English 
Long Live The Hamiltons
The Hamiltons at Will’s Pub, September 26, 2026. Photo by Jim Leatherman
“Get the fuck out of here.”
That’s what I thought when Robert English, frontman of Orlando punk rock stalwarts The Hamiltons, told me they were calling it quits, and that their last show would be at Will’s in September.
It was barely a year ago when I sat down with English, bandmate John Koroshetz, and producers Chris Jay and Jarrett Pritchard to talk about the release of their long-awaited debut album, FLA.
They talked about the album with pride, and a sense of accomplishment. This was 25 years in the making. After all they endured, they had something to show for it, and completing it had them energized and optimistic as they looked towards the horizon. So…the question nagged me. “Why fucking quit now?”
The first time I saw The Hamiltons, I was standing next to Jeff Nolan of The Ludes at Will’s Pub. Our bands were on the same bill, and The Hamiltons were closing the show.
They were raw, and explosive, but somehow refined…in a way that only time could create.
I remember Jeff leaning over and saying, “You almost forget how fucking good The Hamiltons are.”
Almost.
They were unmistakably punk rock, but there were arrangements inside all that noise. They weren’t just bashing their way through one end of a song to the next. They could fucking play. It was like watching a storm, and frontman Robert English danced gleefully through its squall.
Three years later, I’m driving to Will’s Pub to see The Last Waltz, Hamiltons style. English never really answered me when I asked, and as I walked up and paid the cover, the question came to me again. Why fucking quit?
The crowd was dense, and as I walked through, I saw familiar faces from the scene scattered throughout the room.
It didn’t feel like farewell, it felt like thank you.
Masters of a Craft
Then The Hamiltons started the engine. Robert English, John Koroshetz, Josh Gibson, Mike Levin and Chris LeBrane. This wasn’t a band hobbling towards an ending, playing for the last time. This was a band in its element.
Three guitars, bass, a monster on drums, and English roared in your face, but it was never overwhelming. The crowd bounced and shouted, some occasionally slamming into each other.
It was controlled chaos, and English, shaved head and wizard-like beard, was Merlin with a guitar standing in the center of it all.
Masters of a craft.
For as much as it was intended to be a farewell show, it was also a celebration. A celebration of not only The Hamiltons, but of the scene they were bowing out of.
And, of course, Ralph Ameduri.
Ralph Is Always Present
Throughout the set, English occasionally stopped to give a little history to the songs, and what Ralph meant to the band.
The Hamiltons was Ralph’s band, too. He and English started it together in the late ’90s, and Ralph wrote or co-wrote many of the songs that became part of its DNA. He was murdered in 2011 while filling in on bass with Thomas Wynn & the Believers outside a show in Winter Haven during a botched robbery attempt. His killer was sentenced to life in prison.
His portrait now hangs on the wall at Will’s. So when English talked about his old friend that night, Ralph was quite literally looking out over the room.
English acknowledged him before songs he helped create, including “Coming Up” and “Little Big Town,” the latter co-written about Orlando. Before playing it, English said to the crowd, “This song is another one written with Ralph. Orlando might not be a big city, but if you wanna start shit, we’ll fuck you up.”
The crowd agreed.
During my interview with the band a year earlier, I’d asked about Ralph’s impact on The Hamiltons. “Ralph is always present, and he liked the music noisy and angular,” English said.
That night, it still was.
At some point I turned to Chris Jay, who was standing next to me, and said, “I don’t get it, dude.” He understood. Why fucking quit? And the longer The Hamiltons played, the harder it was to reconcile what I was watching with the reason we were all there. This was a band that had taken damn near every blow life threw at them and said…Is that all you got?
They didn’t sound tired. They didn’t sound like they were going through the motions. They sounded like The Hamiltons.
Eventually, the last song ended and the crowd started chanting for one more.
There wouldn’t be one.
As the band broke down, John Koroshetz went to a box of Hamiltons merchandise sitting at the front of the stage. There wasn’t even a merch table, just a box.
He tipped it over.
All of it had to go.
People clamored around, digging through shirts, trying to find their sizes. Nobody was taking money. Nothing was coming back with the band.
This was the end.
Maybe the why is not important.
Maybe it’s just the natural order of things. Orlando is full of punk bands, hungry and new. Maybe it’s the old guard making way for the new.
Maybe, things just end.
Standing outside of Will’s, I gave English my final respects, and as we turned to walk away, I thought, “Wow. The Hamiltons are dead.” I threw the last size L T-shirt over my shoulder, and shrugged.
Long Live The Hamiltons.
