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Havok Booted Off Megadeth Tour by Mustaine Management

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Update, 5:35pm EDT, August 19: We have obtained a copy of the contract offered Havok by Mustaine Management. Read it here.

Update, 12:23pm EDT, August 18: Justis Mustaine has released a statement. Read that here.

Update, 1:28pm EDT, August 17: Dave Mustaine has responded to this article in a series of posts on his Twitter account, embedded below.

Original Post:

Were you excited by the upcoming fall tour featuring Megadeth, Amon Amarth, Metal Church, Suicidal Tendencies and Havok? Bummer alert: Havok have revealed exclusively to MetalSucks that they are no longer on the tour, and the reason is really fucked up, albeit not that surprising.

The tl;dr version is this: Havok, who recently started working with Dave Mustaine’s son Justis in a managerial capacity, were offered the Megadeth tour earlier this year because, duh, that’s how things in this business work, it’s all who you know. But in the process of making the relationship between Mustaine Management (of which Justis’s Facebook page lists him as “Owner”) and Havok official, things took a sour turn. Havok allege that they were offered a contract they deemed to be unfair, declined it, and, as a result, Justis and/or Dave had the band pulled from the tour.

We’ve known the guys in Havok for years and know them to be stand-up gentlemen; though they’re still young they’ve around the block a bit, and they worked with a different manager (who we’ve also known for a long time) for several years prior to beginning their relationship with Justis. We’ll have to wait to hear Justis’s side of the story, but from where we sit we it’s not difficult to believe Havok that the management deal they were offered was not a fair slice of cake.

Havok’s David Sanchez has offered the following official statement on the matter:

It is with deep regret we are forced to inform fans of metal that we will not be on the upcoming Megadeth tour with Amon Amarth, Suicidal Tendencies, and Metal Church. We will also not be going to Mexico in August and early September as was planned.

We were really looking forward to these shows, but unfortunately, Mr. Mustaine has chosen to remove us from the lineup. The reasons for our absence are directly related to a contract negotiation insisted upon by Mustaine Management – a negotiation that has gone awry. We are authorized to say that we were offered an unacceptable management contract from Mustaine Management, which we declined.

While working with our lawyer to negotiate the terms of the contract, Mustaine Management threatened to kick us off of the Megadeth tour, Mustaine Management repeatedly failed to respond to phone calls and emails, and eventually told us (through their lawyer) that Mustaine Management is no longer working with Havok. We are only releasing this information to give fans an honest account of the reasons we are no longer on the tour.

We cannot disclose more details at this time (at our attorney’s directive), but nonetheless, would like to thank Mustaine Management for the past opportunities that they brought to the table while working with us. We would also like to apologize to the fans that will not be able to see us this fall – we will sorely miss all of you. New tour dates will be announced soon and we look forward to getting back on the road to headbang with the best fans in the world.

Havok is set to release their fourth studio album via Century Media Records this winter.  You can pre-order the new album at http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/havok

This is obviously a big loss for Havok, but it’s also a loss for Megadeth: by booting Havok from the tour for petty reasons they’ve instantly made the tour lineup less cool. Now it’s just a bunch of old thrash guys plus Amon Amarth, which is still alright, all those bands rip, but… eh.

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