At a time when the despicable George Pell has openly stated that he doesn’t care too much about child molestation, nor about bringing the people to justice that carried out such hideous crimes, we now have the permanently outraged going after metal…AGAIN.
According to Metal Hammer; Rotting Christ will temporarily change their name to appease religious protesters in South Africa. I would have thought it wouldn’t be too hard to find something going on in their country worse than a perceived blasphemous name, but there ya go! The band are due to play Johannesburg in July, but will now have to appear under an assumed name.
In an interview with TeamRock Radio’s Republic Of Rock show, promoter Shaughn Pieterse says: “What we’re going through is what the metal scene dealt with in the late 80s and early 90s, with religious folks challenging them and trying to stop the shows because they disagreed with the opinions and messages of the bands.
“It started early last year with Witchfest 2015. In order to host an event, you’ve got to get certain certificates from the council. Every time we made a move to do everything by the book, the councils were getting shot down by so-called Christians and religious protesters.
“Every time we had to move venue we lost the deposit and you keep haemorrhaging money. But you have to make the show happen because if you don’t then they’ve won. You have to take quite a knock to show that they can’t stop you.
“It’s started again with Behemoth and more so with Rotting Christ. But we even accommodated that and spoke to the band and they will be playing in South Africa under an alternative name so as not to offend people in that sense. Rotting Christ was maybe a little bit too far for some people, it’s really in your face.”
While he’s disappointed to have to ask Rotting Christ to play ‘in disguise,’ Pieterse says the alternative was letting the protestors win.
He adds: “I believe we live in a democratic society and art is art. You can’t censor it. Art is designed to provoke emotions from people. Once you start getting offended by art and start censoring it, where does it end?
“People are buying the tickets to see these bands and they have every right to see them. As long as the fans buy tickets we will bring these bands for them. We’re not doing anything wrong.”
Rotting Christ, the name, it seems, is far more offensive than anything Pell and his cronies have swept under the carpet. So, of course you can understand the religious folks’ uproar when they have to deal with an unimaginable atrocity like…a band having a name they don’t like.
Let’s be honest, if these people weren’t searching so hard to find something to be permanently outraged about, they wouldn’t know who the HELL Rotting Christ were. It’s not like they are on cereal boxes or standing outside school playgrounds handing out anti-religious pamphlets. They are just a band, a band that’s trying to play some shows to their fans. As the great Ricky Gervais says: “Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.”
