According to metalinjection.net, veteran drum tech Thomas Finch has publicly issued a “word of caution” about touring with Russian deathcore band Slaughter To Prevail. Over the weekend, Finch allegedly cited what he described as an alleged slew of troubling behind-the-scenes issues involving the band’s management.
In a detailed social media post dated July 24, Finch made it clear he had no complaints about the band members themselves, by calling them “WONDERFUL fun loving humans but shared numerous alleged grievances about disorganization, missed payments and disrespectful treatment from the band’s tour management.
Finch’s accusations allegedly include a lack of upfront contracts, no established pay schedule, failure to reimburse tour expenses and having to personally pay for crew meals. He described being allegedly told by a manager that he was “unprofessional” for demanding payment and said he allegedly left the tour after a heated exchange with the band‘s management. He later alleged that NDAs were issued to crew members after his departure.
In response, Slaughter To Prevail posted a lengthy statement on July 27, on their social media by addressing Finch’s claims directly. Here is their full statement: “We always pay our crew. We do everything we can to run this band properly and fix any problems as they come up. The person who made the public post never raised any concerns during the tour. In fact, they asked to continue working with us right up until the day they chose to leave. Which left us very shocked after he personally texted our drummer that he was leaving and never spoke to us about any issues beforehand. Instead he put his grievances online immediately, which is strange to us as it looks like he’s using this opportunity to promote his business.”
View this post on Instagram
The band adds: “We’re shocked to see him use this opportunity to grow his business when it should be about genuine crew issues that we could fix easily. Which he knew that we could as we had fixed issues for him before. Despite his statement saying his wish the band to be successful, he left our drummer and pushed his statement as far as he could to hurt our reputation over problems we could have solved for him. Whilst we understand there is a protocol with leadership and crew grievances, he broke this on the first day with no consequences because his problem was solved easily but then he prefer to make this public instead of actually trying to fix the issues again. Which looks very opportunistic to us.”
Photo Credit: Colin Hancock
