PESTILENCE – Cancels Tour Due To “Racist Accusations”

Dutch death metal veterans PESTILENCE will no longer be touring the U.S. and Canada this fall. The brief October tour has been canceled by the promoter as a result of recent “accusations on being racist, supporting nazism,” which the band vehemently denies.

The drama was apparently started by MetalSucks earlier this week when they highlighted a Facebook comment authored by frontman Patrick Mameli in which he used the N-word.

Mameli has issued the following statement:

“Pestilence nor myself are in any way a political band. We do not condone or support nazism or racism in any way. Pestilence exists only to create awesome music for our listeners and fans. We have many fans that know and have followed Pestilence since the beginning. We have never been a political band. Pestilence exists for over 30 years now and we have never had to deal with any accusations on being racist, supporting nazism or anything similar. On being a racist, for god’s sake, my ‘soon-to-be’ wife is Asian, how could I be rasist? We love our fans of all races, religious convictions and different beliefs. Being Dutch I can tell that what I said isn’t racist at all. It’s simply translated incorrectly. That word has no negative association in the Netherlands as the infamous n-word has in the US. There is a different inappropriate word in Dutch that is a better translation. All in all, this is nonsense of the highest order. We will not let our good name be slandered by sites like MetalSucks, that are just out there to create chaos. Most people got our back on this one, but there seem to be some folks out there that still believe those B.S. stories. My words have been twisted and a ridiculous story was produced to make us look bad. Again: we are not a political band. We entertain. That’s all. Don’t let your judgement be clouded by just a few people out there that want to slander bands for their own personal benefit. This time it’s us, the next time it could be you or your band. Stop this madness. This way alot of bands could get banned from the U.S. just because of false accusations and statements. We can not let this happen. The metal community needs to stand up against these type of sites!”

Source: Lambgoat

https://www.facebook.com/Pestilenceofficial/