Dustie Waring Rejoined Between the Buried and Me, Lawyer Issues Statement
Months after rape allegations forced Between The Buried And Me/Glass Casket guitarist Dustie Waring off of the band’s “Parallax 2: Future Sequence Tour,” Furnace Fest attendees were surprised yesterday to see him back on stage with the band. And while the band has made zero mention of his return, the embattled guitarist has since posted multiple videos of his performance to his Instagram stories page.
Though the band has yet to release any statement regarding Waring’s return to the band, the guitarist’s attorney Chad Diamond of Chad DIAMOND, P.A. exclusively provided the following statement to MetalSucks earlier today:
“Mr. Waring has always maintained his innocence regarding the false allegations against him. He has met those accusations head-on with the truth, and the facts speak for themselves. He has put this unfortunate situation behind him and is thrilled to finally get back to making music.”
Back in June, Diamond issued another statement on behalf of his client, which you can still read in full today, describing the initial allegations as “baseless and defamatory.” The statement also pointed out that Waring was “looking forward to getting back to making music after the summer,” so his return might have already been planned by the band after all.
Despite what would normally be a happy occurrence for the band and its fans, Waring’s return sparked a bit of an outcry online, as fans who had followed the allegations earlier this year took umbrage with how the band handled the entire situation.
In addition to the response on social media, the entire moderation team of the band’s Discord channel resigned following Dustie’s return. The statement from the mod team read as follows:
“Well, here’s an announcement I hoped I’d never have to post. Now that we are able to confirm at minimum that Dustie is on stage at Furnace Fest, and will presumably be playing the other upcoming festivals as he claimed, several things are going into effect:
“First, the full mod team has individually but unanimously decided to step down. Take from that what you will. We all appreciate everyone’s support, enthusiasm, and presence over the last 3+ years. I will be transferring control of the server over to Blake, and he will decide what the future of this is. I have no idea what that may entail. To be clear, he and I have not spoken about this, he will have a message waiting for me when he gets off stage.
“Second, as we assumed this may be the end result, we did not want this community to fall apart completely based on the actions of a single individual. That is why we have created a new server. This new server is not affiliated with the band at all, and will simply be a private server with many members who also happen to be former (or current, if you chose to stay here as well) members of this one. The mod team will be pretty much the same as the group stepping down here.
“In order to prevent any malicious actions during the changeover, the new server is invite only. Please DM me or any of the other mods for an invite link. Everyone is welcome as long as you have not already proved yourself to be of questionable mindset. Keep in mind that because the server is private, you may be removed immediately if you decide to join and engage in any victim blaming, SA apologist behavior, etc.
“The goal of the new server is so that those of us who feel hurt, betrayed, etc have a place to be open about these feelings, while also continuing the community activities that we’ve all built here. All current club activities will be migrated to the new server as well.
“I don’t want to speak for everyone else, but I’m extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to help create this server from scratch, plan the Twitch streams, and build the Steakhouse community. It’s been an amazing experience to be able to give back to the community of a band that’s had such a profound effect on me, as I’m sure it has for all of you.
“Some of the mods will be sticking around here temporarily as regular members, others will be leaving the server. We encourage all of you to do whatever you feel is right and makes you feel most comfortable. I hope to see you all in the new server. It’s been a pleasure, and thank you all.”
For those that don’t know or remember, Waring was accused earlier this year of raping and impregnating a fan a few years ago. According to the unnamed woman who anonymously posted a lengthy retelling of what she allegedly remembered happening, she said she was sharing her experience a few years after the fact because she was “too scared to come forward and speak my truth.”
By her own admission, she had been hanging out with some friends and drinking pretty heavily the day she’d met Waring at a bar near a local venue. After introducing herself to the guitarist, she alleged that he kept buying her shots and kissing her at the bar despite her obvious inebriation. She then claims remembering waking up at home with bruises on her hips and wrists, in addition to feeling some vaginal pain.
According to text conversations between the two, Waring allegedly confirmed all of the details about what happened, including a sexual encounter in the bar’s bathroom. Weeks later, she learned she was pregnant and then decided to terminate it.
Following those allegations, Between The Buried And Me opted to not have Waring join them on their “Parallax 2: Future Sequence Tour.” No further comment was offered by the band.
In an official statement by Diamond, the guitarist was allegedly “blindsided by these accusations and has been forced to suffer serious personal consequences – financial and otherwise – as a direct result of his accuser’s conduct.” Though the guitarist didn’t deny that he had sex with the woman, he alleged that she saw him two days later to have another encounter with him, in addition to sending sexually explicit messages and liaisons over the months that followed.
In all reality, this is a situation where we’ll never truly know what happened between these two. As of right now, all we’re waiting for is to hear about Waring’s return from Between The Buried And Me.
