Earlier this week, a big announcement was made that several notable metal bands⸺Oceano, Attila, Dealer and Nathan James⸺would be coming together for what they deemed the American Rejects Tour, which was set to span over the course of a month and travel all across the United States. A casual metal fan might be excited by this news, but anyone with a more in-depth knowledge of these groups might be a little uncomfortable with this particular lineup. 

According to Loudwire, two of the four groups in the tour have at least one current member that allegedly, have reports of perpetrated sexual assault. This was initially brought to light by an Instagram Story from Josh Arnold, the bassist of Alpha Wolf, who referred to the upcoming line of shows as the “rapist abuser tour.” Arnold has a unique insight into this situation, as the original lead singer of Alpha Wolf, Aidan Ellaz Holmes, was kicked out of the group when accusations of abuse and assault came to light about him. When he later became the head of Dealer, the original members allegedly all quit soon after for largely similar reasons. The group’s replacements later quit as well, with the third ring of members being the ones set for the American Rejects Tour.

Attila actually has two members accused of committing sexual assault, those being the lead singer, Chris Fronzak, and the drummer, Bryan McClure, each on different occasions. Nathan James, as of the time of this writing, has not had any allegations of sexual misconduct made against him, though he has been accused of being an industry plant.

Oceano, despite being the only group without any alleged criminals in their registrar, were suddenly under hot water for associating with widely untrusted individuals. Particular criticism was aimed towards Oceano’s at-the-time lead vocalist, Adam Warren, who was responsible for a lot of the band’s business decisions. Warren grew defensive of the complaints lobbied at him and insisted that, given his resistance to spending time online, there was no way for him to learn about the accusations. He wrote a string of tweets about the issue, one of which providing the statement, “A man should be judged by their character and how they treat others. If anything bad is going on, with my platform, you’ll be the first to know about it.”

Warren seemingly making excuses for his behavior only garnered more backlash, all of which came to a head when, just two days after the tour’s announcement, Warren officially quit Oceano, with his last act as the band’s head being to remove Oceano from the tour’s lineup. Controversially, Warren’s statement on X continued to defend his actions and claim that the criticism he received was unwarranted, though he did, at length, apologize for appearing to ignore the accusations made against Holmes, Fronzak and McClure. The future for Oceano is, as of now, unclear, but it seems that Warren will be a lot more comfortable away from the public eye.