The Hate Wasn’t Great: Racist Bands Get Canceled All Summer Long

They always say that if you don’t like a band and what they say in their music you can always turn it off and move on. And that’s exactly what people did.

In June, an event called Vengeance Fest VII was shut down by its first venue when the community realized that the event featured neo-Nazi and racist metal bands. It eventually found another venue, a VFW hall in a nearby town, but some bands dropped off the bill and the original two days were scaled down to just one. Promoter Kyle Powell, who was also the lead singer Engorge who performed that night, produced a video where he ranted about the attacks on the show and promised a Vengeance Fest VIII next year on Juneteeth, which is not the first time he set his Nazi event on that date.

It also was not the first time Vengeance Fest saw controversy. In 2018, when they announced the show was being held at Dingbatz, a club in Clifton, NJ, there were some neo-Nazis slated to perform. Powell and the club assured the public those bands would not be on stage on the night of the show, but they ended up performing anyway. While Dingbatz said they will no longer work with Powell, the club has a stigma that endures to this day of being a venue that will host racist bands.

Over the summer, other bands have been called out on their racism or flirting with neo-Nazis, and in past few weeks a pair of bands have seen planned shows lose others performing on the same bill or the show canceled outright because of either an association with neo-Nazis, or racist lyrics that came to light.

One of those bands was South African band SoapGirls. They performed at Dingbatz on Aug 20, which curiously was their only remaining date after all other US dates for their world tour were canceled once the supporting bands, venues, promoters and those going to the shows began calling them out for questionable song lyrics, tweets and a promotion of the racist conspiracy that White genocide was happening in South Africa.

One song in question, “Black Mass” was written a decade ago and has lyrics such as “Savages are coming around, it’s a Black plague”. As they began losing shows, SoapGirls put out a statement posted on their Facebook page explaining why they wrote “Black Mass” saying the song is misunderstood. “We watched human beings turning against other human beings,” the statement read. “We saw the fear, the hatred, the mob mentality and the brutality that comes when people stop seeing the person in front of them as another human being. It horrified us.” They further wrote, “The “savages” in the song are not a race of people. They are the people committing the violence.”

The video of another song , “Letra de Bloody,” features an actor in blackface with “ANC” on his chest. The African National Congress is the political party that was formed by Nelson Mandela and is the strongest party in South Africa. In the video, the SoapGirls shove the actor around and point a gun at his head. SoapGirls have not addressed the “Letra de Bloody” video.

As these songs were being discussed, alleged tweets from the band also surfaced that were along the same lines as the song and video. “(D)on’t let America become like Africa @realdonaldtrump should put laws to stop these terrorists called #antifa,” one read, while another promoted the Qanon conspiracy theory. SoapGirls also appeared on a podcast where they spread the “White Genocide” narrative that claims White farmers in South Africa were being systematically murdered, saying speaking about it on social media resulted in their page being suspended.

On Tuesday they addressed the tweets on Facebook saying they never had control of their Twitter account and will be shutting it down. “Over the years, other people had access to the account on the band’s behalf,” the Facebook statement read. “We have taken time to review what happened. While not every screenshot circulating online has been independently verified, we accept that posts appeared on the account that do not represent our beliefs. We should have had better oversight of what was published in our name, and we apologise for that. Third-party access has now been removed and we will be removing the X account. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok are the platforms we personally operate and where you hear directly from us.”

Twitter has gone by the name X since fellow South African Elon Musk took over the platform. Curiously, Musk has been courting White Supremacists and Nazis in recent years and has allowed his platform to be used by them to promote themselves.

Meanwhile, the controversy has followed the band to their Europe. The SoapGirls website notes that Pitcher in Düsseldorf, Germany on September 20 and Conne Island in Leipzig, Germany on September 27 have been canceled.

Two weeks before SoupGirls saw their current situation, the Florida-based hardcore band Southpaw found themselves in a similar one when they had to cancel their entire tour, after outrage over one of their members wearing a t-shirt from a neo-Nazi clothing brand. According to Lambgoat, the band issued a statement confirming that they are canceling their fall tour after attention surfaced surrounding a photo of drummer Harrison Linder wearing a t-shirt that featured a Totenkopf with sunglasses from Curbstomp MFG. The Totenkopf is German for “death’s head” – a particular skull-and-crossbones symbol that was used as the insignia of the Nazi SS in World War II – was in the news recently as the tattoo that former Maine Senator Candidate Graham Platner had on his chest that was the catalyst for ending his campaign.

The statement came after several bands began pulling themselves off the show lineup they were slated to perform with Southpaw such as Resistor and Resist LA. Initially, Southpaw pushed back when the two bands dropped off. “not a single person in this band is a nazi,” they wrote. “DEAD that shit. Take a look at the history of this band , our music & music videos. You will quickly identify the fact that there are mixed races within our friend group. There are also mixed races within our band members. Take a look at the last collab on our page with @deathmetalpanther of @deathpanthermedia , you think my homie would be collabing if we were?”

According to Southpaw FLHC, the photo was taken roughly five or six months ago while the band was in the studio. The band claims Linder had been sent the shirt by the company and was unaware of the meaning or associations behind it.

Curbstomp MFG was founded by Joshua Arbues, a neo-Nazi influencer who is part Filipino living in Oakdale, CA that also goes by the name “Johnny Tsunami”.  Two months ago, Arbues was one of a number of Oakdale residents that went to a Oakdale City Council meeting to voice their opposition to a planned Pride event in a local park. Citing fears of potential harassments of participants, Pride organizers moved the event from the park to a community center.

Arbues has a lengthy criminal record, much of it stemming from domestic violence charges, but also drug and weapons as well. Curbstomp MFG has lost Instagram TikTok accounts and their website has been down since earlier this year, but it still maintains a Twitter account. In a video on that account, Arbues claims he is being attacked by “certain tiny hat agencies” while he is begging for help from supporters. In 2023, he started American Blue Collar, a more mainstream clothing line, and their Instagram account was removed as well.

“(Harrison Linder) was uneducated on the fact of what it actually meant and stood for,” the band said in their statement, explaining that they removed the photo after learning about the controversy surrounding the shirt.

“It was a simple mistake,” they continued. “We respect your position, but I’m going to make it very clear. As I said, once again, not a single person in this band is a racist, and we stand on that. We don’t stand with racism. We don’t stand behind racism.”

This week it was announced that Southpaw FLHC was signed to Spinefarm Records and debuted a new music video for their song “Torches.” On Sunday, their bassist Marc Laroche was involved in a car accident and is currently recovering.

It remains to be seen how successful racist-tinged bands and events will fare in the near future, but all of them are trying to push forward. In the case of Kyle Powell, he has made it clear that he will continue to promote Nazism in his show. The flyer for the next Vengeance Fest features a sonnenrad (black sun) which is a favorite symbol of Nazis and Wewlsburg Castle, the home of Schutzstaffel (SS) leader Heinrich Himmler’s school for Nazi SS troops (where the sonnenrad is part of the lobby’s floor design). In a video response, on both his personal and production pages he made clear what message he was conveying with the imagery: “If you want some Nazis I’ll give you some Nazis!

The video has since been deleted from both pages.