The Band that Broke Up After Guitarist Had Sex with Bandmate’s Girlfriend is Not Breaking Up After All!
Toronto-based sludge/doom outfit Witchrot, basically unknown until last week, saw their popularity skyrocket literally overnight (albeit not how they likely intended) thanks to the best band break-up statement ever. That statement read, in full:
“Due to the unfortunate reality of our guitarist fucking my girlfriend of almost 7 years WITCHROT will be taking an extended hiatus. I however will continue the band in another space and time, being ripe with hate the music is slowly flowing and without a doubt will become the most devastating, torturous music I have ever created. Thanks for the support, stay heavy – Peter
“Also our drummer died…”
Thanks to all the attention the post received, the band’s Facebook page grew from 300 likes to more than 9,300 (yours truly included! I needed to know what would happen next!). And as a result of that attention the band’s leader, the aforementioned Peter Turik, has decided to make his “extended hiatus” a whole lot more brief than originally planned.
The band’s drummer, as we suspected, did not die — that was a self-aware goof poking fun at the ridiculous nature of all the preceding text — but he did in fact quit the band a couple of weeks prior. As for Witchrot’s guitarist, well… it’s not clear whether he actually fucked Peter’s girlfriend, but judging from Peter’s follow-up statement to Alt Press there is definitely some bitterness and resentment there, and he’s certainly not in the band anymore. Here is that statement in full:
“The other Sunday I posted on Witchrot’s Facebook page that the band was taking a break. Two people I cared about stabbed me a trillion times in the heart with betrayal and that resentment scars like hell fire. It obviously left me feeling wretched. I always hate it when bands stop dead without any updates and I felt, well, might as well let the people know.
“After writing, I asked Simon, our drummer who quit a couple weeks prior (due to the fact that he has become increasingly busy drumming for Crazy Bones, Gloin, and Brenda), if that was a good idea. He said ‘Yeah, but say I died, no one will give a shit’…… Clearly they did.
“I am floored by the fact that this post received so much attention, considering we had only around 300 likes on Facebook when I wrote it. The amount of positive feedback people expressed, with regards to my situation along with the praise for our music, was touching to say the least. I thought maybe a couple people in Europe might care or ‘like’ the post but instead it reached nearly every news source on the planet……..Fuckin eh.
“At this point I am going to continue the band full force with Lea up front on vocals. The both of us talked it over and I’m so happy that she is on board. She has that powerful voice that makes you feel small in her presence. Kind of carved out and hollow.
“We are going to use this attention to our full potential. We booked studio time and also decided to recruit some friends to play Lee’s Palace Dec 28. Of course, now we have big plans to tour extensively in the near future. No sense in waiting around, we have so many talented friends that can easily learn our songs in no time. I’ve decided to switch to guitar, that way the guitar will finally sound the way it’s supposed to. Stay heavy – Peter”
With all that out of the way the most likely outcome here is that the world will return to not caring about Witchrot, but I certainly wish Peter the best in both his personal and musical endeavors! To that end, here’s the band’s recently released album for you to listen to and hopefully enjoy.
