Senses Fail Issue Official Statement on Tour Withdrawal Controversy
In November, Senses Fail announced a 2022 North American tour featuring We Came As Romans, Counterparts and SeeYouSpaceCowboy. It was set to kick off in late March, but on Friday (Feb. 18) Counterparts revealed on Twitter that Senses Fail had withdrawn from the run, though no official announcement was made and fans were left confused. In response, Senses Fail have issued an official statement on the matter.
Senses Fail's message was shared on social media and contained a lengthy statement from singer Buddy Nielsen, who outlined both personal and professional reasons which explained why the band elected to push their own headlining tour in favor of joining a bill for a trek that has not yet been announced.
He relayed that supply chain issues necessitated delaying the release of Senses Fail's new album, Hell Is In Your Head, from April to July. He also noted that he and his wife are expecting the birth of their second child in early March and, by accepting a different tour and pushing the originally scheduled dates, this would afford him more time to be with his family.
Nielsen also regretted that information about the tour had leaked before promoters, bands, crews and fans could be properly notified.
Read the full statement directly below.
Nielsen also posted a video response to his personal Instagram, which you can see below.
We Came As Romans quickly followed up this news with a supportive message and acknowledged that Nielsen had to make a "tough call to do what is best to be home with his wife for their son being born."
Prior to the release of Nielsen's statement, late last week Counterparts drummer Kyle Brownlee branched off from his band's series of tweets promoting the upcoming run and expressed discontent that the tour had apparently been nixed. "Happy Friday just found out our first tour in 2 years got pulled because a band wanted to do a different tour a MONTH before it starts," he wrote.
Later, he allegedly named the guilty group in a successive message that was later deleted, but The PRP reported that he said, "And you know what, I was going to be civil about this and try to bite my tongue, but this is Senses Fail ABSOLUTELY fucking us. Not a chance in hell we can do anything in that time period now, band I used to look up to is dead to me."
As this unfolded, Counterparts, who last released Nothing Left to Love in 2019, wrote "lmao [laughing my ass off] nevermind it's cancelled," in reference to the 'Hell Is in Bloom' tour.
Understandably, with no official announcement made by any of the other artists on the tour, fans began to speculate as to whether the trek had really been called off, as seen in Counterparts' exchange with one fan below.
Vocalist Brendan Murphy, who was likely soaking in comments from across Twitter, expressed in the early hours of Saturday (Feb. 19) morning that he was concerned that some fans would be led to believe that Counterparts was making this news up or that they would ultimately be blamed for a potentially abandoned set of tour dates.
"Look I know I call u [sic] guys dumbass diaper babies every day but u [sic] know I wouldn't make shit up out of thin air, this shit fucking sucks and I'm sorry," he wrote, and added, "If this gets turned around to make us look bad, it's gonna be my fucking breaking point and I'm taking everyone down with me. Try me I fucking dare u [sic]."