We aren’t even a quarter of the way through 2018 yet and three bands have already disbanded within a week of one another. While break-ups are certainly no uncommon event in the world of music, it is still unfortunate to see the following events transpire as they have. Some are tolerable, but there’s always one that manages to sting the most for various reasons.
Tengger Cavalry are the most recent in announcing the cessation. In a post on Facebook, frontman Nature G. detailed why he was pulling the plug on the project:
Within all these eight years, I have nothing but gratefulness to all your support.
However, after consideration, I decide that Tengger Cavalry is officially dismissed.
Yes, we are receiving good reviews, having fans and family to love us; getting the best support from Napalm Records. But what has been done to us in heart cannot be changed.
In a society forged by law, successfully winning the legal sabotage from an industry scumbag like Marco Barbieri, who claimed to formerly worked for Century Media Records and Metal Blade Records, who gave us a contract to claim all our publishing rights since 2010, maybe is a win.
In a society forged by business, successfully terminating a toxic relationship with Dawn M Robinson, who claimed to worked for Lady Gaga and Slash, who teamed up with this toxic label person and manipulated us to sign this fraud contract with Marco to give up everything, maybe is a good business.
Yet for an artist, these are the biggest lose. For you have entrusted your heart and soul to these people, only to get them butcher you.
For an Asian immigrant, you cannot fight back, for the “civilized” western ppl will point fingers at you and say: “look, he does not understand our culture”, “He is too hard to work with” etc.
I wanted to share my musical and nomadic culture experience with the world, yet the outcome somehow only comes back in a darker form.
I love you all and thank you all for your support for all these years.
New Hampshire’s Vattnet have also gone out quietly in comparison to Tennger Cavalry, seeing as the band hadn’t been active since a short run of dates last year after their self-titled album dropped. Guitarist Chris Alfieri had the following comment to make on Twitter.:
“I have been putting off saying this publicly but as you may have noticed Vattnet is officially done. I have met so many awesome (people) on this journey over the past 7 years. I will be announcing some awesome news about future music soon. Thank you and godspeed.”
Neither break-up has made the impact that Young and in the Way’s have. The band announced via Facebook that they were facing accusations of sexual assault. The statement has angered many and their Facebook has since been deleted, but the following is what was posted:
“An accusation of sexual assault has been made against members of our band.
As a band and as individuals, we are disgusted that someone was sexually assaulted at an event that we were a part of. We applaud the victim’s courage to talk about it and we support her decision (and right) to name her aggressors. We stand by what we said when we learned about this incident – no member of our band was responsible for this crime. Let us be very clear – our response to this accusation is not an attempt to discredit the victim, we believe her, we’re sorry this happened to her, and we support her. But it was not us.
“Victims’ voices can and should be amplified, and we are not sure there’s any decent way to respond to an accusation like this without accepting fault. We can’t accept fault, but we also can’t prove our innocence. That we could even be suspected of such a crime brings us to the end of the road. YAITW is no longer on Deathwish Inc and will not be playing anymore shows. There is nothing left for us to say.
“Lastly, do not attack the victim. There is no room for that here.”
Wild as it may be, the band’s actions and the fallout from their record label (Deathwish, Inc.) in dropping them has led many to believe that the member(s) were, in fact, guilty despite the band refuting this. The break-up is frustrating, nevertheless, but one cold agree that this type of behavior has no place in heavy metal of any kind.
