Ex-INFERNAL MAJESTY Singer Claims Former Bandmates Ripped Him Off

Luxi Lahtinen of Metal-Rules.com recently conducted an interview with former INFERNAL MAJESTY frontman Chris Bailey. An excerpt from the question-and-answer session follows:

Metal-Rules.com: You contacted me via email just recently regarding the interview I did with both Kenny Hallman and Brian Langley from INFERNAL MAJESTY. There was something there in the interview you wanted sort of "correct" from your side, so let us be all ears now...

Bailey: "Thanks for the opportunity to get some facts straight about what the hell happened. Well, after many years of wondering and questioning Steve and Kenny about why WE (Steve and Ken) have never been paid royalties for 'None Shall Defy' and other albums, I decided to make some phone calls myself and get to the bottom of this, and it was after our last Canadian tour and a half a dozen phone calls to some very co-operative, helpful people, that the label informed me that we had been paid royalties all along from 'None Shall Defy'. That they were going to 'one Steve Terror and Kenny Hallman,' and that they had been represented by Steve's brother.

"Obviously I was stunned with this news. I would have spilled blood to defend these two, or any member of INFERNAL MAJESTY for that matter. It was my loyalty to the band and my trusting these two that they wouldn't fuck me that led me to believe they were telling the truth.

"It was devastating for me to find out they had been quietly collecting my royalties while denying that they were receiving even their own royalties... period — and instead of working something out, they chose to smear me, replace me and spread misinformation to the new band members (bass player, drummer, singer) and others about this issue. They now claim I've just disappeared into the city of Toronto somewhere. That I've just evaporated into the ether with no apparent reason. They know I don't live in Toronto, they know how to contact me. I've even sent registered mail to them with my return address on it.

"Now, as stated in the interview with you, Luxi, by Ken that basically the Canadian tour was going great until Québec is simply not true. Nothing went bad in Québec. Québec has always been awesome just like any show we've every done there insofar as the warm welcome we've recieved playing there, and IF Ken would like to get more specific I would love to refresh his memory on more details with him. That whole tour started rough because of booking miscommunications between the band's manager and the booking agents, which led to some band members getting very upset with this stedy stream of misinformation, probably not intentional from the band manager to Steve, and from Steve to the band.

"So I would assume what Ken was referring to in the previous interview with you, Luxi, when he stated that he was questioning the future of Chris Bailey and INFERNAL MAJESTY as if it were his decision, and that I had missed some big show where a friend of the band had to stand in for me, is misinformation. This was the best he could come up with to try and add some sort of fact to his fiction when the fact of the matter is the show in question I think he's refering to was us filling in for a local band that cancelled last minute and I was unable to do it because I had picked up the flu.

"Failing to perform a show, especially when it was due to illness, pales in comparison to INFERNAL MAJESTY not doing the U.S. SATYRICON tour because Steve and Ken couldn't sleep on the same bus as SATYRICON, when, in fact, we had our own transportation with sleeping accommodations. Ken and Steve cancelled the tour at the last minute. I voted against cancelling, but was voted out 3-2. I told Steve this had to be posted immediately. They didn't even have enough respect for the fans to post the last-minute cancellation on the web site until well into the tour, and then posted some lame excuse. Fans were coming to the shows to see us, some traveling great distances, and had no idea that we we were not there. All Ken had to do (as webmaster) was spend two minutes to post it on the site. Not to mention that I was on the second day of a three-and-a-half day Greyhound bus ride to the west coast to start the tour. I found out at a payphone at Greyhound in Thunder Bay that the others had voted to cancel the tour.

"I guess Ken was just too busy or maybe just confused like when he handed me a few lines for a song he told me he had written ('Cathedral of Hate') and asked me to make them into a song. I later found out from Steve that Ken didn't write them. A friend of his did, and Steve continues to tell me that Ken never played a single note on the CD 'Unholier Than Thou', that it was all Steve Terror."

Read the entire interview at Metal-Rules.com.