Legendary Norwegian black metal act MAYHEM have explained why they trashed a hotel room in the Netherlands on Sunday night, leading to the arrest of some of the band and crew. Hotel staff reported over £4000 worth of damage including smashed TVs, broken plant pots, damaged walls, mirrors and sinks. Police held some of the black metal touring team until costs had been covered.
Now Mayhem frontman Attila Csihar has explained the band were furious after being conned by their booking agent then finding the hotel was not up to their standards.
He says: “I wasn’t involved so I wasn’t arrested. But what happened is that the 18-year-old promoted disappeared with our £2500 advance a couple of days before the first show of the tour.
“That’s the problem with the internet – anyone can act like a booking agent. He continually lied, saying everything was booked. But we found out at the end we had no flights and nothing had been organised except promotion at the local clubs and sales of hundreds of tickets in advance.
“We decided to play the tour to be loyal to the fans and promoters, who were freaking out too, of course. So we booked our own flights, local transport and backline the day before the tour started.
“I thought we were cool – but you can imagine the stress we were under. You can imagine it wasn’t the best tour of our lives, but we managed to play good shows and make the best out of it, even though we had to swallow a lot of crap.
“On the night after the last show the guys got drunk and exploded. It was a really bad hotel – we didn’t even have toilets in the room. And actually, it wasn’t only Mayhem involved because some of the local crew did it too.
“I agree it was stupid, of course. But what could I do? I hope everyone learned a lesson, and it makes a bit more sense.”
(Story credit: Rock Radio UK)
http://www.myspace.com/officialmayhem
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