Rivers Of Nihil have been forced to cancel their planned Japanese touring this August amid visa issues. That fate of their planned participation in that four-date run with Psycroptic, The Zenith Passage and more has become a source of contention after an unspecified post was issued by the tour’s promoter, Soundworks Direct Japan. Rivers Of Nihil have since responded in kind, stating:
“It is with extreme regret we must announce that we will be unable to make our planned tour of Japan in August. We were unable to obtain the necessary Japanese visas in time for the tour. While the promoter shared a post painting us as some kind of law-dodging criminals, the truth is that the process of applying for Japanese visas is extremely unruly and difficult, which was not clearly communicated to us until it was far too late, and our many other international touring commitments this year made it impossible to complete the process in time. We were forced to drop off the tour specifically BECAUSE we wanted to make sure we followed all applicable Japanese laws, not because we attempted to dodge them.
To our Japanese fans, we are very sorry, as we were greatly looking forward to this tour! We will make it to Japan one day, we promise. On a final note, please go see our friends in The Zenith Passage and Psycroptic, as they are still able to play these shows.”
Rivers Of Nihil‘s statement generated a direct reply from Fallujah, who went on to say the following about their own experience working with the aforementioned promoter during their first time touring Japan this year:
“Just saw the post. If this promoter wants to slam you guys for breaking contracts, then maybe we can talk about the fact that he refused to pay us our contracted guarantees for the shows we did there in June
Said the ‘flights were too expensive’, but didn’t mention anything about voiding our payouts when the flights were being booked back in April. Instead he waited until a month after the tour to reply and tell us we’re not getting paid.
We weren’t going to say anything publicly, but if they’re ‘announcing warnings to promoters around the world’ or whatever, then I guess we’ve got one for the bands too”
