Steffen Kummerer, mastermind of technical death metal band Obscura, has responded to the recent allegations of him stealing song ideas and material presented by now former members of the band. The controversy stems from songs featured on the band’s forthcoming new album “A Sonication“, which is headed for a February 07th release date.
Last week, former bassist Alex Weber came forward with his concerns of song ideas he had presented to Kummerer being used on the group’s new single “Evenfall“. According to Weber, Kummerer had given him assurances the ideas he presented would not be used in light of Weber parting ways with the group.
Echoing the concerns raised by Weber, former guitarist Christian Münzner alleged an entirely similar situation happened to him. Münzner however remained more aggressive his response, vowing to pursue legal action against Kummerer for the alleged theft.
In a new interview with Roadie Crew, Kummerer was asked about the situation and replied:
“Oh, I think there’s a lot of frustration involved in this story. There’s a lot of unnecessary public slander going on right now. That’s all I have to say. If I have a problem with someone, I pick up the phone and go and deal with it directly with them, I’m not going to go on my social media and start a ‘witch hunt’. I think their intention was a little different, they didn’t want to solve the ‘problems’. I find that very sad, because I worked with those guys for a long time, and we ended up on a relatively good note.
I sent the entire album, the final product, right away for them to listen to; I have nothing to hide. Now I’m having to deal with someone putting the entire campaign for the new album on hold, which is very sad, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s already happened, people have already formed their opinions, no one wants to hear the other side of things anymore, they don’t want my opinion. I’ll deal with it, I’ll resolve it, but it won’t be very nice for them, that’s all I can say.
It’s sad because it’s so unnecessary. Nowadays, if you point things out like that in public, it doesn’t look good for the person pointing it out, it’s not a very mature approach. In the end, everyone loses. I’m not going to speak out, there’s not going to be an official statement. I’ll talk to people directly if it’s really a problem, but so far, no one has come to me to try to solve it directly, and that’s the good thing. Again, I think there’s a lot of frustration involved in all this, and I’m going to deal with it, but on my own terms, not publicly.”
