Universal cuts ties with German metal band Weimar following neo-Nazi allegations

completemusicupdate.com:

Universal Music’s German division has announced that it has cut its ties with metal act Weimar after it emerged that the band’s members have far right connections – including at least two members having previous links to neo-Nazi bands.The decision comes after German newspaper Der Speigel published an article on the band’s members and their apparent beliefs.“Based on the information we recently learned from a journalist’s inquiry, we terminated our relationship with Weimar, which consisted of distribution of one album”, said the major label in a statement. “That has been stopped with immediate effect”.”The information that has come to light made clear that any relationship with the band was absolutely unacceptable to us and inconsistent with our values”, it went on. “We feel deceived by the band.

If we knew then what we know today, we would never have released the album in the first place”.The band perform in masks and have seemingly used other means to hide their identities.

Though, while their lyrics do feature lines that have been deemed to have similarities to other anti-Semitic language, the Weimar project itself is not overtly neo-Nazi.However, in its article, Der Speigel says that three of the band’s four members – Richard Wegnar, Kurt Ronny Fiedler and Till Schneider – all met in the neo-Nazi scene in Thuringian in central Germany.All appear to have used aliases while working with Universal in order to mask their past associations.

Fiedler (who the newspaper identifies as Steffen P) and Schneider (aka Konstantin P) have both previously played in overtly racist and anti-Semitic bands, it is claimed.Meanwhile, the newspaper says that there is evidence that vocalist Wegnar is actually Christian P – who has had links.