Yesterday, we reported the bad news about what happened to one of our favorite death-metal bands, Hour of Penance, at their show in Alicante, Spain not long ago. In a nutshell, the band’s drummer Mauro Mercurio was unable to play on stage (apparently due to being too fucked up) and had destroyed or damaged property at the venue, resulting in detention by Spanish police. And all of that led Hour of Penance to cancel the remaining dates on their European tour.
Well, the news just gets worse and worse. Today we saw a blog post by Francesco Paoli, the frontman for Hour of Penance. Correction — ex-frontman. And that’s the worse news: Francesco has announced that he has left Hour of Penance as a result of the incident in Alicante. We’re re-printing his blog post with the full explanation after the jump.
This is a truly fucked-up development. Earlier this year, Hour of Penance released their best album yet — Paradogma — one of our favorites of the year so far. They looked like they were really hitting their stride and bound for even greater things. And now, virtually overnight, the band is disintegrating.
We’re not blaming Francesco for his decision. Read his blog post, and you’ll understand it. It’s just sad news for fans of Hour of Penance. The saving grace is that Francesco remains active in his other band, the ungodly good Fleshgod Apocalypse — and that band has completed a new album (Mafia) that will be released in the U.S. on June 8.
Now, continue on after the jump to see Francesco’s depressing blog post.
UPDATE: We’ve added a more recent post with additional details from Francesco that emerged after the statement you’ll see following the jump. Those further details suggest that Hour of Penance may not be dead after all and that Francesco was planning to leave the band even before the incident in Alicante. You can read all about it by following this link.
Hi everybody, this is Francesco.
As you all know, I’ve been both Fleshgod Apocalypse’s drummer and Hour Of Penance’s singer so far. Things have changed on May 7th, when I decided to leave Hour Of Penance following the facts happened at “Coyote Ugly”, in Alicante, where the band ,Hour Of Penance, was supposed to play. I’m not gonna explain here again what happened on that day, but it’s been such a severe thing to me that I decided to leave Hour Of Penance. It’s inadmissible for the way I conceive my work and music itself to involve myself in such a non-professional behavior. I believe respect for the fans, promoters and everybody I work with, is the first thing; everybody I met during this years of touring perfectly knows how much I am serious, dedicated, and professional in doing my work.
Differently from what people said in some forums without knowing the facts, I wasn’t drunk and I have not been involved in any way in the mess that happened over there.
The only thing I tried to do was to solve the bad situation going on, since I was very pissed off about it. Considering this facts I want to get some things straight:
1) I was there in order to do my work, but I have nothing to do with anything happened that night (Police and the promoter can testify).
2) Fleshgod Apocalypse have nothing to do with this and complitely disassociate themselves from what happened.
3) Me and Fleshgod Apocalypse will go on supporting Giulio Moschini and Silvano Leone from Hour Of Penance as friends and musicians.
I personally want to apologies one more time for what happened.
I hope that everybody will continue to support my work with Fleshgod Apocalypse without letting rumors influence their opinion.
Thank you again for the love shown in this bad hours.
See you on the road,
Francesco.