MORBID ANGEL Frontman Hits Out At Fake News And Clickbait Culture

MORBID ANGEL frontman Steve Tucker has decried the fact that the 24-hour entertainment news cycle has forced clickbait journalists to come up with sensationalized headlines for stories that are often misleading.

Tucker, who is currently promoting MORBID ANGEL's upcoming album "Kingdoms Disdained", told Metal Rules in a new interview: "In America, one of the big problems is the fact that the news has now become part of the entertainment business. There's so many competing news organizations that are just looking for ratings. So, everything is so sensationalized and even metal. Metal has become so sensationalized. There's so many metal web sites and metal magazines that are really just about gossip and not about metal. And, really, I have to say, personally, man, it breaks my fucking heart, because metal was always a different culture, man. Metal didn't have anything to do with pop culture whatsoever. It was about people that want the same as everyone else and they didn't just want to listen to candy-ass music. People were little bit different, a little bit of a counterculture.

"For ratings online and things like that, magazines are doing it for gossip, and doing it for that big headline, and to make so many people click on it and read it and just like most everything else in all our planet right now, the truth isn't what's important," he continued. "The truth isn't what's important, it's just the headline that makes people come and look at it… It becomes sensationalized and the real story isn't interesting. What's only interesting is if there was a conflict with another person and we can sensationalize it."

Tucker went on to urge the heavy metal media to not give in to increasing pressure to write "clickbait" articles that pander to readers' worst impulses.

"We're metalheads," he said. "I really honestly thought that we were better than this. I really thought metalheads were not just another extension of pop culture, but, really, honestly, by being a headline-grabbing entity and by being a person that just wants to see the headline and only wants to go read about something for gossip — you're just like the rest of pop culture. You might as well just start listening to Kanye West, and, actually, that's probably on me, because I don't fucking know. I don't know a lot about pop, but you might as well just start listening to that, watching TV ten hours a day and just buy the stuff they're selling you, because you're not really as different as you kind of thought you were."

He added: "I really wish that the metal journalists — and I don't mean any offense for any individual whatever — I really wish that metal would see it for what it truly is, a counterculture and, I mean, to do things the same way the rest of the pop world does things makes absolutely no sense to me."

MORBID ANGEL was forced to cancel its previously announced November/December European tour due to "continued problems with the U.S. State Department and passport issues."

The band previously scrapped its European summer festival appearances in July and August due to what it called "unfortunate and last-minute unforeseen problems with a passport for one of the members of the band."

"Kingdoms Disdained" will be released on December 1 via Silver Lining Music in the U.S. and JVC in Japan.