Assault accusations dog Bestial Evil (USA) vocalist Shawn Wright

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Baltimore crust/metal band Bestial Evil, recently the subject of accusations of censorship and possible threats of violence, now face another challenge: allegations of violence against women by people active in the Baltimore metal scene.

Miranda Sewell, a longtime figure in the Baltimore scene, writes the following narrative:

Ok so I managed a smoke shop in Hampden for some years, last year Shawn started coming in to said smoke shop to buy stuff for vaping. He’s from Damascus MD, and knew my boyfriends bands lead singer, and I suppose he thought that would give him a friends and family discount because when I didn’t throw him the deal that he wanted he got pretty pissed off.

He started calling me and threatening me, saying shit like he was going to wait outside my work for me to leave and beat my head in with a baseball bat. He was all “I hope you don’t go to real metal shows in this city because I have a lot of friends, and if I don’t like you, they don’t like you. You’re going to get your ass beat every time you go out.”

Shawn Wright is a dumbass. He grew up in Damascus trying to be a rapper, and when that didn’t work he went to punk, and when that didn’t work he started doing what he calls metal. Have you heard his shit? It’s awful. I don’t know how he gets up everyday knowing the shite he’s trying to pass off as music. Point is this kid does not know what he’s doing, or who he even is.

He’s like a dark cloud over our metal community.

The band, who describe themselves as “lashing death metal,” consists of Shawn Wright on vocals, Kevin Rucker II on guitars, Nick Temoshok on guitars, Jacob Ripley on bass and Evan Phillips on rums. The band plans to release a full length entitled Infectious Cross in the near future, from which it has released one track, “See the Enemy,” which shows a hybrid of crustcore and later brutal death metal.

Another woman, who would not go on the record using her name, sent the following via Facebook:

At a show…wayyy back in the day, this guy threatened to beat the shit out of me because I didn’t want to date him after we hooked up one night. I was 16 and stupid and he thought beating up a woman would change my mind.

It was 2001/2002 at the New Market Grange Hall in New Market, MD. I can’t remember the bands playing, just some local kids I think. I do remember he had been drinking. All I can really remember about the incident was him coming outside during a break between bands and screaming a bunch of nasty shit at me for being a prude and denying that I slept with him (because I was ashamed of my actions). He started saying its fucked up he thought I was his girl, I’m a lying piece of shit, etc etc. At no point in our miserable hookup did we ever establish we were dating but he somehow translated sex as a relationship. Him and his friends were all surrounding me, and all I could do was laugh at him and that’s when he tried to throw a punch but someone (I have no idea who) held him back. He was drunk so he was putting up a fight so I left at that point. It was disgusting.

Him and his goon posse surrounded me outside while he screamed obscenities at me. He lunged and threw a punch but someone grabbed him and he went ape shit. So I left. Never saw that fucking maniac again. He’s got some real issues with anger, the dude is in denial and needs to just stop putting up a front.

It’s amusing to look back on now, that a guy who talks such a big game and acts like such a tough guy would be willing to assault a 16 year old girl because she didn’t want to be his girlfriend. We hung out for a few weeks prior to the incident and there were several instances of him completely losing his shit.

This was 14 years ago and it looks like he hasn’t changed a bit.

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Wright, who has previously served as a Slutwalk organizer and runs a group named “No Room For Hate,” has said in the past that he opposes the use of violence. Stay tuned for more updates as we dig deeper. Unfortunately, Shawn Wright refused comment on any further articles.

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Shawn Wright clarifies what seemed like threats of violence

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After an interview surfaced showing that Shawn Wright of Bestial Evil has stated that he opposes the idea of violent solutions, we reached out to him regarding what appeared to be a series of violent threats against Diabolic Force Distro’s Tim Snodgrass. Wright clarified as follows:

I’m anti violence. Just because I want to fuck him up doesn’t mean I’m going to. So he can fuck off with that bullshit. If I was gonna destroy him I would have.

According to Wright, he communicated the same to Snodgrass with the following message:

“It’s all good Tim. I have no intentions of fighting you or hurting you. A) because I know for a fact you’d lose. B) because you’re not worth my time. And C) you have no relevant place in our scene and absolutely no effect on me.

Nice try I’m done allowing you to get a rise out of me. Have fun being alone. That’s your karma being disliked by us all.

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In the meantime, Wright has launched a new initiative, No Room For Hate, which plans to sponsor a local festival for anti-racist, anti-sexist, anarchist and anti-fascist bands. However, their logo seems to indicate violent intentions, so maybe this will be clarified in the future.

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Shawn Wright (Bestial Evil) responds

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Not surprisingly, Shawn Wright of Bestial Evil was not happy to read our article about the political drama in Baltimore. Having reached out to him once for commentary on the original article, we reached out again, and this time, got some juicy commentary.

