Artist News

Threatin bassist speaks

By | Published on Friday 23 November 2018

Threatin

In all the fallout from the whole Threatin saga last week, there was one voice noticeably absent, that of bassist Gavin Carney. However, he has now issued a statement that provides a different perspective on the story.

The UK tour of American band Threatin recently collapsed, of course, after it emerged that – far from the near sold out shows venues were expecting – the band had actually sold no tickets at all. It turned out that venues had been lied to about the levels of direct-to-fan ticket sales, while the band’s online following seemed to be entirely fabricated – as did their management company, record label and promoter.

It emerged that the band was in fact a solo project for musician Jered Eames, and his bandmates were session players hired for the tour. While guitarist Joe Prunera and drummer Dane Davis immediately pulled out of the venture, upon learning the story of why they’d been playing to empty rooms, Carney stayed on.

Now back in the US, the bassist has spoken about his experience. Like his fellow session musicians, he remains somewhat in the dark about what actually happened. However, unlike Prunera and Davis, he actually casts some doubt of the ‘fakeness’ of the tour and Eames’ whole operation. He also reveals that, after the tour was cancelled, he continued to travel with Eames and his wife Kelsey, only returning home ahead of schedule when his family became concerned about his wellbeing.

“Do I feel conned by Jered?” he says in the video. “Not necessarily. I have no reason to believe he’s responsible for ticket sales or the amount of audience we get. However, I don’t have any evidence to prove he isn’t. I never physically met management, or people in charge of marketing or venues and all that. I never met any of those people. Although it always felt like there were people overseeing everything – they made calls to management and stuff, it seemed legit – but I never met any of those people”.

“I never felt uncomfortable or anything being around Jered and his wife”, he adds later. “There were a few uncomfortable moments when everyone started receiving the news about all this on the internet. And when I told them I was leaving early. But there was a mutual understanding of our situations, it was never too awkward, it was very professional”.

“My impression of Jered [is that] he’s a very good musician, a very talented person”, he goes on. “So I can’t imagine why he would need to fake his way through anything. He has the skills and talent not to have to do that, I would think”.

Then expressing further doubt the Eames was at fault, he says: “He’s also recently had some physical ailments that have made it painful for him to do even basic things. So the fact that he went on tour with that doesn’t seem like something someone with a con artist mentality would do”.

He finishes by saying that he would “work with [Eames] again, no problem”, although if what has been reported about the tour does turn out to be true, he would be “very distraught and disappointed”. But even if that does happen, like Prunera and Davis, Carney says that the tour was great experience for him and he was pleased that it allowed him to travel to Europe all expenses paid.

Watch Carney’s full statement here:



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