Alterbeast ran into some issues this week on tour, with members of the band landing in Brown County Jail in Brownwood, Texas on felony weed possession charges. To make matters worse, the group didn’t receive their agreed upon guarantee on their current tour, straining their financial situation on top of making bail.
As this happened, the band’s drummer was forced to head home as his mother-in-law wound up in critical condition in ICU. As a result of all of the above, they have been forced to cancel their planned appearances in New Mexico, Arizona and California and have headed home.
In bid to help get back on their feet and settle their mounting merch bill, they have launched this GoFundMe to help raise some funds. They said alongside that campaign:
“We are Alterbeast, a death metal band from Sacramento, California. We recently embarked on a 2 week tour that didn’t go how we had planned. After having our guarantee agreed upon, we ordered merch and took on payments for a used van, About a week before the start of tour we found out that we would not be receiving our guarantee, but instead splitting around $200 a night with 4 bands.
On top of that all of us were either given citations or felonies for a laughable amount of weed in Texas, resulting in over $1000 in bail to get our guys out of jail. And to make matters worse, our drummers mother in law fell into critical condition, abruptly ending the tour for us, and sending us home with our tails between our legs.
Now we face a lot of uncertainty as well as a massive merch bill that will begin to incur penalty fees as well as ruining our long standing relationship with our merch company. We have never crowdfunded anything in the past but now we have no other recourse than to ask everyone for any help they can give. We will be putting up the remainder of our merch this week on our BigCartel page and if you can donate, buy any merch or share our GFM link, or BigCartel link, we would be extremely grateful.
We know times are tough for everyone but we could greatly use your guys support in what has turned into an emotional, physical, and fiscal tragedy for everyone in the Alterbeast camp. Thank you guys so much and we hope to have new music as well as new tours for you in the near future. Thank you.
–Alterbeast“
In a follow-up post shared yesterday, October 16th, the band said of their situation:
“I can hardly muster the strength to make this post but here we go. We unfortunately have to cancel our upcoming shows in NM, AZ, and CA as our drummer was unable to make it back to tour after the family emergency we mentioned in previous posts. Our hearts are with him and his family at this time. Once finding out we just made the 1700+ mile trek home, getting back late last night.
Extremely sorry we are just now letting you guys know. Between the long driving shifts and long gaps with no internet, mental and physical exhaustion, and knowing the thought and care we would need to put into this post, we thought it best to make it today after getting some rest. Besides the family emergencies, and arrests, a great many things didn’t go our way on this tour and we are left with a bit of a fiscal dilemma.
The most important of which being our merch debt. We are very concerned with this first and foremost as we want to maintain our good relationship with a company that has always done right by us. We will be putting up all the merch from tour this week on our BigCartel page, so if you can, please pick something up. We also will have a gofundme up. Anything helps at this time. Thank you guys so much for your support, messages, and everything else you have done so far. Any time we feel like quitting, you guys pick us up. Thank you and we love you.”
You can find the band’s merch store at this location.
[via MetalSucks]
