Technical death metal outfit Rivers Of Nihil have officially canceled their planned August tour of Japan after being unable to secure the required visas in time, leading to a public disagreement with the tour’s promoter.
The band had been scheduled to perform a four-date run alongside Psycroptic, The Zenith Passage, and other acts. However, after the cancellation was announced, promoter Soundworks Direct Japan reportedly shared a statement criticizing the band, prompting Rivers Of Nihil to publicly respond.
In a statement posted to social media, the band explained that they canceled the tour specifically to remain in compliance with Japanese immigration laws and disputed claims that they had attempted to bypass the legal process.
Rivers Of Nihil said:
“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.”
The situation escalated further when fellow technical death metal band Fallujah commented publicly on the matter, alleging they encountered their own issues while working with the same promoter during their first Japanese tour earlier this year.
Fallujah wrote:
“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.”
At the time of writing, Soundworks Direct Japan has not publicly responded to Rivers Of Nihil’s detailed statement or Fallujah’s allegations. Meanwhile, Psycroptic and The Zenith Passage are still expected to perform the scheduled Japanese dates.
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