“He isn’t a good person,” says Wright, speaking of Tim Snodgrass who experienced phone threats from Mr. Wright several months ago. “He has verbally slandered me for way too long on and offline. The truth is this was personal and he took it to the surface to media attention.”

According to Wright, Snodgrass became unpopular in the tight-knit — “Communal” was the word used — Baltimore scene for first his personal behavior, and then his politics. “It was more personal than that,” he said, referring to the political split and accusations of censorship. “He went wrong when he and I spoke back in 2012. When he got all shitty with me prior. We called a truce. He decided to slander me again and talk shit. I was totally fine with him up until people started to tell me deeper shit that he has done to my homies here.”

Wright says the Baltimore metal scene desires to be more “Communal,” which he takes to mean “working together,” and suggests that Snodgrass did not fit in. In particular, Wright feels Snodgrass was “slandering bands and people for trying to make the scene more Communal” and is a pariah “because he thinks everyone here is a joke beyond his select few people that give him a chance.”

“Tim needs to learn his fucking place with people,” Wright wrote. “He talks a big game. And no one here supports him.” He points out that Snodgrass came to Baltimore later than what Wright views as the original scene. “I was in this city before Tim,” he says.

Wright adds that he sees two reasons for this alienation. Snodgrass took sides in a band dispute in 2012. “He was ‘cool’ with me when I played in Extermination Angel,” Wright says. “I had a falling out with them. And he was one of the people that fucked with me for no apparent reason. Sticking his nose in my business…He was slandering me for the shit I was going through. Then he and I had issues the second time when he started talking all that shit when he was seeing his girlfriend Marie.”

While not the cause of the disagreement, Wright says, the dispute was exacerbated by the political factor: the Baltimore scene, as he sees it, is anti-racist and Snodgrass refuses to join in. “The point is Tim is a fence walker. And that shit isn’t tolerated in the city.” (A “fence walker” is one who approves of politically incorrect music like white power music.)

Wright says that Snodgrass made himself a pariah in the scene for the bands and people he supported. “I’m sure he is friends with sketchy labels like Freezing Records,” he adds. “He had mutual friends here but those individuals are frowned upon as well.” But he claims politics was not the source of the fracture. “He is alienated because he chooses to run his fucking mouth about people.”

Snodgrass, who runs Diabolic Force Distribution, has sold white power material in the past, Wright alleges. “I bought a 7″ some years back when he was working at the Talking Head for a Toxic Holocaust show selling their merch and other shit. I bought an Evil Incarnate record or some band like from him. Only to find out it was Nazi metal. He has sold my buddy Justin Loys white power shit as well. It’s a fucking personal insult selling shit like that in this city.”

An investigation of Diabolic Force distro provided no smoking gun, although some bands with controversial views were clearly present. Wright indicated that “there’s a lot of bands like Blaspherion, Evil Incarnate, Arkhon Infaustus, Graveland, Aryan Blood to name a few” but of those, only Graveland was present on the website, as were other formerly right-wing Eastern European bands like Thunderbolt, Ohtar and Dark Fury. However, the vast majority of the distro seemed to be the mix of war metal, death metal and black metal found at most distros, and none of the releases made explicit mention of white power ideology in song titles, album titles or imagery.

“Some of the bands are good bands. But some of the shit is offensive ass bullshit,” Wright says. Of himself, he says, “I admit I have anger issues. But I’m not a bad guy.” Other sources have indicated the Wright has a family member currently receiving medical care for a life-threatening condition and that this could be putting him under some pressure.

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He forwarded the above screencap, which shows Freezing Records — not Diabolic Force — selling a zine named “Aryan RegardSS” which allegedly has white power, national socialist or white nationalist leanings. The title certainly suggests it. But among many in the metal community, it is considered normal to sell music and zines about metal without scrutinizing them for the politically incorrect content that frequently occurs. Wright disagrees with this approach, and calls it the basis of being a fence walker.

The mystery remains. Diabolic Force distro admits some bands with right-wing political leanings, but these are a tiny minority of what it sells, along with bands like the Nekro Drunkz, Jenkem and Funerus. Clearly it is not a white power distro and its main sin is, as Wright calls it, “fence walking,” which means either refusing to censor bands for their views or not being extreme enough in purging the scene of unpopular views, depending on who you talk to.

To Wright, at least, it doesn’t matter. He sees Snodgrass as antisocial in both behavior and ideology. “He got banned for calling people “Faggot” at Sidebar,” he says. “He is a gossip queen.” And with that, clarity evades us yet again, but it’s good to get the other side of the story.

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Anatomy of an SJW attack

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Tonight, on When SJWs Attack: a small metal distro finds itself in the crosshairs and crossfires of political controversy.

Diabolic Force Distribution is a small, independent mail order wholesale price distributor or “distro,” participating in one of the institutions that forged the underground back when metal CDs were unavailable in all but dedicated specialty stores that often went bankrupt. Some time ago, this distro came under fire from “social justice warriors,” or SJWs, who are people who hang out on social media looking for people who are not politically correct enough. Driven by the thrill of subjugating others with political power and the need for self-importance, SJWs frequently destroy lives with their witch-hunting accusations of racism, sexism and other political constructs.

