This past weekend, the Chicago-based metalcore outfit known as Lionfight played at a venue in Massachusetts called Anchors Up. While they were there, guitarist Akash believes he and his bandmate Nick were singled out by some members of staff due to their race. The band decided to continue with their set as usual, and left without any physical confrontation.

They posted some vague information about the incident on their Facebook page, and soon after were contacted by the owner of the venue. He requested they remove the post, but they declined. Shortly after they received numerous blocked phone calls. Though they do not know for certain who did this, they are confident it has something to do with the incident. You can read the initial statement they made on Facebook below.

For the first time in probably a decade I ran into some kids who were giving me trouble because of the color of my skin. Haverhill, Massachusettes – you made me feel like I was in elementary school again. We played at this super “punk” venue that didn’t believe in backtracks/samples … Which is totally okay. We like to be that raw band that can play with or without bass drops and pull it off either way. It was only the way the venue workers got in my face, told me they can’t help us and remained pointing at me for the rest of the night. They also mentioned calling their other gang friends to take care of the situation. I remained calm , finished our set, packed up and left. It blows my mind that another human being who is breathing and blinking the same way I am…. Could judge me without knowing me. It’s the year 2014 everyone – racism shouldn’t even be a thing anymore. We don’t feel comfortable playing at Anchors Up anymore – but thank you for those who showed up with an open mind and accepted everyone. I love you ALL and will see you on the rest of this tour.

There is one kind of race on this earth – and that is the human race.

-AKASH

We reached out to both the band and the venue requesting some details as to what was said/done. Lionfight responded to some email questions we sent them. You can read Akash’s responses below.

Let’s start from the beginning. In your statement on Facebook, you said some kids were giving you trouble because of the color of your skin, could you detail what was said/done?

Since this whole question and my post on Lionfight’s Facebook page is geared towards racism, I want to start by saying that racism isn’t always the obvious. It doesn’t always have to be a word or a phrase. It can also come in the form of a gesture, action or projected feeling towards someone. Nick and I definitely felt the discrimination coming from some of the employees at Anchors Up right away and we feel the discrimination came from a racist place. Nick and I are the only two members on this tour package of a different color and we were the only two people on this package to receive this special treatment from the staff. Whether you may feel this to be racism, or just plain discrimination, it doesn’t change the way we feel about what happened to us. Either way, this is NO way anyone should be treated and we feel strong about this so we decided to speak up.

With that being said, our negative experience began before our performance. Nick and I approached two workers standing behind the soundboard and told them we needed one mic and one DI Box (Direct Input) for our performance. Like many bands today, we perform to a metronome/click track with timed samples and effects playing throughout our performance. One of the workers responded to our request saying, “We don’t do that here.” The venue itself, did not own a DI box, I was told. Luckily, a member of our tour package brought an extra DI. We then mentioned having our own DI and the fact that every band on our tour package also utilizes a DI Box for their respective performances. The worker replied, “We will never do that here. We just don’t do it.” Meanwhile, the venue had been blasting change-over music which was plugged Direct In (DI) to their PA system from an iPod, throughout the entire show. So, I mentioned that our tracks wouldn’t have to be played as loud as the music being played from their iPod. I then asked if I could get the venue owner’s number so I could call him and ask him about using the DI box. Fed up with our questions, the worker stepped toward me, got nose to nose with me and said, “Listen Fuckwad, it didn’t matter what you said about it, you aren’t using a DI. You shouldn’t look at me anymore.” He then walked through me as if I wasn’t there, pushing me out of his way to get outside. Shocked with how poorly we were treated, Nick and I decided to let it go and not create a bigger issue. We then went outside to inform our band that were just going to play without our tracks running through their PA. While discussing the situation with the rest of Lionfight, the venue workers overheard our conversation and began to mock us. One worker said, “oh yeah, have fun rocking out, faggots”, while mimicking our voices. Even though we were furious, we sucked it up, walked back inside the venue and played our set. After our set, we chatted with some fans for a second and then Nick and I started packing up our gear outside. We were being stared down by every worker out there. They were checking us out, pointing at us, and sneering. The other members in our band, and even other members of our tour package, noticed how these workers were acting toward Nick and I. A few members of the tour package kept coming up to ask Nick and I if everything was okay. We finished loading our gear and decided to leave the venue early to avoid any more of this behavior. We were not being treated as equals and we were not welcome. Nick and I felt extremely uncomfortable.

