Black Dahlia Murder Sign On For 2013 Warped Tour
Posted by Chris Harris on December 14, 2012 in Huh?, News, Shamelessness
Trevor Strnad
So, for almost two years now, many of you have been asking me what happened with Trevor Strnad’s beloved column, “Deadspeak.” For two years now, I have mostly dodged the question, hoping — somehow — that Trevor would eventually come to his senses and write for GSA again.
Clearly, that shit isn’t going to happen so, seeing as I’ve been questioning even continuing the site anymore, I think it’s high time I let you all know what the deal is with Deadspeak.
It’s done. In early February 2011, Trevor wrote me to tell me he he’d been working on a new column he’d send to me the following week. A week later, I get an email from Trevor, telling me he’s out.
“I regret to inform you that I won’t be writing for Gunshy anymore,” he wrote. “It’s nothing personal against you, Chris, I quite like you, I just can’t relate to/get behind about 70% of the site’s content,” he wrote to me.
“I would be a lot more comfortable knowing that I was leading our impressionable young fans to [a] more death and black centric site… I was hoping my ties to a zine would heighten their awareness of the underground, not lead them to reading about Into This Moment, Slipknot, and Chelsea Grin,” he wrote to me.
He wished me the best of luck, and said he hoped I wouldn’t hold it against him. Something tells me that’s not the whole and complete truth, but we did debut a column from Chris Howorth of In This Moment just days before. Chris has also stopped writing for us, for some reason, but I digress.
I responded with disbelief and shock, arguing that nine times out of 10, if I was writing anything about Chelsea Grin, In This Moment, or Slipknot on GSA, it was a post about how shitty those bands are.
I also argued that through his column, Trevor could influence and convert fans of these bands he had called out in his email, as well as lesser bands we might cover here on the blog — that giving up the column would help no one. I also pointed out that for every post I write about Slipknot, I am writing 30 others about bands people consider actual metal, and not mainstream.
Nothing worked, and after a couple of emails back and forth, he ceased replying. It was a major blow to me, coming just as the site started picking up steam.
I have let the cat out of the bag here about Trevor’s column to point out how much of a hypocrite this dude actually is.
Today, his band, The Black Dahlia Murder, who have played shows with Slipknot within the last two years, announced that they’d be playing this summer’s Warped Tour.
The most black and death-centric tour ever conceived.
Note that so far, the Warped Tour lineup features such brutal, crushing, underground metal bands as I See Stars, Woe Is Me, Like Moths To Flames, Go Radio, The Story So Far, and Big Chocolate.
And he didn’t want to expose his impressionable fans to Chelsea Grin and Slipknot? Dude…your argument is invalid.
Here’s Trevor’s uber-excited statement about the band playing Warped. I guess he’ll do anything if the price is right.
“We in The Black Dahlia Murder look forward to seeing you and your friend’s fancy haircuts this summer at the Van’s Warped Tour,” Strnad writes. “I think it’s safe to say that all of us in TBDM have attended this tour at various points and have fond memories of this great American punk rock freak show.
“This time, we shall be the freaks… the sore thumb poking at your eyeball. We are proud to be the fastest, craziest, and most evil band that has ever played Warped Tour… hundreds of bands will enter, one band will leave. Us. We will emerge from the rubble like the giant cockroach men we are. See ya this summer… let’s get warped!!!”
Let’s not.
So now, you know the whole truth. No matter how “true” or elite you may think some of these band dudes are, none of them can turn down a payday.
