Manowar Hires Drummer from Tribute Band for Farewell Tour

At best, this is bizarre. At worst, it is totally fucked.

Manowar have hired Marcus Castellani, from the Brazilian Manowar tribute band Kings of Steel, to play drums on their farewell tour. Which is not an issue in and of itself.

What is an issue is that Manowar have recently sent multiple cease and desist letters to Womanowar, the self-proclaimed “feminist Manowar tribute band” featuring three-fourths of the group A Sound of Thunder (including vocalist Nina Osegueda, who performs in Womanowar as ‘Erica Madams’). One of those legal notices was sent as a result of Womanowar covering the song “Manowar.” The other pertained to Womanowar using a version of Manowar’s logo, which, according to attorneys for Manowar’s Joey DeMaio, “is likely to cause confusion among the consuming public.”

As we noted in a previous piece covering the story, DeMaio and Manowar have not taken any such action against other Manowar tribute bands, such as Australia’s The Triumph of Steel and Italy’s Nightglow, whose bio goes so far as to boast that “the official American Manowar fan club recognized them as the only European Manowar tribute band worthy of the name.”

And now DeMaio has actively hired a member of another Manowar tribute band — one which, like Womanowar, has multiple videos online in which they perform Manowar songs, and an array of show posters which not only utilize Manowar’s actual logo (not Womanowar’s variation of that logo), but often use photos of Manowar’s members:

Now, it’s worth noting that these posters were likely made by the shows’ promoters, and not the members of Kings of Steel. Still, given that we know DeMaio’s camp is so closely monitoring Womanowar, and that DeMaio just hired a member of Kings of Steel, it seems extremely unlikely that they’re somehow not aware of these posters and videos.

So I ask again: what makes Womanowar so much more objectionable than Kings of Steel, or any of these other Manowar tribute bands? Well, let’s examine what differentiates Womanowar from their Manowar worshiping peers:

• They’re American
• They added a “w” and an “o” to the front of the Manowar logo
• They have a female member and are proudly feminist

And… uh… well, that’s it.

Okay. So for the sake of discussion, let’s pretend DeMaio objects to Womanowar and not Kings of Steel because Womanowar are American and Kings of Steel are Brazilian. Maybe DeMaio has no means of taking legal action in Brazil, or Manowar somehow hold no international copyrights. That seems extremely unlikely, but again, let’s just pretend for now that this is the case. Why would DeMaio hire someone from a band he wants to take down but can’t? Wouldn’t that be an odd decision?

Okay, so Womanowar’s nationality doesn’t really make sense as a motive.

Is it the similarity in Manowar and Womanowar’s logos? But… why would anyone think the Womanowar logo is potentially more misleading that than the band’s actual logo on posters with actual photos of Manowar?

No, that also makes no real sense. And even if it were true, it still wouldn’t explain why all these cover bands are allow to post videos online in which they perform Manowar songs, but Womanowar are not allowed to do the same.

Maybe someone smarter than me can posit a stronger theory as to why Manowar have it out for Womanowar and not other Manowar tribute bands than “Because Joey DeMaio is a sexist.”

But this whole drama certainly isn’t doing his image any favors.