Kyle Rittenhouse booking at Florida metal music festival prompts headliner, other bands to quit and founder to blast them as frauds
They’re not into that type of “death” metal.The headliner of a heavy metal music festival in Florida — and seven other bands — dropped out of the show to protest that acquitted Kenosha killer Kyle Rittenhouse would be on the bill as a “special guest,” according to reports.Rockers Evergreen Terrace pulled out of Shell Shock II in Orlando, saying it refuses “to align with an event promoting murderers” — prompting the festival’s founder to slam them as woke phonies.The musicians backed out after the festival announced Rittenhouse — who gunned down two protesters at a violent racial justice demonstration in Kenosha, Wis., in 2020 — would make a special guest appearance on Oct.19.“We will not align with an event promoting murderers such as Kyle Rittenhouse capitalizing off of their pseudo celebrity,” the band said in a statement on Facebook.
“Even after they offered to pull Kyle from the event, we discovered several associated entities that we simply do not agree with.“As advocates for free speech we are respectfully cancelling (sic) the Shell Shock festival,” it continued.“‘Lines we draw in the sand … depend on where we stand.’”Seven other bands including Southpaw, Let Me Bleed and American Hollow followed suit and quit the festival, saying they didn’t want to get political, according to the festival’s founder Tyler Hoover.Hoover bashed the bands Thursday night for pulling out — accusing them of encouraging cancel culture.“Stand up for what you believe or go down like the frauds you are,” he said on his “Antihero Podcast”“The most punk move you can f–king do is stay on a bill that everyone hates.That’s being covered by the media.
What happened to punk? What happened to rock? What happened to finger in the air?” Hoover said, according to Outkick.The festival, which raises money to help veterans with PTSD, will now feature a Slipknot cover band as its headliner and is still scheduled for Oct.
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