Fake H&M/Strong Scene Productions Bands Announced for Tuska Open Air Festival

Last week’s fictional H&M bands/Strong Scene Productions fracas refuses to die… and somehow keeps finding ways to get increasingly more bizarre.

The lastest? This announcement from the official website for the Tuska Open Air Metal Festival (click to enlarge):

Those are all bands that were part of the imaginary Strong Scene roster, and whose fake merch is currently being sold at H&M stores. And, again, this didn’t come from a Strong Scene press release or the Strong Scene Facebook page: this is on Tuska’s actual website.

What I assume is actually happening is that either Tuska’s organizers and Henri “Trollhorn” Sorvali (Moonsorrow, Finntroll), who admitted to being one of the masterminds behind Strong Scene, are just having some fun and capitalizing on the free publicity to help promote the fest (which, phony bands aside, does have a pretty swell line-up… although, funny enough, that line-up does not include Moonsorrow or Finntroll). No harm, no foul…

…unless H&M gets involved! Following all of last week’s drama, a representative for the clothing chain contacted MetalSucks to make extra-super-duper sure that we knew they had nothing to do with Strong Scene… which is to say, they clearly weren’t very happy with the manner of attention they received as a result of the stunt. It’s not unthinkable that at some point they call in the lawyers and just shut the whole thing down.

But if not, hey! Have fun seeing a bunch of parody bands, Tuska-goers. Hope it provides substantial yuks!

Thanks: Jay