Label Boss Slams Upon A Burning Body’s “Missing Frontman” As Publicity Stunt

Sumerian Records CEO Ash Avildsen has denounced the “publicity stunt” attempted by one of his signees, Upon A Burning Body. The Texas deathcore outfit took to Facebook this morning claiming their frontman, Danny Leal, had been reported missing and hadn’t been seen since Monday.

“Breaking News: Danny Leal (singer of Upon A Burning Body) has been reported missing. He was last seen in his home town of San Antonio TX on Monday, June 30th,” read a dispatch on the band’s Facebook page. While some fans bought the post hook, line, and sinker, others were more skeptical.

“Hmm.. why didn’t he call the police when he had experiences like those tweets? Why if it’s been since June 30th (3 days) is he not on the legal missing persons list? The new album is called Taken.. come on hipster fucktards. This isn’t a coincidence,” wrote Facebook user Sheri Renee Harlow.

The “tweets” referred to a series of posts sent out by the frontman in the lead-up to the Facebook statement, in which Leal ominously described the “same sketchy car [that] has been driving past my house… for the past [three] days straight,” writing later that he’d heard someone enter his home.

“I woke up to a ton of missed calls and just saw all this stuff about Danny Leal of UABB posing as that he’s been abducted or kidnapped. My phone hasn’t stopped ringing since,” wrote Avildsen in a post to the official Sumerian Records Facebook page. “As a child, we all learn the story The Boy Who Cried Wolf and it sticks within our consciousness for a reason,” the Sumerian CEO continued.

“I do not condone this type of publicity stunt. This was done behind my back and I am not OK with it,” Avildsen claimed. “In my eyes, there’s never a time to use the possibility of real-life abduction, injury or murder of someone you care about to promote anything, especially an album.”

“If you need to resort to that, then you have lost the plot. We as a society should have evolved past that way of thinking by now and especially within the rock/metal community, given all the tragedy that has happened in our world over the past few years. There are some people who owe us an apology.”

There has been no response or clarification from UABB since this morning’s initial post.

Watch: Upon A Burning Body – Texas Blood Money

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