At the tail end of last week and over the weekend, eagle-eyed Spiritbox fans noticed that the Canadian alt-metal band had deleted all social media posts mentioning their upcoming tour with Falling In Reverse. Speculation swirled that their backing out of the dates stemmed from Falling In Reverse vocalist Ronnie Radke‘s alleged exploitative actions, violent incidents, and trans-/homophobic comments, among other things.
In the days leading up to the band’s social media cleaning of any mentions of the tour and the days that followed, Spiritbox regularly heard from fans who were upset at vocalist Courtney LaPlante, given her public stances against abuse and comments about consent and accountability.
In truth, people have been rallying against any band that signed onto the Falling In Reverse tour, including Ice Nine Kills and Underoath. Fans were also concerned about Crown The Empire being on the tour as well, even though the band denied the abuse allegations leveled at their guitarist Brandon Hoover.
Spiritbox were supposed to perform on the tour from July 22 to July 30. Given their withdrawal, it will be interesting to see what happens with the other bands on the bill. On one hand they’d be fulfilling their commitments if they stuck around, yet on the other if they stay on the tour they run the risk of signaling to fans that they don’t mind what’s going on with Radke.