Upon hearing of this situation, I wrote to Diabolic Force Distribution and got the story in interview form. Read on for the latest outrages of the SJWs — the new censors — as they try to limit what you can hear and buy so they can in turn limit what you think.

How did this all start?

To the best of my knowledge this all began when the singer of Bestial Evil (Shawn Wright) suddenly became aware of a Facebook status I made approximately seven weeks ago from the time of this writing, about how the band should be dismissed by fans of metal, because in my opinion they aren’t any good. Simple as that! We got enough awful crap around here as it is. That being said I never accused them of anything other then being posers, no trigger warning required hahaha. I am not alone in this low opinion of the group either.

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Apparently receiving criticism is not one of their strengths however, so they started a smear campaign complete with all the usual name-calling and threats. I want to point out that it was a private post that I made and only my friends could see it… so how exactly it came to the attention of the people in question is unknown to me, probably a screen shot or word of mouth. I don’t care. I wasn’t hiding it from anyone in the first place and I still stand by what I said too. Bad’s bad and good’s good, tough shit. This is Heavy Metal, not a reality TV show where you get a prize at the end from Carson Daly. There is already a band from Italy named Bestial Evil anyhow so that just goes to show you they didn’t even do their homework in the first place.

How did these guys try to rally an internet army?

Again, social media was involved, like always. Facebook to be specific. A concerned friend showed me a post made on Shawn Wright’s Facebook page inciting a “boot party” if anyone ever saw me out somewhere and proclaiming that I was to be “banned” from the city of Baltimore, that he was gonna come to my house, etc. This was based on accusations brought on by Shawn himself that I am a homophobic/neo-nazi or some other completely unfounded nonsense like that. One person even commented that I “infiltrate shows” to sell white power music, which is an outright lie.

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People ask me to vend at shows very often, I never have to sneak in, let alone with the intent to slip some poor unsuspecting SJW a skinhead album or whatever. The whole thing is totally absurd. Anyhow, not long after this stuff was brought to my attention I started to receive threatening calls and texts to my phone from Shawn himself. None of which I ever replied to. The voicemails have been recorded and saved though, as well as any other evidence of threats against my home or person. So if anyone does do something stupid I have evidence of a conspiracy I guess. They have done some tidying up on the band page it seems, I think their attempt to raise an army has faltered for now.

Is there truth to their accusations that you run a white power friendly distro?

Absolutely not. While I personally do not believe in censorship of any kind, especially with regards to music and art… there’s just nothing in there that qualifies. The merchandise and albums that I sell span across multiple genres of extreme music, everything from black and death metal to harsh noise and grind, but there’s no “white power” bands… The thing they have accused me of is totally baseless and merely an attempt to incite a witch hunt against me to fulfill a personal vendetta and stir up trouble.

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People of this SJW/hipster type of mindset seem to always invoke these things to try rally an angry mob as a means to carry out intimidation tactics or make it seem like they’re in the right because they got a couple hundred views on their webpage. You see it more and more as of late.

What have they threatened you with? Do you think they can accomplish it?

I was told multiple times that I would be visited at home, that they would kick down my door and “destroy my life,” and then there was the foolish claim that I was going to be sued for “defamation of character and distributing hate material.” Loads of ignorant threats and boasts were made. I welcome any legal action from them, as I am sure the courts would like to hear the voicemails that Shawn left on my phone, threatening me with home invasion. And as for the defamation of character thing, I am pretty sure they just did that to me so good luck getting that charge to stick. Personally, I do not think they can actually accomplish these things, especially the part about being sued, but I am not taking it for granted either. That’s not the sort of thing you joke about. I am prepared for all eventual outcomes of this retarded comedy.

First phone call

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What are your distros/bands/projects that people can support?

For over ten years now I have been proactive with music in the Baltimore Maryland area in some way or another, although I do not reside in or claim the city. I was in a weird band a long time ago but I don’t play anymore, there’s too many bands and not enough fans anyhow, I would rather be a fan. I printed shirts for local bands and old school heavyweights like Blood Storm, Nunslaughter and Gravewurm for many many years… and I used to book concerts in Baltimore sometimes but I have taken a hiatus from organizing live events.

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My label/distro is called Diabolic Force Distribution, the purpose of which has been and always will be to support underground bands and zines get out there to the maniacs that need it. Heavy Metal isn’t about fashion or climbing the social ladder, it’s a way of life. It’s outsider art and it’s meant to be challenging and dangerous. Diabolic Force likes to do things the old-fashioned way because I believe in the life force of the music itself and the people in the trenches fighting to keep it real. Diabolic Force will always offer support to those individuals and bands who hate posers and love Satan. Our motto is “Support the underground, bury yourself.”

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