As Blood Runs Black Blame Crowdfunding Controversy on the Media

Are you one of the hundreds of fans who contributed to the crowdfunding campaign for As Blood Runs Black’s new album, Ground Zero, but never got the shit for which you paid? Well, you can stop being pissed at the band: they have now explained that it’s all the media’s fault! From Facebook:

“Consider the source…. Understand there are a lot of people out there who don’t want us to continue as a band and are trying to shut us down. This is the 2nd time online media blogs had their poke at us and blew things out of proportion. We been on the road since Oct 23rd with the impression things would be taken care of through a third party we mistakenly trusted. We learned about the mishap when you guys did while on tour. Some people got their perks and some didn’t. We are working on figuring out the root cause of the this mishap the best we can from the road. If you haven’t received your perk e-mail [email protected] with your receipt and ‘Perk Follow Up’ in the subject line and we’ll get you taken care of.”

To help prove their case, they also posted this video of a fan who did get the shit for which he paid:

There’s a lot to digest here, so let me break it down a little:

First of all, on behalf of MetalSucks and the entirety of the metal media, allow me to apologize to As Blood Runs Black. How dare we report on publicly made comments by angry ABRB fans who were promised a digital copy of the album in advance of its general release on October 27 but still hadn’t received said digital copy of the album as of October 29! That was irresponsible of us. If only we had known that when the band went on tour four days prior to the album’s release without the digital copies having been sent out yet, they had entrusted a third party to take care of it. Obviously, that would have changed circumstances. Okay so maybe they waited ’til the very last minute to get the advanced copies out, but it’s not as though they weren’t on top of it (and technically, they had until October 26 to make good on their promise)! I mean, why would they ever possibly follow-up with the third party to make sure he or she or they had done his or her or their job and sent the fans their perks??? When a fan pays up front for something, that fan has to reasonably expect that he’ll receive it when the band is damn well and ready for him to receive it, regardless of what that fan was told when he forked over his money. So, again, I apologize for MetalSucks and the rest of the internet, we should have just remembered how unimportant the fans are and how busy ABRB are and kept our mouths shut.

Second of all, good for As Blood Runs Black waiting five days to respond to the allegations (our original story ran Wednesday; the above Facebook post was published yesterday). There was absolutely no reason to get the fans a response in a timely manner. After all, the whole “get a copy before the album drops!” ship had already sailed, so why rush to assuage their concerns? It’s not like releasing a statement a day later would have turned back time!

And finally, I’d like to commend As Blood Runs Black for continuing to direct upset fans to send a message to the same e-mail address that wasn’t responding to upset fans less than a week ago.

Clearly, the issue was that the band didn’t initially designate one universal subject line which would have told them specifically which e-mails were from angry fans and which e-mails were just regular e-mails. Subject lines such as “Where is my stuff?”, “Fwd: Where is my stuff?”, “Fwd: fwd: Where is my stuff?”, etc. really could have been about anything.

So! It’s good to know that this is all resolved. I’m sure now that fans have seen how the band handles these kinds of situations, they will not hesitate to donate to the group’s next crowdfunding campaign as well. AS BLOOD RUNS BLACK 4 LIFE!!!!