July 20, 2006

DEICIDE‘s Ralph Santolla offers up his personal statement regarding the events of July 14 in Laredo, Texas: "We pulled up a at the hotel in Laredo around 4 o’ clock in the afternoon. One of the local promoters, Liz, tells us to be downstairs at 6:30 to go to the venue. After we sit outside waiting for 45 minutes in the heat, we decided to go on our own. The first thing I see when we get there is this Liz chick sitting on her ass in their venue. I said "Hey thanks for leaving us sitting around waiting for you to pick us up". Not a great start. Things were bad from the beginning – there was no stage and tons of gear everywhere. The promoter said,’We’ll set you guys up after all the other bands, right before you play.’ We were like, that’s not how it works, they can set up in front of us. That’s pretty normal. It took these people an hour to figure out how to move 1/2 a drum set out of our way. A bad start. We asked for 2 hours for our rider, but this Liz girl wasn’t capable of giving straight answers to anything and was a lot more concerned with her local band buddies concerns than putting on a show. We should never have been booked there in the first place. Right before we go on stage, they tell us they’re not paying us what they agreed top in the contract. A lot of promoters who aren’t experienced don’t seem to understand a guarantee means just that, a guarantee. If they risk their cash to put on a show, and then they don’t promote or whatever, no matter who’s fault it is, they take the hit – not the bands. They never complain when they make a lot of extra cash, but they squeal like a stuck pig when they don’t. This is our career and we were ripped off – you can’t go into Wal Mart and just take whatever you want without paying. We go on stage and the power starts cutting out instantly. They didn’t provide a venue, enough power, a stage, the money, or a working PA. We had to stop every 30 seconds and finally somebody says they’re making us stop, so we go off stage. I went upstairs on the balcony top find my cigarettes. I’m standing there talking to the guys from Ringworm, and I turned around and a police officer pepper sprays me and throws me on the ground. They didn’t say "Stop, get on the ground," nothing – just ran up to me and sprayed me. They threw me down, and I said "Why am I being arrested" and one of them says, "you threw a beer bottle at me." I replied, "Me??", and one of the other cops starts yelling " Shut the fuck up, Shut the fuck up, I saw you I saw you." Then one of them puts his knee into my neck and puts all of his weight on it and starts grinding my face into the ground. Now, the thing is, this whole time, I’m just laying there being still. I can’t see, I can’t breathe – nothing. So it’s not like I was struggling or resisting. If you’ve never been pepper sprayed, it fucking hurts. Now my hand is all fucked up and I’ve got a loose tooth. Jack Owen told me the next day that he saw somebody in the crowd throw a beer up in the air. It bounced off off something and hit the ground near the cop and then all the cops went running up the stairs. That’s it. I’ve done a lot of stupid things, but throwing bottles at cops isn’t one of them." DEICIDE are currently preparing for their fall headlining tour with JUNGLE ROT and HURTLOCKER and are set to release "The Stench Of Redemption" on August 22, which is being called some of their best work since "Legion". It will be available as a limited edition collectors box (containing the CD plus 4 collectable band member art cards and a double sided colour poster) and 12" picture disc, limited to 1500 copies.