MAYHEM Frontman Comments On Dutch Arrest

Vocalist Attila Csihar of Norwegian black metallers MAYHEM has commented on the incident this past weekend in Tilburg, Holland when members of the group and their crew were arrested for allegedly causing several thousand dollars in damage to a hotel room.

MAYHEM performed Sunday night (November 15) at Hall Of Fame in Tilburg and had booked rooms for the night at Hotel Central.

An employee of the hotel arrived Monday morning to find hotel a big mess. Plants were thrown in the street, mirrors, a sink and curtains in the bathroom were torn apart and demolished. The beds and television were destroyed and walls were covered in spots/stains.

The hotel estimated the damage at least 5,000 euros (approximately $7,480).

The men, aged 21 to 45 years, hail from Netherlands, Norway, Finland and France.

The suspects were kept in custody until the hotel was reimbursed for repair costs.

Commented Csihar: "Needless to say, I was not involved (and neither was [bassist] Necrobutcher) so luckily I was not arrested.

"What happened AGAIN is that the 18-year-old promoter disappeared with a 1000€ advance on his account a couple of days before the first show of the tour.

"That is the problem with Internet: anyone can act like a booking agent...

"He continually lied, saying it was all booked but we found out at the very end that we had no flights booked and nothing was managed except for promotion at the local clubs and sales of hundreds of tickets in advance. So we decided to book our own flights, local transportation and backline from our own efforts on the last day before the tour started, in order to play this small tour just to be loyal to the fans and to the local promoters (who were freaking out too, of course)... I think we were cool, but you can imagine the stress we were under. Then, of course, you can imagine that this tour was not the best of our lives, but we somehow managed to play good shows and make the best out of it and we survived somehow, swallowing a lot of crap.

"On the night after the last show, the guys got drunk and exploded in that really bad hotel, a hotel in which we didn't even have toilets in the room. I saw part of it, and when I woke up it was a big mess. To me it looked both funny and sad at the same time... Actually, it was not only MAYHEM involved, but some people from the local crew too, who worked for us on the tour as drivers.

"I agree it was stupid, of course, but what could I do? I hope they all learned from a good lesson now.

"Maybe it makes a bit more sense after reading these lines..."