White Wizzard are down a singer (and possibly another member) after having fired their frontman Joseph Michael. The band initially said of his firing:
“White Wizzard want to release a brief statement on singer Joseph Michael. Last night in Cardiff Wales, Joseph Michael left a crowd of fans sitting in the venue waiting to see White Wizzard, sat in a pub across the street and refused to perform the show for extremely selfish reasons. The band soldiered on with Peter Ellis and Jon Leon handling vocals. It was hugely unprofessional on his part. Due to these actions, we have secured another singer for mainland europe named Giles Lavery.
Sadly, due to this any many other problems over the past several months, it is without question we must move on and immediately make a change. Joseph is making very false and erroneous claims on his facebook site unfortunately about Jon and the band, but without getting into a war of words we will just simply say he is lying and making a desperate attempt to hurt the band and Jon to cover up his very unprofessional actions.
The rest of us are determined to move on, and we all assure you we are united and everything is fine within the rest of the group. We will do our best to move on. See ya out there! Thanks for all the fans support last night and beyond.”
Allegations that Michael stole a bag belonging to one of the bands fans soon followed, with the group stating via their Facebook:
“Okay WW fans. We want to report that Joseph Michael our now former singer, last week while in Brighton after our first show, stole a bag belonging to a very sweet girl named Charlotte Croucher… Her bag contains a wallet, passports and other very important documents. After finally coming clean after we caught him with it, he stated that he would return it to her in London. After fucking off our show in Cardiff last night when he refused to give us the bag to return to this girl in London.
She rode up all the way from Brighton to get her bag and sat outside our gig for hours(which he fucked off again) She is now very distraught and on the way back to Brighton with no bag. We feel horrible. Please pressure Joseph Michael to do the right thing and return the girls bag. We hope some face book pressure will get it done.
Feel free to write her directly and question the validity of this and try and help her. Hopefully some public pressure will do the trick. Hopefully it also shows you all the character of the kind of person he is. Thanks all.”
Further posts from the band reveal the bag has since been returned with the group alleging that making the situation public pressured Joseph Michael into returning it. Meanwhile, Michael himself has been actively defending himself on his Facebook, posting:
“Here is the real story on White Wizzard
Jon has been stealing money from us . From indie gogo fund and out on tour and i called him out on it.
He then fired me last night on the night off…
Then announced that i was refusing to sing… It’s all lies…
I was fired and he couldnt find someone to sing so he begged me 5 minutes before they went on…
Jon Leon is a Con man and has not honored one word he has said since i have joined this band… After i sang on White Wizzard – Devil’s Cut he threatened to forbid Earache Records from releasing it with my vocals if i didn’t sign a new contract giving no rights and a far worse deal..After the work was done…
If it wasn’t for Will Wallner and Jake Dreyer Standing up to this criminal he would have left myself and filmmaker Don Adams stranded in the middle of nowhere…
Jon Leon has paid for nothing on this trip and has acted a child the whole time. Please Do not Let him rip you off if you Purchased From Indie Go Go… Goodnight”
The band themselves made mention of the Indiegogo campaign in question, posting:
“We want to re post a statement about the indie gogo that was posted before the tour. Due to the time constraints of the European tour and issues with a delay on the white baseball Ts we have had to wait until end of Europe to ship everything. Rest assured, everyone shall get what they ordered plus something extra for the wait.
This takes time so please bare with. Do not believe any claims otherwise. Any guestlists will be honored on this tour. Just let the venue promotor know to check with us when you arrive or email us the day of show here. Don’t worry. Thanks again our fans are everything and we have no intentions of not fulfilling the indie gogo. Cheers and thanks again to everyone.”
Joseph Michael has since given the following statement to Metal Sucks which he states will be his final word on the matter. He also made mention that he plans to focus on a new project:
“I did not quit White Wizzard. Though the night of the cardiff show i was not a member of the band. I was fired for calling Jon out on theft/embezzlement. It was a career decision to not be associated with his Pyramid Scheme of a band anymore after i was fired.
When he begged me to rejoin before the cardiff show i was under no obligation to do so… Then the attacks and lies on the WW page saying i left a venue full of screaming fans. That is not true. I was there because there is only one car for the tour due to Jon Leon a 45 year old man not having a credit card to rent the 2nd necessary car.
I even messaged Peter Ellis that morning that i was no longer in the band and that he might want to sing the set so Will Wallner could be paid back some of the money he fronted. Jon did not front a dime… Will and Jake fronted 4k. I offered a credit card. Jon has not fulfilled indie gogo and instead spent all the money on a ton of shirts that were not sold…
He did this the last tour… and just keeps rolling the profits over and pocketing them. As it stands the indie gogo will not be fulfilled unless Jake, Will or jon go out of pocket. Will has done a general accounting of the books and last time we counted we are missing close to 1k… BTW… The merch for IGG is complete crap…
He even intends on the derek riggs cd’s being cheap cdr’s and stickers on the labels… Paraphrase all this… this is just the tip… Don Adams was also left stranded as he came out her to do a WW Documentary in europe on his own dime…
We did a vid for strike the iron that i will post against jon’s wishes as don spent 2k on that… Don adams is an editor on the new movie fright night two… Jon doesnt want to post in because GIO is in it.. and after sending GIO shit and cock pics and ripping gio off among other things gio quit…
PS JAKE DREYER JUST FLEW HOME… at least that is what will wallner just told me.”