And Finally Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Threatin returns to Camden with two film projects to plug

By | Published on Friday 1 November 2019

Threatin

Wherever there’s an embarrassing disaster, there’s someone ready to make a film about it. Hell, Fyre Festival got two. So it should come as no surprise that someone is making a film about the ill-fated Threatin tour last year. And it should probably also come as no surprise that that person is Jered Threatin himself.

As you may remember, Threatin booked a short tour of the UK last year, convincing venues that he had a management team in place and a sufficiently active online fanbase that he could sell tickets direct-to-consumer. But none of that was true, so when he and the session musicians he’d hired to be his band showed up, they mainly played to empty rooms.

Commentators aplenty noted that this was proof that, while artists could fake a team and fanbase online, that achieved little when it came to actually trying to sell tickets to a show. Threatin, for this part, later claimed that the whole thing was a clever art project. A clever art project that is now moving into its film stage.

“I partnered with The Gotham Group, the producers of the ‘Maze Runner’ films, to release a Threatin documentary and a Threatin feature-length, scripted film as well”, he tells Ultimate Guitar. “I will be co-ordinating my album release with the release of the first film”.

Yes, there will be a second Threatin album next year too. “It will be nothing like my previous record”, he says. “Every record I create will be vastly different”.

Anyway, so, this documentary could be interesting. Although I assume it will give absolutely no insight into what actually happened on that tour, given that Threatin seems on bad terms with those musicians he brought along for the ride, and he is also still maintaining that booking a tour and then playing shows to empty rooms was his plan all along. In fact, he says he’s doing it again to prove the point he claims he was making first time around.

“I have created ten fake bands, all with their own band names, backstories, and the right image and social media numbers to fool booking agents and venues”, he says. “I have already booked two shows at two of the venues I fooled during my stunt last year; the Bristol Exchange and The Asylum in Birmingham”.

“Hiding in the event schedules of these two venues are bands that do not exist”, he goes on. “But, they were booked solely on image and social media numbers. We’ll see if these venues are able to identify the fake bands before the day of the event where I will otherwise arrive and perform a surprise show. I have done this just to show it could be done, again. Eight more venues in the US and UK will have the same quarrel. The industry is built on lies, so, lies is what you feed it”.

Of course, this presumably means he’ll be playing to no one yet again, assuming the now warned venues don’t pull the plug before show night. Though, luckily, there is one show that’s all above board with the venue very much on board. Threatin is set to play The Underworld in Camden tonight.

“The Underworld contacted me about doing another show within the first week of my stunt becoming so popular in the media last year”, he says. “I pitched the idea of doing a show one year to the day from when I began the stunt. I felt this would be a good way for the story I had created to come full circle. This will not be a normal show. It will be a work of art”.

Tickets are still available.



READ MORE ABOUT: