#cancelled
Who among us has never done something incredibly stupid in our youth? Something you regret so deeply now, but society has made its decision, even if you’ve done the time and/or come out a new person? An incident that has haunted you through the decades.
What to do when a venue decides your band is dangerous? Or what if you are the one who is doing the cancelling? What if a festival has booked an artist that doesn‘t align with you or your artist’s values? Or perhaps a festival has had one of its core team members convicted of a horrific crime? Should the whole festival suffer? Or perhaps a venue partners up with a company that you don’t believe in.
It seems that guilt by association is something very real that a lot of people are facing these days. Whether it’s something as silent as boycotting a brand because they align with a certain political party, or if it’s taking it to the streets and actively putting pressure on people to completely ban artists who are potentially not guilty of a crime they have been accused of. Does innocent until proven guilty still stand, or is a public witch hunt enough of a reason to cancel someone? When the media is often so set on fear mongering, one should remember that things can easily get twisted before both sides of the narrative are public.
To be crystal clear: We DO NOT, under any circumstances, condone far right-wing or extremist behaviour of any kind, murder, sexual assault, racism or discrimination in any way, shape or form. This panel is not meant to cause controversy or offend your personal beliefs. This will be a discussion of potentially different opinions and experiences these panellists have faced in the modern day of “cancel culture”. It is no doubt a hot topic and people will have different opinions and they should of course do what they feel is right. But this is why it’s important to talk about it.
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Roman Alexander Hödl (AT)
District 19
Roman Alexander Hödl is the owner of District 19, an Austrian booking and management company specializing in extreme metal. Alongside domestic operations, District 19 handles European touring across the genre.
Roman is also the founder of two well-established festivals, Eindhoven Metal Meeting and Vienna Metal Meeting, both recognized fixtures on the European extreme metal calendar.
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Merle Doering (DE)
Catch 22
Merle Doering is the founder, owner and Managing Director of Catch 22, a young agency that not only books shows all over the world, but also offers bands assistance in management, merchandising and ticketing.
Merle began working in the live music industry as a booking agent in 2010 and from there also worked as tour manager and artist manager. Over the years she has worked with bands such as The Black Dahlia Murder, Our Promise, Death Angel, Sonata Arctica, Finntroll, Skálmöld, Stam1na, Pain Of Salvation, Twilight Force, and more.
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Chris Maric (AU)
Maric Media
Chris Maric has worked in publicity since 1998 and has spent nearly three decades navigating the ever-shifting landscape between artists, labels, media and live touring.
Beginning in television before moving into Artist Relations roles with Sony, Universal and EMI during the 2000s, Chris later shifted focus to specialise in publicity within the heavy music world. Today, he represents a number of leading international labels in Australia, including Arising Empire, Better Noise Music, earMUSIC, Metal Blade, Napalm Records and Peaceville, while also contracting to BMG, Warner Music and others on selected projects.
Alongside his label work, Chris regularly handles publicity campaigns for Australian tours with promoters including Destroy All Lines, Live Nation, Select Music, Blue Murder, The Phoenix and Teamwrk, while also working directly with artists ranging from emerging independent bands through to internationally established acts such as Wardruna, King Parrot and overseeing the return of Australian thrash legends Mortal Sin.
In recent years, Chris has also developed a Consultancy arm to his work, advising artists on strategy, positioning and the practical realities of building sustainable careers in the modern music industry. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience across media, labels and touring, his focus is on helping artists understand how the industry actually functions behind the scenes.
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Bjørnar Erevik Nilsen (NO)
Dark Essence Records
Bjørnar is a musician, producer, manager and head of the Dark Essence Records office, a label who is home to multiple Norwegian metal bands. Starting his music career in “Filthy bedroom studios” 24 years ago, he has since produced multiple albums by Norwegian artists, of which the most numerous productions are with Bergen bands Helheim, Taake and his own band Vulture Industries.
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Mod: Greg Kennelty (US)
Freelance Journalist
Greg Kennelty is a freelance journalist, as well as a contributor at Decibel Magazine and GearGods. Greg has written for Metal Injection for over a decade and has previously worked with publications like Heavy Blog Is Heavy, AltPress, and numerous podcasts. In his (rare) spare time Greg heads up the noise and ambient project Disintegration Annex, whose debut album will be out via Fiadh Productions later this year, and collects loads of CDs. His office is essentially a physical media tomb.