Is Doom Metal Band Witchrot’s Sex Scandal a PR Stunt?
The Witchrot lead singer’s post, accusing the guitarist of sleeping with his girlfriend, had a hidden message for alert fans. But traffic to the band’s Facebook page has gone nuts.
Breakups of little-known heavy-metal bands don’t usually attract massive global attention.
But then again, few bands break up in such spectacular fashion as Canadian “doom metal” outfit Witchrot, whose lead singer announced on Facebook: “Due to the unfortunate reality of our guitarist fucking my girlfriend of almost 7 years, Witchrot will be taking an extended hiatus.”
The post, signed off in the name of Peter, goes on to say that he is “ripe with hate” that will spur him to write some “devastating” music in a new band, to which a link was swiftly posted.
The post was followed up with a picture of a smashed guitar—presumably the result of an epic confrontation between singer and guitarist.
The post has gone viral and largely been taken at face value by media around the world but it may, of course, be a shrewd marketing stunt.
Suspicions that the post may not be entirely genuine have been aroused by some cynics after the singer concluded his post with the line, “Also our drummer died,” which aficionados of the 1984 heavy-metal mockumentary Spinal Tap will recognize as a reference to the spoof film.
In Spinal Tap, one of the running jokes is that the band’s drummers keep dying: one in a “bizarre gardening accident,” another “chokes on vomit,” but, we are told, the vomit is not his own, and two further drummers depart the world due to “spontaneous human combustion.”