Were those people employees of the venue? (If not, please state what the employees did to you as well).

The people that were giving us trouble claimed to work at the venue, Anchors Up. According to all of the replies we’ve received on our Facebook post, it appears that Anchors Up is a DIY communal gathering place of sorts. So I’m not necessarily sure if they actually have employees in the conventional term.

After the initial incident, did you complain to anyone on staff or management? I remember reading that the owner of the venue was not present at the time.

The staff at the venue were the same people directing their hostility toward Nick and I, so we couldn’t discuss with them. The owner was not there and we tried getting a hold of him initially for the DI situation, in which we were denied by the staff. I only had a chance to talk to the show promoter on the phone after we had already left. The promoter was the only person we have received an apology from.

You also mentioned they were talking about “calling their other gang friends to take care of the situation.” Can you walk us through that conversation and what prompted them to say that?

After we had played our set, a member of our tour package came up to us and said that if we didn’t want to be a part of a fight, we should leave. Apparently, he overheard a few workers talking about calling some of their friends because they were interested in starting a fight. We used the word “gang” due to a lack of a better term. We meant it as a group of friends and nothing more than that. We assume at this point they thought we were going react to their bullshit so they wanted their buddies there just in case. However, that’s not really our thing. We’re not going to react through physical aggression. As far as what prompted them to say that, we have no clue. At that point, our set was done and we were loading out to get out.

In a followup post that has since been removed, you said you received a series of harassing phone calls after you refused to take down your original post. Was there any indication of who made those calls? (I will make sure not to say it was definitely them if you are unsure. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.) Did they say anything specifically regarding the incident at the venue?

First off, we don’t know why that post was removed. We didn’t delete it and no one on our team deleted it. As you can tell by this interview and the fact that we haven’t deleted any of the hateful, irreverent garbage that’s now all over our Facebook page, we are all about freedom of speech. We don’t delete things. Who knows, maybe Facebook took it down. Regardless, if you want to still hear the voicemail, we have it up on our YouTube page. Here is a direct link to it: http://youtu.be/tLnX9mm8KS4.

After the show I decided to reach out to our fans on Facebook to let them know my take on what happened and how I felt about the situation. I wanted people to know what Nick and I had experienced and the unsettling feeling we felt. Call it what you want, but the bottom line is that we were looked at and treated differently than every other person at the venue that day. The owner called our tour manager later that night, wanting to speak to me about what happened at the show and asking that we take down our Facebook post. Without giving any sort of apology for how we were treated at his venue, he continued asking me to take the post down. The owner said that, at that point, he had received multiple emails about the incident, asking him if that’s how he runs his business. He said that because of our post, he was fearful that he would lose out on national tours, thus causing his venue to shut down. Look, we don’t want something extreme like that to happen, but this venue definitely needs major change. We will be the first to say that we will never play this venue again if a change isn’t made. He also mentioned that he had showed up for the last part of the show, long after the incident and long after we had left.

After getting off the phone with the owner, the phone I used to talk with the owner received multiple calls from a blocked number. The first call was answered by our tour manager. The prank caller inquired if our band wanted to be a a part of a musical festival known as “Nazi-fest.” The caller also asked how we would like to be paid for said “fest,” and asked if we would want to be paid by “getting our dicks sucked.” Our tour manager knew the reason for the prank call and told the caller that he was disappointed for the caller feeling this upset about our Facebook post not being taken down, and then he hung up. A few minutes later, a second call from the blocked number (same person) came through, but was left unanswered. The prank-caller then left a voicemail on the phone. The caller in the message asked if this was the tour manager of “lion tiger,” purposefully mispronouncing our band name. The caller then asked if he could pay our band money in order for us to “suck each other’s dicks.” The very next day (7/6), our tour manager’s phone received 5 more blocked calls that were all left unanswered. No other voicemails were left. We can’t confirm that it was the owner that called from the blocked number, but he was the only one from the venue that had the number and the voice definitely sounds like his. Take that for what you will.