Conflict has arisen with the GWAR camp, after the band today announced they are parting ways with vocalist Kim Dylla, who is known for playing the character of Vulvatron.
Dylla and the shock-rock band’s guitarist, Brent Purgason, have clashed online over the announcement, with Dylla claiming she wasn’t told her Vulvatron character would be taken over by someone else.
Here’s how all of this kicked off. A post to the GWAR Facebook page first announced the Dylla will no longer be part of the group. The statement read:
“GWAR, the world’s premier shock rock band, today announced that Kim Dylla was released from the band directly following the fall 2014 GWAR Eternal Tour, and will no longer perform with the group. Dylla played the character of Vulvatron, a buxom Scumdog from the distant future, on the band’s last national tour. The group garnered quite a bit of press when it was erroneously reported that Dylla, in the role of Vulvatron was the new lead singer for the band.
Brent Purgason, slave of the recently defrosted intergalactic barbarian, Pustulus Maximus, had this to say; “Kim did a great job, but we wanted to go a different direction with the Vulvatron character. You will absolutely see more of Vulvatron in the future, just not portrayed by Kim. There is no ill will, no acrimony, and no drama. We respect Kim’s talent without question, it just isn’t what we needed in the character.”
Following GWAR’s post, Dylla took to her own Facebook page to tell fans she wasn’t told about the news regarding Vulvatron before it was announced online. Dylla wrote:
“It’s really nice when you find out important things from people you consider to be your friends from posts on the internet and messages from strangers. There is something called basic respect not existing in that modus of communication.
That being said, I’m currently looking for a new vocal gig with a serious metal band that likes to tour their asses off. Doesn’t matter what style but no core b.s., no symphonic metal. Must be chill dudes and down with beer drinking hellraisers. Must not be threatened by strong women, no deep-seated drama. Location unimportant.”
That’s when the Facebook comments conflict really kicked off, when Purgason responded saying that he did, in fact, tell Dylla before the band’s Facebook announcement.
“I did tell her in person. January 5th of this year. I’m trying to stay out of this thread but I don’t like being villainized when that’s not the truth,” Purgason wrote.
Dylla then responded saying that she was not aware that GWAR were planning on having someone else carry on the Vulvatron character. She claims she was told the character was not going to be used until some point in the future. She wrote:
“No one told me they were getting someone else to play the character I created which is why I am disappointed with the way this was handled. I was told my character was not going to be used for a while and things were going in a different direction with the storyline so take a year off but I’d be welcome back at gigs in the future if they were right for the character. Those are two wholly different things.”
The conversation continued back and forth for some time, with Purgason suggesting that members of GWAR don’t own the characters they portray on stage. Dylla said the band’s Facebook statement was disrespectful, before Purgason said that “GWAR created Vulvatron so yeah, that is my point”.
The conversation continued into some ugly territory, with Purgason claiming Dylla’s drinking was causing issues within the band. Some comments appear to have been deleted by both Dylla and Purgason, but the rest of the conversation was picked up by Ultimate Guitar.
Read the whole thing below.
GWAR, the world’s premier shock rock band, today announced that Kim Dylla was released from the band directly following...
Posted by Gwar on Thursday, 7 May 2015
It's really nice when you find out important things from people you consider to be your friends from posts on the...
Posted by Kim Dylla on Thursday, 7 May 2015
(Via Ultimate Guitar)
Brent Purgason: If you really want to keep dragging this out then I can tell them the truth. I wanted to keep the crew in Richmond so of course my first choice was to pick someone local and I figured it would be great to grab somebody that I had come up with. So I picked you above all others and it seemed like it was going to work out great so we hired you. Then you toured and you were drinking too much before you performed and we told you to stop.
Then it happened again, then again and the final straw was when you were so inebriated you broke a bone on stage during the show. Not cool. It wasn't like we never said anything to you. We told you again and again from individual band members and tour manager and you didn't listen. Did we say that to the world? No, but you want to paint this picture like you got sidelined out of no where. Dude, we told you JANUARY 5th 2015 and we told you WHY. You insulted fan art right from the get go in public for the world to see. I don't like it when someone that is supposed to be working with me is disrespecting the people that make this possible.
Say whatever you want, your friends are going to have your back no matter what but don't call me a f-cking a-shole for protecting my livelihood. You showed up drunk for work after given multiple chances to correct the mistake and you were the NEWEST person on the crew. If anyone here got a new job and showed up hammered they would get fired too. We gave you more than a few times to fix the problem and you would just deny you had one. I tried to help you out and you want to make us look like a-sholes? Tell the truth for once and accept responsibility for what happened. I didn't want it to come to this but I'm not going to shy away while you try and turn our mutual friends against me. I even reached out to you today because I didn't want it to go this far but this thread is still up and this is what you want. Not cool.
Kim Dylla: I broke my rib because i made a stupid f-cking mistake trying to put on a good show for the last date not because I was drunk. If others can drink i can,.there aren't different rules for ppl based on how long they are in the band.. hazing is for frats not music. I asked ppl how they thought about how I was doing my job and every time they said I was doing a great job. Until someone told me I wasn't doing a good job or did something wrong no one had a right to say shit about my lifestyle unless they said something about everyone's lifestyle.
Brent Purgason: We lost two members to abuse problems and you don't think we have a right to tell our employees to not put us at risk by performing under the influence?
Kim Dylla: If there is no drinking then no one can drink, not just different. Arbitrary rules for everyone... drugs are different and you drink more beer than anyone. We agreed not to say anything publicly and you did without talking to me about something you never talked to me about so I will not let you bully me out of saying something because it is wrong what you did.
Brent Purgason: Asking you not to perform drunk is not hazing. I am baffled by your logic... We are asking you not to drink because you are BRAND NEW to have on a tour around guys that know their jobs inside and out. Nobody has come tome and asked me to stop and if they did, what do you think would happen to me if I just disregarded that and showed up wasted every night? I would get fired too. That's obvious.
Kim Dylla: Sorry but having 2 or 3 lite beers in the course of 4 or 5 hours is not showing up wasted, if you got accused of being drunk after 2 bud lights I'm pretty sure you'd ignore what people say too because that's just ridiculous and a physical impossibility.
Brent Purgason: We asked you not to drink before you went on because we saw it as a problem and it affected how the show went. You ignored that request and now we are here. There you go. That's the whole story in a nutshell.
Kim Dylla: You didn't have the right to treat me differently than the other band members. Sorry that is a rule of any employment, any band. Equal treatment.
Brent Purgason: Asking you to do the job we hired you to do is not unequal treatment. I still wish you the best of luck. It just didn't work out between the band. It didn't have to go this far.
Man, you could have just told everyone 5 months ago that we just went in separate directions. We didn't fire you to be mean.
Kim Dylla: You never told me you were getting a new Vulvatron. Would you get a new Slymenstra and expect her not to be upset if you didn't tell her even if you don't 'owe' that to her it's called respect.
I was absolutely not told you were getting someone else to play my character. Otherwise I wouldn't be upset about this.
I am just upset I had to find out you were getting a new Vulvatron via a public post we agreed not to make rather than a private conversation which it should have been.
Gallery: Gwar, Amon Amarth, Satyricon @ Factory Theatre, Sydney 26.02.14 / Photos by Ashley Mar
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