Metal Band Rises From the Ashes of Relationship Destruction
Credit to Author: Mack Lamoureux| Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2018 17:48:32 +0000
Lots of people have been or will be cheated on, it’s just kinda a sad fact of life.
Relationships wither and sometimes people stray. For most people this is a personal thing that stays with them, for most this isn’t what they become known for—but most people aren’t in a Toronto metal band called Witchrot.
For those of you who missed it, Witchrot was a relatively obscure metal band in Toronto. They had recorded an album which got some notice on blogs and were opening for bigger bands. You know, just doing what most unknown bands have to do in order to grow an audience. Then the bass player’s long-term girlfriend hooked up with Witchrot’s guitarist, and Peter Turik (the bassist) blew up the band in epic fucking style.
They just don’t know how to play the game?
Peter: Well the game is bullshit, it’s fucking bullshit. The amount of money that goes into PR is ridiculous. So at this point, we got like millions of dollars of free PR for pretty much free. It’s a joke.
Lea: You can’t even pay for that kind of publicity.
When it first blew up, was it like ‘what the fuck?’
Peter: Yeah, I was with a friend and he was like ‘what the fuck? You’ve already passed the likes on my band, you know how hard we worked for those likes? This is fucking bullshit.’ [laughs] Then I saw Consequence of Sound shared it and I was like ‘wow, this is big.’ Then it was like, there ain’t no stopping it, the internet took control.
Did the free publicity taper off the anger?
Peter: No… I was kinda already past that already. The first three days I was pretty bummed and after that, I kinda realized I had to clear my head and not let those emotions lead my life. I just had to force myself to drop it. I was pretty content with myself so when all this happened it was like ‘wow, I knew I would be alright but the universe just gave me a big ol’ high five.
Sign up for the VICE Canada Newsletter to get the best of VICE Canada delivered to your inbox.
Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.