-headlining] tour [with GHOST]. Suddenly Jon got hit by COVID and we had to get him out of the building and then get him into a hotel. And he was there for — I don’t know — five, six [or] seven days.

“The worst thing is always to cancel shows because you really don’t wanna let down the fans,” Michael explained. “But at the same time, Jon is the original drummer and he played every single VOLBEAT show there’s ever been. So we were, like, ‘Okay, what are we gonna do? Are we gonna cancel some shows or are we going to see if we can come up with a Plan B?’ And the Plan B was to see if we can come up with a drummer that could learn, like, 16 VOLBEAT songs in less than 24 hours. And Jon Dette was the guy. And we called him up and he was very excited about it. And he’s a very good friend of ours for a very long time. And he always said, ‘If I can ever help you guys out, just call me.’ So that’s what we did. And I don’t know how he managed to pull it off, but he learned those 16 songs within 24 hours. And he did very well. He ended up playing three or four shows; I don’t recall now.”

VOLBEAT kicked off its “Greatest Of All Tours Worldwide” on June 7 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

“Greatest Of All Tours Worldwide” launched with a co-headline Canadian run with THREE DAYS GRACE and special guests WAGE WAR, which is being followed by headline treks in the U.S. with special guests HALESTORM and THE GHOST INSIDE, and Europe with special guests BUSH and WITCH FEVER, including a second show at Copenhagen’s Royal Arena on September 20.

VOLBEAT is continuing to tour in support of its ninth album, “God Of Angels Trust”, which arrived on June 6 via VOLBEAT‘s longtime label Vertigo/Universal.

VOLBEAT has scored ten No. 1 songs on the Billboard Mainstream Rock airplay chart, the most ever for a band based outside North America.

Poulsen started working on songs for the follow-up to 2021’s “Servant Of The Mind” in the summer of 2024. VOLBEAT was taking a year-long break from touring to give Michael a chance to recover from throat surgery and to tour with his death metal band ASINHELL. The band entered the studio with their longtime producer Jacob Hansen in the fall of 2024.

Photo credit: Brittany Bowman