Vocalist Ryoichi Suemori Exits Sailing Before the Wind

After nearly 10 years as the wind in the sails of Japanese metalcore band Sailing Before the Wind, vocalist Ryoichi Suemori has exited the band. The band released a statement on their website and social media in which they apologized for their own handling of the situation leading up to the announcement of Suemori’s departure. The statement they posted reads:

“Our vocalist Ryoichi has stepped down from his position in Sailing Before The Wind. We apologize for the concern we caused to our fans and the recent silence that has overtaken our social media outlets leading up to this announcement. We spoke to him directly and apologized for the problems we had with the way we said to him which was poorly phrased. We thank him for being a part of SBTW for almost a decade.”

It’s hard to tell because there’s some confusing language that probably comes from a poor translation, but it seems like there was some tension between band members that has since been resolved. The band said that they intend to carry on with fill-in vocalists for the rest of their scheduled shows and said the band will continue on, and even promised more material coming later in the year.

That leaves the Japanese band’s ship becalmed at sea, so to speak, as they look for a new captain for their vessel. That metaphor got away from me a little bit, but I’m going to stick with it anyway.

Here’s the band’s remaining dates to be played with their fill-in vocalists.

5/31 Nagoya RADSEVEN
6/21 Nagoya DAYTRIP
6/23 Akabane ReNY alpha
7/04 Indonesia JakCloth